to indicate the structure of his discussion: ‘Firstly’ and ‘Finally’ introduce the two areas he will discuss. He also uses other linking words.
Many students have been taught that linking words are very important, but some use these types of words too often. This is the case in this example. ‘In addition’ could be crossed out without it affecting the meaning: ‘the contents of the campaigns’ gives more information about a topic that was already raised, which is a natural thing to do, so the reader does not need to be told there is a link. It is also a bad choice of linker: it does not introduce an additional idea, but a more specific one. Here the linking words are all used at the beginning of a paragraph, making the text sound very repetitive (if you read it out loud, you will notice the pattern repeating). To sum up, linking words can be helpful to guide the reader, but you should only use them if they are necessary; make sure you use an appropriate one, and vary their place in the sentence.
Some of the words refer to other words in the text:
the pronouns ‘them’ and their’ in the second sentence refer to ‘young people’ in the first sentence
‘these campaigns’ in the third sentence refers back to the campaigns mentioned in the second sentence, and ‘that generation’ refers back to ‘young people’
the article ‘the’ in ‘the medium’, ‘the campaigns’ and ‘the young citizens’ indicates that these ideas have already been mentioned.
We can group some of the words mentioned, to show how a number of ideas are developed throughout the text. There are words related to the areas of:
youth: young people, that generation, young citizens
education: campaigns, inform, awareness, contents, fact, information channels, educating, contents, colleges, student guilds, student organizations
media: blogs, websites, medium, newspapers, posters, information channels
voting: vote, citizen, choose, representative
Visually, a space has been left between each paragraph. This is the right thing to do, although indents are also acceptable. In this short piece of writing, there was no need to have so many paragraphs. For example, the one that begins with ‘To start with’ develops the idea from the previous paragraph and should have been part of that one.
Glossary
indent (indents) N-COUNT An indent is the space at the beginning of a line of writing when it starts further away from the edge of the paper than all the other lines.
Exercise 4
Cross out the unnecessary and/or incorrect linking words in the paragraph (taken from an IELTS-type essay). Do not make any other changes.
It is widely believed that the internet is making our lives easier than they were in the past. Furthermore, the internet is used as a consultation method for solving many problems. On the one hand, many people use the internet for consulting others who are in a different location, for example, teachers, physicians and community researchers. Moreover, there are social networking sites such as Facebook to communicate with old friends, and so you can get together with them and other people you have not seen in a long time. The internet has also led to an increase in opportunities for face-to-face communication and people can talk with each other at any time and anywhere. At last, people with disabilities can use the internet to help overcome obstacles so that they have better access to education and other services.
Exercise 5
Underline the pronouns in this text and think about how they are used to connect the ideas in the text.
Internet users can get information any time they need it via their internet connection. When the internet was first introduced, its feature was to share information. As time has gone by, more functions and tools have been added. These include blogs, which allow users to share their comments and opinions, and social networks, which enable people to pass on messages quickly.
The structure of paragraphs
A paragraph normally has three parts:
1 a sentence that introduces the topic (and possibly links it to the previous paragraph)
2 a number of sentences that develop the topic (with analysis, evidence or detail)
3 a sentence that concludes the topic (or links it to the next topic/paragraph).
Have a look at some examples, where the sections have been numbered (1), (2) and (3).
Glossary
obstacle (obstacles) N-COUNT You can refer to anything that makes it difficult for you to do something as an obstacle.
(1) Corruption is the most important point to focus on, because this originates where the power is. (2) Corruption can take many forms: political, which involves corruption in a country’s legal system and police force, and economic, for example misuse of taxes and foreign aid money. (3) A country with a corrupt government is not able to develop.
(1) Another obstacle facing the developing nations today is capital flight. (2) This is the rapid movement of investments out of a country. This can be for economic reasons, such as an increase in taxes. It often also happens as a result of political problems such as internal or external wars. (3) It has a negative impact on the trust that people have in their governments, and investors tend to invest in other countries.
Tip
Did you notice how common the pattern of three is? There are three parts in an essay, three parts in an introduction, three parts in a conclusion, and three parts in a paragraph. When you plan and write your essays, the three-part structure can help you order and shape your ideas.
Connecting paragraphs
Glossary
argument (arguments) N-VAR An argument is a statement or set of statements that you use in order to try to convince people that your opinion about something is correct.
measure (measures) N-COUNT When someone, usually a government or other authority, takes measures to do something, they carry out particular actions in order to achieve a particular result.
policy (policies) N-VAR A policy is a set of ideas or plans that is used as a basis for making decisions, especially in politics, economics, or business.
When you start a new paragraph, you are indicating that the previous point is finished and you are starting something new. However, this new paragraph is not completely separate from the previous one, and you will have to indicate what the relationship is. For example, if you start with ‘Another argument in favour of calculators is …’, then the language you have chosen clearly indicates to the reader that you are discussing a different argument (‘Another’) with the same purpose (‘in favour’).
When you use a construction like ‘another argument is’, what you are doing is summing up what has been said previously and naming it (‘argument’). You are also announcing what you are going to be doing next (‘another argument’), or perhaps indicating that you are going to give more specific information (‘This argument …’).
The following are examples of words like ‘argument’, which are often used with the word ‘this’ (or ‘these’,