Incredibly Fast Introductions

Welcome back everybody. Now in the previous lecture we spoke about some common misconceptions about eilts and one of those was that the introduction is the most important paragraph. This is a myth. It’s not the most important paragraph. The body is more important. However that does not mean that the introduction is not important. The introduction is still very important and in this lecture we are going to learn how to write very quick but also very high quality introductions so that we save plenty of time for the body of the essay without compromising quality. Now let’s begin by looking at a typical question in task too. Some people think that climate change is happening because of the way humans live their lives. Others think that these changes are natural and that human activity does not have an influence. Discuss both views and give your own opinion. Quick check. What would we do in this situation. First of all we would plan and hopefully you remember the three part process to planning. First of all identify the question type. Here we have a discussion opinion question. Secondly we highlight the key words. I would trust you to highlight the key words here and then we would write a plan for the body paragraphs. No need to plan the introduction because after this lecture we will know exactly how to write that introduction. Here is a model introduction. There is no doubt that the earth’s climate is changing. While some people believe that these changes are due to human activity. Others argue that they are the result of natural processes. In this essay I will discuss both sides of the argument and explain my support for the latter view. So what we have here is a three sentence introduction where each sentence has a specific purpose but which sentence matches up with which purpose you can pause the video here while you work out which number matches up with which letter. Okay let’s check the answers. There is no doubt that the earth’s climate is changing. This is a general statement about the topic. Some people struggle with thinking about how to word a general statement a good idea is to ask yourself a question what is undeniably true. What would both sides agree with. There are other questions that you can ask yourself to help give you an idea about how to write your general statement. But we will look at these at the end of this lecture. Let’s have a look at the second sentence. While some people believe that these changes are due to human activity. Others argue that they are the result of natural processes. What we are doing here is paraphrasing the statement in the question. Paraphrasing can be quite tricky. We go into more detail about how to paraphrase in the lexical resource section of this course. But for now all we’re going to look at are some templates and we’ll put D at the end of this lecture. Some templates for the paraphrase sentence. Finally we have in this essay I will discuss both sides of the argument and explain my support for the latter view. Remember the latter view is the second argument in the previous sentence. The form of you is the first argument in the previous sentence. And what we’re doing here is telling the reader how plan and giving the reader our opinion. Now why is give the reader your opinion in brackets. For those of you who were paying close attention in the previous lecture on common myths you will remember that we do not always give our opinion in the introduction that does not apply to discussion essays in discussion essays. We do not give an opinion but we may want to give a plan. If you are somebody that struggles with time an introduction this long may be quite intimidating but we can make the introduction shorter. The current introduction is fifty one words. We can reduce that by removing the planned sentence the planned sentence is optional but not strictly necessary. We do however need to keep the opinion if we are in an opinion or opinion discussion essay. So notice the subtle changes that I’m about to make to this introduction. We only really needed to change a couple of words but we’ve completely removed the planned sentence while keeping the opinion. All we’ve done is we’ve changed. Others argue too. I would argue he kept the opinion we’ve kept both arguments we’ve just removed the plan which is not strictly necessary for human. And we’ve reduced the word count in effect to 33 words giving us a lot more time to focus on the body the conclusion. And checking our work. So here are some useful expressions for introductions. Firstly the general statements sentence as we looked at we have there is no doubt that it is clear that what were both sides agree with nowadays or these days very common introduction. Remember to use these time references with the present simple or the present continuous depending on the context. But contrast that with in recent years or over the last few years these expressions need the present perfect. It is important to consider. Followed by a question were like how or whether why or when or who this is useful when you ask yourself the question why is this question important. Maybe its about government investment in the arts so you can ask the question. It is important to consider how the government should spend its money. While some people think this. Others argue this how that comes to the paraphrase sentence now you can see this here while some people believe this. Others argue that this you just fill in the gaps there with what the topic is about. There are many people who think that might be quite useful for an opinion essay where youre not given two sides. While there are many benefits to whatever we’re talking about there are also some drawbacks to consider this could be useful for discussion essays. And finally the opinion and planned sentence I completely agree or disagree with this statement. Band 7 requirements state that you must present a clear position throughout their response. So the opinion must be clear from the very beginning of your essay it must be very clear from the introduction. Even if you don’t fully agree with a statement you can say I tend to agree or I partly agree or disagree with the former or latter argument as long as your opinion is clear. And in this essay I will support my view with examples. That’s where the plan comes in. This essay will or in this essay I will and you can see this here as well. In this essay I will discuss both sides of the argument or topic. This is probably more for a discussion essay where we don’t want to give our opinion. Finally in this essay I will explore or discuss some of the problems associated with the topic and propose or suggest some solutions. So this final template is very useful when talking about problem and solution essays or situation SAYES. As we looked at earlier in the course. Now remember that this final sentence is optional. You can put the opinion in the paraphrase sentence and drop the plan completely to give yourself more time. Try it with both and see what works best for you. So a quick recap. The formula for introductions is a give a general statement about the topic B paraphrase the language in the task and maybe write an opinion. If you don’t choose to use the third sentence but if you do choose to use the third sentence it’s C give an opinion and state your plan. Now I want you to try practicing this yourself and see how you get along with writing an introduction with this formula. See if it helps to speed up your writing a little bit. Use the templates to help you because the whole idea here is to speed up your introduction so that we have more time for the body of the essay because that’s much more important and that’s what we’re going to look at in our next lecture see over.