7 Steps to Structuring

an IELTS Task 2 Essay

IELTS Essay Structure: The Basics

Before we begin with the 7 steps, I would like to give you a short overview. Writing an IELTS essay requires many skills
and you have a lot of different criteria to meet in order to get a band 7 or above. Your essay will be judged in four
ways, each accounting for 25% of the total score:

Task Achievement
Coherence and Cohesion
Lexical Resource
Grammatical Range and Accuracy

When thinking about structuring an essay, we are essentially talking about Coherence and Cohesion. Being able to
produce a strong structure with logically sequenced ideas will give you a good chance of a high score in this section.

There are lots of different approaches, but most IELTS trainers agree that a four-paragraph structure is the best
approach, with five paragraphs sometimes being appropriate. [Read about 4 vs 5 paragraphs] You should aim to
divide your ideas sensibly and then build them in order to support your thesis or explain the issues as necessary.
Today, the steps that I will describe for you are as follows:

Analyse the Question

Brainstorm Ideas
Plan your Overall Structure
Plan your Internal Paragraph Structure
Write a Strong Introduction
Link your Sentences
Write a Good Conclusion
 1. Analyze the Question

Every IELTS question is different and so it is really important that you read it carefully in order to understand it
fully. If you just read it quickly, you might get the wrong idea. It is natural for our brains to see a word and jump
to a conclusion. For example, a question that mentions climate change might really be asking about solutions
to fossil fuel emissions rather than the consequences of global warming. If you don’t understand the question,
you cannot write a good answer.

Before you begin brainstorming, read the question at least twice. Let’s look at an example:

Analyze the Some people claim that not enough of the waste from homes is recycled. They say that the only way to make
people recycle more is to make it a legal requirement.

question To what extent do you agree or disagree?

When you first look at this question, your eyes will be drawn to keywords like “waste” and “recycle.” That is
good, but we need to understand the full sentence. What sort of waste are we talking about? Waste from
homes. What does “legal requirement” mean? It means make it a law.

You will always see a statement of some sort above and then the question below. Once you understand the
statement, you should read the question. In this case, the question is “To what extent do you agree…?”

Therefore, you need to choose a position (agree/disagree) and then write an essay that explains your
position.
 2. Brainstorm Ideas

Once you understand the question, you can begin to think of ideas to use in your essay. My
biggest piece of advice here is: DON’T CHOOSE TOO MANY IDEAS!!

Seriously, it is not helpful to use lots of different ideas or examples in your essay. Yes, this might
help you reach 250 words easily, but your essay will definitely get a low score for Coherence and
Brainstorm ideas Cohesion (and possibly Task Achievement) because it will not be well organized and probably will
lack sufficient development of ideas.

I encourage my writing students to follow the idea of ONE PARAGRAPH, ONE IDEA. In some essay
types, this is easy. For example, in an advantages/disadvantages essay, you can just devote one
body paragraph to advantages and the other to disadvantages. Simple!

However, in other types of essay, you might find it harder. With agree/disagree essays, you might
have two reasons why you agree. In this case, you just put one reason in each body paragraph.

Let’s brainstorm now.

Personally, I agree that laws should be passed that require people to recycle their household
waste. Therefore, I would consider the following ideas:
Those are just some ideas. Sometimes you will struggle to think of even two ideas and
sometimes you will easily think of five or six. The important thing, though, is to choose the
most important ones. Think about what would make the most convincing argument.
 3. Plan your Overall Structure

By “overall structure,” I mean your basic paragraph plan. Every

IELTS writing task 2 essay should have an introduction and
conclusion, and at least two body paragraphs. This is the
standard essay format and I highly recommend that you practice
with it. Essays that have lots of paragraphs are usually a mess
and will receive low scores for Coherence and Cohesion.
Plan your overall
structure I want to write an advanced essay that will score band 9, so I am
going to use an interesting structure that will allow me to show
off my essay-writing skills. My first body paragraph will look at
opposing viewpoints and then refute them, before the second
body paragraph concisely states why we do need laws that make
people recycle.

For this essay, my overall structure would look like this:

 4. Plan your Internal Paragraph Structure

This is the most difficult part of structuring an essay and it is the reason why most people
struggle to get a high score for Coherence and Cohesion.
It is really, really important for IELTS writing that your ideas are sequenced logically. That
means they go from one idea to the next in a logical way. Look at these two example
passages. One contains a logical flow of ideas and the other does not. Can you tell which is
which?
The case in favor of laws mandating recycling is simple and irrefutable. These laws would
ensure that a far higher amount of household waste is recycled, thereby reducing the
Plan your amount of pollution that goes into our environment. People cannot be trusted to do this
for themselves, and the evidence exists in the places where environmental laws are strictly
internal enforced, compared to those where they are non-existent, or weakly enforced.

