IELTS writing task 1 Academics: Understanding coherence and cohesion marking criteria 

A key criterion, coherence and cohesion, is a primary concern for many IELTS aspirants across the globe. Every year, we hear complaints of exam takers that they get a low score simply because of not being able to understand the way of presenting their ideas in a breezy flow. 

Understanding coherence and cohesion can amp up your game by manifolds. Once you have understood the same, you can simply move on to focusing on other ways to get your desired band score. 

Let’s talk about it in detail. 

What do you mean by coherence? 

Coherence is nothing but a flow of ideas. In terms of IELTS writing task 1 academics, coherence can be defined as the way your ideas are presented and how logically they are structured and sequenced to result in an organized essay. 

While writing an essay in your IELTS academic exam, coherence should be your priority. The flow of ideas in your essay answer should be precisely presented so that the examiner does not have any difficulties understanding and analysing the text you have written. Lack of coherence could result in not just losing the interest of the examiner in your essay but also your desired band score. 

What do you mean by cohesion?

Cohesion is the way to linking words that can help connect ideas further. It relates to the way  sentences are linked together to form different  paragraphs in order to form an essay. 

In order to ensure your essay is cohesive, you should be making sure that you are not mixing up more and more ideas together in just one paragraph. You must ensure you are analysing one point and talking about it in detail with necessary supporting arguments and examples. 

Coherence and cohesion contributes to 25% of your score in your IELTS essay writing, be it academic or general; precisely the reason why nobody should overlook this criterion. 

Why are coherence and cohesion important?

The significance of both coherence and cohesion lies in the fact whether or not your examiner can understand what you have written. You might have a great flow of words coming up, a great supportive argument and an example, along with some big vocabulary words and phrases; however, it is a waste if you cannot structure it together in an appealing manner. 

To put it simply, if your examiner has to read your text 2-3 times to understand what are you trying to say, and asks himself/herself “What!!??”, then your essay is not coherent nor is it cohesive. 

Therefore, planning your essay before you begin writing is integral. You must not haphazardly add things or cut them out as per the requirements at that minute. If you start doing that, writing aimlessly, you will witness your essay to be a major blunder. 

Planning out a rough outline for your essay is extremely important. Structuring out the introduction, writing a stellar overview, adding the right arguments in the right paragraphs and tying up all the loose ends in the conclusion is significant. 

Giving yourself 2-3 minutes after reading the question to think it all out is therefore an imperative step to a great essay. 

Structure of Writing Task 1 Academics essay 

The following is the basic structure for answering your IELTS academics writing task 1 essay question:

Introduction 

Overview 

Body paragraph 1 

Body paragraph 2 

      Or 

Introduction

Body paragraph 1 

Body paragraph 2 

Overview
 

Let’s understand what we have discussed so far with the help of an example

Consider the following example:

In the question above, you are provided a bar graph that talks about how the computer ownership level has changed in the year 2010 since 2002. The bar graph shows you an increasing trend of ownership on the basis of people’s level of education. 

The question will ask you to summarise your findings and report the same. 

In order to answer such questions in a coherent and cohesive manner, the following are some tips:

Introduction 

You can begin writing your factual report by beginning with an introduction. A small introduction, going on for about 2-3 lines structured with the help of certain templates like, “How many….” or “How much…” or “The number of…” or “The amount of…”. These templates can help you introduce what you are trying to write on. 

Therefore, looking from the tip presented above, your introductory sentence to this example question should look like this: 

“The bar graph depicts how much computer ownership has changed”

                        Or 

“The bar graph represents the rate at which computer ownership has changed” 

Once we are through with the introductory sentence, you should focus on adding some more details like dates, places, durations, etc. However, do not just simply copy the specifics. Make sure you are paraphrasing your introduction further. You must always include a paraphrased version of your question in the introduction of your answer. 

Paraphrasing can be better done by using synonyms, converting any nouns into adjectives, or using words like between, and, to … from, and … to, etc. 

Overview 

The overview paragraph comes next once you are through with your introduction. The overview paragraph must talk about the significant trends in the bar graph, along with any major differences in the trends. Specific figures should not be a part of the overview paragraph. These figures are better left off for the main body paragraphs. 

However, if you are looking to mention any dates as supportive illustrations of the major difference, you are free to use the dates in the overview paragraph itself. 

For the example presented above, your overview paragraph could look something like this: 

“Overall, the first decade of the 21st century saw a steady gain in computer ownership among a variety of education levels”

The overview paragraph can include some of the following templates: 

Body paragraphs 

You can have one or two body paragraphs. However, ensure that every single paragraph has one central theme. 

Your paragraphs must contain significant features and key figures, like the extreme highs or slumps, starting or ending figures, identical figures, etc. 

Explaining the central idea around these figures and key features and supporting your idea with the right examples and the right illustrations is one of the most important things. 

You must also ensure you are linking the overview paragraph to the main body paragraphs and reiterating about the body paragraph in your conclusion as well. This is how you present your essay answer in a well presented manner. 

Try and choose two specific themes you would want to talk about in two different paragraphs. Ensure that you do not go overboard with the word limit. Also ensure you are not spelling out your personal opinions in the academics test. 

Templates to use 

While your coherence will depend on the natural flow of your article and the way you are presenting the ideas so that nothing is contradictory, the following table depicts the templates that you can incorporate in your essay/report to make it qualitative in terms of cohesion. 

On the left side of the table you will see the tasks to do, and on the right side you will see how to do the tasks. 

Follow our YouTube channel “Unlock IELTS with Richa” for more such great tips and tricks to crack your upcoming IELTS exam in an easy way. All the best!