Irina Lutsenko

In a very long and very boring post above, I've outlined some principles to order ideas effectively. The third principle—writing ideas in order of importance—might seem bit vague, but in reality it isn’t. So, here is another long and boring post.

Let's say you are describing this map. Which order sounds better?

If you want to arrive at a coherent text that is easy to follow, you can't just write whatever you want in any order you want (bummer, I know).

To organize information in a way that makes processing it easier for the reader, follow the principles below. Use them to organize your IELTS answer, particularly IELTS Writing Task 1, and any text that involves reporting facts and communicating objective information.

1️⃣ Chronological order: from beginning to end, from the past to the present to the future, from young to old. (This is a really strong one because we think chronologically.)

2️⃣ From the largest to the smallest or from the smallest to the largest.

3️⃣ From the least important to the most important and the other way around. (This can sound somewhat vague. I'll write a special post about this principle.)

4️⃣ From general to specific (or from specific to general—but this is less likely to be used in IELTS).

5️⃣ Order of familiarity: from familiar to unfamiliar, from the most familiar to the least familiar. ("Familiar" means familiar to the reader!)

6️⃣ Spatial, if applicable: from left to right, clockwise, from the entrance to the far end of the room (for example, in IELTS map/floor plan tasks).

This is one of the most challenging—and therefore interesting—topics I’ve ever had to write an IELTS essay on. That’s why I can’t help sharing.

"Arts and sciences are often viewed in opposition to each other. Some people even argue that since arts—unlike science—do not deal with objective facts, they do not help us gain a deeper understanding of life. They do, however, give us insights into what science does not or cannot explain.

First and foremost, arts provide individual perspectives on and personal reactions to facts. While science aims to discover and describe the laws that govern our world, arts aim to communicate how these laws affect or are perceived by a specific person. For example, a scientific text can describe how malignant cells spread in a cancerous tumor, but it is a creative text that will give a first-hand account of what the patient feels upon learning the news they have cancer or of how they handle combating the disease. Thus, in a sense, arts allow one individual to access many different experiences, ones the individual might ever not encounter in their real life.

Another important function arts serve is explaining—or at least attempting to explain—some elusive concepts that science has thus far been unable to. “Soul” is a good case in point. As yet, scientists haven’t been able to detect it, with some even arguing that there is no such entity as a soul. Yet, most of us intuitively understand that we have one—an intangible combination of our feelings and thoughts. This is where arts come into play. Most people report that some works of art, music or visual arts in particular, speak to their soul in some unfathomable way. Other art forms, such as literature or cinematography, enable the creators to explore what a soul is by placing the characters of the narrative in testing life situations. More examples of similarly nebulous notions would be love or the meaning of life. Even when arts, like science, cannot provide a precise and coherent explanation of a certain phenomenon, audiences still relate not only to the topics explored but also to the search for explanations.

And, as usual, to vividly illustrate this weakness, I write two excerpts on the same topic. Here is an example. Which excerpt repeats the ideas and which one develops them? ❓

"Both reasons for this development stem from human activities. The first one is that as the population of the planet grows, people increasingly encroach on territories where wildlife lives. They do so because they have to invade plant and animal habitats, and since the number of people is high, it, in essence, replaces biodiversity. After intruding into natural environments, people cause flora and fauna to die out due to human intervention."

"Both reasons for this development stem from human activities. The first one is that as the population of the planet grows, people increasingly encroach on territories where wildlife lives. They do so for a range of purposes, from construction and expansion of cities to clearing the land for farming and agriculture. These activities either obliterate flora and fauna entirely or cause them to move to new habitats, where they might not necessarily survive."