Developing Ideas and Using Examples

Again everybody in the last election we were looking at finding ideas how to come up with ideas in this lecture. We’re going to take it to the next step and we’re going to think about how to develop those ideas and how to use examples to support and justify these ideas. So all about how we’re going to build our answer appropriately so we need to return to the same thing that we’ve mentioned a couple of times already during this course. Quality is always more important than quantity. It is much more important to develop one idea fully than to write about lots of ideas without developing any of them. So ideally you should really only need two ideas for your individual body paragraphs and then you develop those ideas with supporting ideas. Doing so enables us to address key criteria for task achievement which is band 7 presents extends and supports main ideas. If you look at band 8 this just goes a step further. Present a well developed response to the question with relevant extended and supported ideas so the greater your development the higher your score in task response. So how do we develop ideas. Let’s start with returning to building body paragraphs lecture. There was a good template in there for how to develop a single idea. You’ve got your topic sentence support sentence example sentence alternative sentence results sentence. If you can’t remember all of that please go back and watch the building body paragraphs lecture. But how do you come up with each sentence. Well there’s a good trick that we can use and it’s all about asking questions three questions in particular. But these questions are more specific than the questions we asked ourselves to find ideas the questions we need to ask ourselves if we want to develop ideas are firstly why why. This is our supporting sentence. Then what kind can we give an example of that. And finally what if and this will help us to think of an alternative situation. Let’s look at that in practice. So we have an idea here. We found an idea and the idea is that the function of a university should be to prepare students for work. Okay so first of all why. Well this is because many professions need employees who are equipped with comprehensive theoretical and practical knowledge which universities can provide. Yes we are using quite advanced vocabulary here and quite advanced grammar but the main idea is not that complicated professions need professionals. That’s pretty much it. We need to have people who know what they’re doing and then we’ve just elaborated on it with the language so that’s why the function of a university should be to prepare students for work. Can we give an example. What kind of professions for example medical students must be given rigorous lessons on anatomy before they become doctors so that they can make decisions which save people’s lives. So we’ve given an example of a profession where this type of education is important. Finally the what if what if this weren’t the function of universities. So if universities were more concerned with education for its own sake instead rather than giving students the necessary training to become competent professionals there will be a serious shortage of doctors lawyers and other essential professionals in society. Again this is advanced grammar its advanced vocabulary is an advance sense of cohesion. But the idea is fairly simple. If we didn’t have universities that helped people get into work then we would suffer from a lack of these important professions. And there is something very much worth noticing all of this here. Ninety forwards ninety four words for the entire paragraph. So you want to keep those body paragraphs down to around 90 to 100 words and that this paragraph has done exactly that. So let’s see if you can try it yourself. I want you to think about this idea at the top of the screen sending all criminals to prison would be a terrible idea. So I want you to pause the video now and I’m going to ask you to do something a little bit longer than usual. I would like you to see if you can answer each of these questions which will help to develop the main idea. Why. Why with sending all criminals to prison be a terrible idea. What kind of criminals shouldn’t go to prison. Says our example and our alternative situation. What would happen if all criminals went to prison. Why would it be so bad. What would happen if all criminals went to prison. Suppose the video hit and come back when you’ve got some ideas of your own and then we’ll have a look at what I have. Okay so let’s have a look at the first question. Why would a world sending a criminals to prison be a terrible idea. This is because the purpose of prison is to deter and incarcerate criminals but some types of crime can be deterred with less expensive and more productive measures. Okay so what kind of criminals shouldn’t go to prison. For example those who commit petty crimes like pick pocketing shoplifting and speeding would contribute much more to society by undergoing community service or paying a fine. So we’ve given two examples here. The type of criminal and the type of punishment that they should receive. Last question. What would happen if all criminals went to prison. If in contrast every crime was sentenced with prison time. Prisons would be full to bursting. Law abiding citizens would be faced with a huge tax burden and the criminals themselves would learn nothing about their crimes. Okay. So supporting the main idea with three important questions why what kind. What if that is what I want you to do for the rest of this lecture. I want you to use the same technique of why what kind. And what if. To develop the ideas below conflict between parents and their children is necessary because it helps the latter to develop dropping foreign languages from school curriculums would be unnecessary and short sighted. One of the main advantages of moving abroad is that it enables people to broaden their horizons. Three main ideas here and you can use those three questions to see if you can develop these ideas and stay focussed on the main idea until you have a very well developed argument. So that’s supporting and developing ideas in the next lecture. We’re going to find out how you can create and maintain a position or opinion on a question. See you in the next lecture.