paragraph These laws would ensure that a far higher amount of household waste is recycled, thereby
reducing the amount of pollution that goes into our environment. People cannot be trusted
to do this for themselves, and the evidence exists in the places where environmental laws
structure are strictly enforced, compared to those where they are non-existent, or weakly enforced.
The case in favor of laws mandating recycling is simple and irrefutable.
Which one is correct? Answer: #1.
In this answer, I began with a topic sentence. This is a sentence that introduces an idea. I
then explained that idea in more detail. Finally, I added another sentence that built upon
the previous two. Both the second and third sentences supported the first. When you put
them in the wrong order, they make no sense.
Finally, notice that I used certain words to refer back to previous ideas: these laws, do this.
 5. Write a Strong Introduction
It’s really important with any kind of writing to give a strong introduction.
This grabs your reader’s attention but also tells them what to expect from
your writing. If an examiner reads a really terrible introduction, they will
think that your body paragraphs are likely to be very bad, too.
As such, it is important that you devote a little time to writing an excellent
intro.
Introduction What does that involve:
I recommend that people generally write a three-sentence introduction.
(However, remember that there is no one perfect way to write an essay and
so there are other good possibilities.)
I suggest this:
- General statement that addresses the topic.
- Slightly more specific statement that relates wider topic to specific
question.
- A sentence that shows essay intention or overview. (This is often called an
outline sentence.)
For the above question, I would write an introduction like this:

Pollution remains a significant problem all around the world and this is causing people to debate possible solutions.
One such solution is for governments to impose laws requiring citizens to recycle certain kinds of waste from their
homes. This essay will argue that environmental laws are essential to reducing waste and thereby saving the planet.
Let’s look at how those sentences are structured:

1.A very general statement: pollution is a problem; people

discuss solutions.
2. More specific statement: introduce potential solution with
simple detail
3. Essay statement: state that laws are essential for solving
problem
Link your sentences

6. Link your Sentences

Next, you are going to need to write the body paragraphs. With your essay structure already
written, it should not be too hard to do this. You need to follow a simple but effective internal
paragraph structure that develops and supports each idea.
When you do this, it is important that you link your sentences. Now, if you have a good enough
structure, your sentences will already be linked. That is because your ideas will flow naturally
from one to the next.
As you will know, it is possible to use “cohesive devices” (also called transitional or linking
words/phrases etc). These include words and phrases like: however, therefore, next, after that,
meanwhile, on the other hand. They are very useful and help guide your reader, but you should
not overuse them or it will make your writing weak.
 Let’s look at my third paragraph as an example.

The case in favor of laws mandating recycling is simple and

irrefutable. These laws would ensure that a far higher amount of
household waste is recycled, thereby reducing the amount of
pollution that goes into our environment. People cannot be
trusted to do this for themselves, and the evidence exists in the
places where environmental laws are strictly enforced,
compared to those where they are non-existent, or weakly
enforced. In the United Kingdom, people are required to recycle
Link your most of their household waste, and the environment is far
cleaner than other countries, such as China, where people can
throw any trash away without consequences.
sentences
How many cohesive devices did I use?

None. My sentences were already well-organized, so I did not

need to use any
 Write a good conclusion

Finally, you must finish all your IELTS writing task 2 essays with a conclusion. This means a final paragraph that summarizes everything you
have said so far and then references your key ideas. This can be either one or two sentences, but don’t write much more than that
A conclusion will also differ according to the question type. Some might require you to make a suggestion or state an opinion, while
others will really just require you to summarize you have said.
It is a pretty good idea to follow a structure like this:
Paraphrase your main idea.
Re-state your main arguments.
For example, here is my conclusion from the above question:
In conclusion, laws are absolutely essential to ensure that people recycle their household waste. Without such laws, very few people
would actually go to the trouble of recycling; however, if governments enforce these laws, almost everyone would have to comply.
In this conclusion, the first sentence paraphrases my main idea (laws are necessary) and the second sentence re-states my main
arguments (people would not recycle without laws; laws make people recycle).
Note that I have avoided repeating myself. In these two lines, I have simply referred to my previous arguments but I have not copied the
things I already said. I have used new language for it.
Sample Band 9 Answer

N E X T, I W I L L S H O W YO U M Y A N S W E R F O R T H I S Q U E S T I O N . R E M E M B E R T H AT T H I S I S J U S T O N E
P O S S I B L E A N S W E R . T H E R E A R E OT H E R WAY S TO W R I T E A B A N D 9 S C O R E . H O W E V E R , I D O
T H I N K T H AT T H I S I S T H E B E S T WAY B E C A U S E I T I S E A S Y TO L E A R N A N D A P P LY TO YO U R O W N
E S S AY S . I W I L L S H O W YO U I N W O R D A P P