Writing: B2+. Els Geyte Van

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       Exercise 3

      Look at the ending of this 1,500-word essay and identify the three different parts of the conclusion. The first part has been identified for you.

      In conclusion, (1) new technologies have provided a remarkable breakthrough which has allowed society itself to become incredibly advanced. They have now become so highly developed that they have provoked ethical questions about their morality. One of the main reasons for this is that they can be controlling, but as we have seen, they are liberating at the same time, with cyborg (mechanical body parts) technology even being able to save people’s lives. Another area of thought is related to the area of feminism: despite their large contribution to the fields of science and technology, women still have to struggle with inequality in everyday and scientific life. While new technologies have undoubtedly influenced postmodern thinking, the amount of research activity in the field in recent years suggests that the influence may also work the other way round.

       The main body

      The main body of the text consists of a number of paragraphs, blocks of text that develop ideas. We will look at them in more detail below in The structure of paragraphs.

       For more information on the language used in introductions, conclusions and the main body, see Chapter 3.

       Guiding your reader

      The longer your piece of writing is, the more important it is that you guide your reader through it. You can do this by telling them about the structure (signposting), by using language that shows that the different aspects of your writing relate to each other (cohesion) and by distinguishing clearly between paragraphs (paragraphing).

      Let’s have a look at how a student did this in a short piece of writing. (He has made several mistakes, which are discussed below.)

       Glossary

      cohesion N-UNCOUNT If you write with cohesion, you use language that shows that the different aspects of your writing relate to each other, fit together well, and form a united whole.

      distinguish (distinguishes, distinguishing, distinguished) VERB If you distinguish one thing from another or distinguish between two things, you show, see, or understand how they are different.

      guild (guilds) N-COUNT A guild is an organization of people who do the same job or activity.

      This essay will look at how young people can be encouraged to vote in two main ways.

      Firstly, the government should devise campaigns to inform them and increase their awareness of the importance of voting.

      To start with, these campaigns should be as informal as possible and use electronic media such as blogs, websites or any other means that are accessible to that generation. Later on, the medium could also include newspapers and posters.

      In addition, the contents of the campaigns should include the fact that voting is the right of every citizen, and state the benefits of voting such as the ability to choose the right representative for a particular area. It is also important to inform the young citizens that it is easy for them to vote.

      Finally, after all the campaigns are done through the many information channels, the government may also promote voting by educating people in colleges, student guilds and other student organizations.

      In conclusion, by taking these approaches, hopefully more young people will vote.

      The student has indicated in the first sentence that there are two approaches he will discuss (but he could have made it clearer that these are media campaigns and educational programmes). He uses linking words 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:

      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: