Now it's time to go over the question.
Types and structures for academic writing task number one.
So let's get started.
When it comes to task number one is really, really important that you truly understand all of the different
structures you might encounter.
So through this lecture, I'm going to help you become very familiar with the different types of academic
tasks one structures that you'll have to possibly write on the exam.
So when we're talking about question types, question structures, you have a bar chart.
You could have to write a pie chart.
A table.
Two different charts, a line graph, or possibly write a diagram that could be a process or a map.
So again.
You could possibly write a bar chart, table pie chart, two different charts, a line graph or a diagram
that involves a process or a map.
Now.
You'll only have to write one of these one of these types.
You're not going to have to do a bar chart and then also do a second writing task.
That's a pie chart.
Now.
It is possible then when you're doing a to different charts question type that one might be a bar graph
and the other might be a table or one is a line graph and the other is a pie chart.
So now I'm going to go ahead and show you what these different question types actually look like.
So you could become very, very familiar.
This, of course, is what you would call a bar graph or some call it a bar chart.
I typically, typically call it a bar graph.
This is one that comes up quite often.
And really you just need to be able to practice doing it over and over and over again until you become
really comfortable with being able to analyze the information on a bar graph.
This, of course, is a pie chart.
I mean, look at it.
It's shaped like a pie.
That's why it's called a pie chart.
Now, typically, with every question you can see here at the bottom, you're always going to be given
some type of summary.
Like here, it says you should spend about 20 minutes on this task and then they give you involved down
here a summary of the of what this information is really talking about.
The pie charts show the electricity generated in Germany and France from all sources and renewables
in the year 2009.
Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.
Right?
At least 150 words anti question type you get.
Is going to have that type of standard information.
Now, of course, you can't repeat the information verbatim.
Show your talent in English by paraphrasing this information using synonym language to restate this
information.
Now here we have a line graph.
Again, quite obvious.
The chart below shows the changes in three different areas of crime in Manchester City Centre from 2003
to 2012.
Then you have to be able to look at this line graph.
And over here, you can see the basic structure, a basic strategy for any question type.
It's always going to be four paragraphs.
You're going to have an introduction, a general overview.
Specific paragraph, number one.
Specific paragraph, number two.
It's always going to be that structure.
You got to write an introduction which basically paraphrases this this summary, and also might include
some other details that you see on the graph, like burglary, car theft, robbery, dates and numbers.
In terms of really what types of numbers in the millions in the thousands.
So that kind of information is what goes in the introduction.
And then for a general overview, you will be looking at this and really talking about the general obvious
things.
Right.
What is the big picture here?
What can we see in terms of the big picture here?
And then you have the specific paragraphs, specific paragraph one and specific paragraph number two.
And that's when you're talking about specific time periods.
So you might take 2003 to 2005 and talk about what was happening on the three.
In terms of comparing the three lines from 2003 to 2005 and then also talking about 2005 to 2007 and
talking specifically about the details relating the information.
And then for a specific paragraph, number two, you'll be doing the same thing, talking about the
specific details data from 2007 and 2009, and then also talking about 2009 to 2012.
Now, of course, here you're going to talk about things in what verb tense?
Past tense.
Everything should be in the past tense.
Because everything is happening before 2012.
Before 2012.
Everything is happening.
So really when you're talking about it and discussing it, you should be using the past tense.
Then we have a table.
We have a table here.
Right.
But again, you can see it's the exact same strategy.
Introduction.
General Overview.
Specific paragraph one.
Specific paragraph number two.
Now here, we're not given a date.
We're not given a date.
The table illustrates the proportion of monthly household income five European countries spend on food,
drink, housing, clothing and entertainment.
Now here.
My advice is to use the present tense.
Right.
However.
Because we're not given a date.
There's nothing wrong with you writing this table in the past tense because obvious this obviously this
is information from the past.
Right.
This is information in terms because it's talking about the household income that five year five European
countries spend.
This is how much money they're spending.
So my my standard advice is my preference is to write about when there's no date given for me to write
in the present tense.
I like to write in the active voice.
The active present voice.
I think that's really effective writing.
So that's really what I would advise you to do.
This is an example of when you're dealing with two different charts of graphs.
Like for this one, you have a bar chart at the top.
And you have a lying graph at the top.
At the bottom.
I'm sorry.
At the bottom.
And we're talking about hamburgers, fish and chips and pizza.
And now.
And for this one.
You, of course, going to have an introduction, but your introduction might involve two sentences,
one sentence to describe the bar graph and the second sentence to describe the line graph.
And then you have a general overview again for the general overview.
You will look and look at it and say, What do I obviously see?
What is obvious.
We can see here.
What?
The hamburgers.
The hamburger is, you know, it's steadily falling in terms of income.
Higher income.
More expenditure on hamburgers.
Average income.
Then lower income.
It steadily falls as income decreases.
We see the same thing.
For what?
Pizza.
Right.
The lower the income, the less pizza.
That is what you call a general overview.
That's information.
That's the kind of information that will go in a general overview.
And then we have the pizza and the pizza.
You know, really it really stands out.
It really stands out because it doesn't follow the same pattern.
But when we're talking about general overview, that's those are that's the obvious clear information
that everybody can see.
When it comes to the specific paragraphs, one and two, we might be comparing different details, and
that's okay.
You might choose to compare other interesting details that I find that I don't find interesting.
And that's perfectly fine.
But our general overviews should be pretty much the same.
In terms of the specific paragraphs, you would have a specific paragraph that talks about the bar chart,
and then you have a specific paragraph that talks about the line graph that would be your paragraph
one and paragraph two.
Next, you might encounter a question that's called a diagram map, where they give you some type of
diagram like you see here, which is the city of Trenton in 1990 and the city of Trenton in 2012.
And your job is to talk about the your job is to talk about the similarities and differences between
1990 and 2012.
Right.
And so that's something that's really, really straightforward in terms of how you do it.
Okay.
In terms of the specific paragraphs, one and two, you're going to be choosing.
You have to choose.
Which which of these aspects you're going to talk about?
You're going you're going to compare in paragraph one and then which aspects are going to compare in
paragraph number two.
So in paragraph number one, I might talk about the I, I talk about the trees from 1990, the trees,
the shops, the housing and the cafe park.
And then in specific paragraph number two, I'll talk about other similarities and differences.
But you divide up the information that really helps your task achievement and also your coherence.
Great.
And then finally, you could encounter a diagram process question.
And here you can see we're dealing with a process.
How things go or how the elements I should, I should say, be more specific.
The elements go from snow to runoff to groundwater.
And then some goes into the saltwater intrusion that intrudes on that groundwater flows out to the ocean.
Evaporation goes up into the clouds.
Cloud formation.
Precipitation.
The whole discussing the process.
Personally, I love the the diagram map and the diagram process questions.
I think those are the easiest ones to do actually, because they give you a lot of the specific vocabulary.
And your job is basically to take that information and create sentences.
All right.
So coming up next, we're going to go over the standard question strategy.
And you've kind of you've kind of heard me talk about that a little bit already.
I'm going to talk about that in a little bit more detail in the upcoming strategy and really talking
about how we have one strategy for all question types.
Thank you very much.
As always, it's a pleasure being your instructor.
I'll talk to you soon.
Keep studying hard.