Writing Plan for the IELTS Academic Task 1

First plan would be to separate the whole writing with number of paragraphs , otherwise the examiner will be facing a sea of ideas without any coherence.  You can start the first line of each paragraph from the edge of the margin, just put a line break after each paragraph so that it can be easily separated from the first sight. It makes your writing looks fresh and easily readable. The writing should be structured in a simple way: an introduction, body paragraph for each table/graph/chart and a conclusion. If the question consist just one graph, the body should contain 2-3 paragraphs describing key facts. To deal with this effectively, you can practice from Cambridge IELTS test books.

You should be careful about using units in the table or graph. If the graph presents in percentage then don’t say it in number. For example, writing like 70 population were not educated in 1980s is not correct if the data presented in a table or chart are in percentage. You can write, 70 out of 100 people or just 70 percent of the population were ignorant in 1980s. It is better to specify the scale at the start of the introduction, like “vertical line of the graph presents data in percentage whereas horizontal one presents different year”, so the reader know about the scaled in your writing.

In the Introduction, you don`t need to write too much but just few sentences. You should report here what`s the table/chart about like “The table/chart shows population fluctuation in Britain from 1980 to 2010”. If there are two tables/charts then describe each one in a separate sentences, like “The first chart shows the changing of population in Britain from 1980 to 2010”and “the second chart shows the change of literacy within the span of 30 years.

For describing graphs you just show where does the major increase or decrease happens but not necessarily why those change happens. While describing two graphs, you can make a comparative writing which looks more academic. In both cases, don’t write your own wit rather what you see in the question. Remember that the tables and graphs presented in IELTS academic writing task-1 can be loaded with pile of data but you are not expected by the examiner to present them all within 150 words, just show the most important and significant detail with clear examples. That would be enough to score a high band in that part of the writing exam.

Finally, there is no correct style to write in IELTS writing task-1. Each person have his/her individual style to present data. Just they need to make sure , spelling of words are correct with minimal grammatical mistakes, sentences are easily understandable with covering diversified lexical resources.