So, does getting started with an essay feel like a struggle? Do you sit and stare at
a blank page waiting for inspiration to strike? you are not alone guys if you
feel like this about writing an essay. So many people struggle with just the
getting started part. Basically, it's a feeling like standing at the foot of the
mountain and looking up but how far you've got a climb but here's the thing
guys if you have a map aka a good structure and a plan getting
started and getting going and actually probably writing quite quickly will be
much easier. A good structure will mean that your work will be much better
organized and make a lot more sense so in this video we're going to look at a
super useful essay structure, which has helped many of my students over the
years and you can use this for IELTS CAE university assignments college
assignments this kind of thing now this is an argument based essay structure so
you can only use it when answering an essay question which asks you to present
an argument for something to debate something to look at the pros and cons
or say how far you'd agree or disagree and things like that. Before we get
started guys I'm Sabrah from love English your British University English Teacher.
so without further ado let's get going let's help you improve your essay
structure so you never have to stare at a blank page again
by paragraph essay structure five paragraph now this can be extended if
you're writing a longer university assignment but for IELTS for CAE for
many of the English exams five paragraphs is sufficient this is going
to be our example question the issue of who should pay for health care the
individuals themselves or governments has been a much debated topic in the
latter half of the 20th century and beyond write an essay in favor or
against individuals paying for their own health care
so paragraph 1 this will be your introduction a good introduction will
always start with a time phrase however don't use things like nowadays recently
at the moment they don't sound very academic and teachers trust me are sick
of seeing them instead try to use something which is a bit more academic
for example you could say in the last decade in recent years or you could say
something like the issue of and then the issue is a current and pressing problem
the next thing you want in your introduction is some topic background
now topic background is essentially just an introduction generally to the topic
you may wish to briefly mention the key opinions or viewpoints on the topic any
key statistics for dates something like this but keep this very brief so let's
have a look at some example topic background for our question some people
argue that our health is our individual responsibility and should not be
something which is paid for from public funds whilst others argue that for some
people pay for their own health care may not be possible
and so the fairer and kind of thing to do is that everyone has access to free
health care provided through public funds
so from that you will see that both viewpoints were briefly introduced that
is all you need for some topic background if you were doing a longer
assignment for a college paper or university assignment I do suggest that
you include more information in your topic background any key facts dates and
perhaps also defining any key terms that you will be using for example if you're
talking about photosynthesis and its effect do fine what photosynthesis is
they may be important for the reader to understand from the beginning then you
want to clearly state what you are going to argue for this is very important as
without this the etic viewers a little aimless and the reader doesn't know
where they are from the beginning so it's important to state your argument in
your introduction your argument is known as a thesis statement and good phrases
to use as you present your argument are these this essay will present an
argument for and then say your argument or this and they will consider both
perspectives but will aim to present an argument for or against something like
this you could also say this essay will investigate then your topic but aims to
demonstrate or to show and then state your argument so many options for this
let's look at our example argument for this essay this essay will present an
argument against individuals paying for their own healthcare and will justify
this perspective in the points stated below so that was that introduction now
moving on to paragraph two so there are two options here you can either present
your argument first and then later mention the counter-argument the
counter-argument is the opposite argument to yours so the opposite
viewpoint or you can first look at the counter argument and then refute it
meaning show in some way why it is weak or show why you don't think it's a good
argument this can be called a refutation or a rebuttal and in a sense this is
your argument because you're showing why you think the opposite side isn't good
and why your argument is better so it's still your own argument whether
some point we have to mention what the counter-argument is in a valid way for
this essay let's start by looking at the counter-argument first and then we will
move on to our argument let's look at an example the issue of individuals needing
to pay for their own health care is complex but it's still an approach that
is supported by many supporters of this views such as the Republican Party in
the US generally consider that health is a personal responsibility and if you
take care of your health by maintaining a healthy diet exercising and not
indulging in bad habits such as smoking or excessive drinking you will not need
to spend lots of money on your health care if you wanted to if you were
writing a longer essay you could go into a bit more detail but you don't want to
spend too much time on the counter-argument as of course you want
to focus on your argument so now you would need to then debate this so refute
this in some way meaning show why you think it is flawed good phrases to
introduce a refutation include however or whilst this may be true in some cases
nevertheless or whilst there may be some truth to this the evidence against this
is arguably strong that's a very nice one if you can memorize that one that
will be very useful in an English exam so then of course we will go on to say
why you think this is flawed and this takes a Senate to paragraph three so our
reputation and our point of view are one here let's begin paragraph three by
looking at how we would do this a great formula to follow four paragraphs is the
point example explanation structure your point will be what you want to say your
example will be an example and the explanation is where you explain more
you go into more detail you expand your point so here you could begin your
paragraph 3 by saying first of all many diseases are not caused by diet and
lifestyle and are caused by genetics they are hereditary so in fact it
doesn't matter what you would do you could still become ill then you would go
to your example your example could be cancer is hereditary and tends to run in
families of course you
minimize your chances of getting cancer by having a healthy lifestyle and not
drinking and smoking but people who have a healthy lifestyle have still got ill
with cancer so it may not always be the case but personal responsibility and
health go hand in hand
your explanation here could be individual responsibility doesn't in
fact come into it as much as some people may say as we said in the example many
diseases are hereditary and your diet and lifestyle can have little impact on
those of course you may want to include another example in that paragraph of
another hereditary illness and you may want to expand the point a bit more
depending on how many words you have to write for your answer next paragraph for
this is your argument again so you want to do another p e.e paragraph here my
second point here would be for some people paying for their own health care
is simply unaffordable my example would be not everyone earns the same a
waitress and a lawyer do not earn the same amount but they may both have the
same chance of getting unwell but one can simply afford that health care more
than the other it doesn't seem fair that one should suffer just because of one's
career choice then your explanation could be something like this therefore
if we all pay a contribution then we are paying based on what we earn what we can
afford so effectively we are paying for our health care but we are making the
contribution that we can based on what we earn this seems fair and kind of for
everyone as this where we are all paying but according to what we have available
again in a longer essay you could expand that point further now finally paragraph
5 your conclusion this is where you want to draw your main points together so you
want to refer back to your main points and you want to restate your argument so
say while your argument is better than the counter-argument again you may also
wish to offer some solutions to this problem any ideas you may have on how
this could be solved you could do that but don't introduce any more new points
in favor of your argument you should have done that in your essay let's have
a look at an example conclusion therefore it can be seen that despite
the fact that of course some illnesses are caused by diet and lifestyle not all
are and so punishing those who can't afford
to pay for their own health care seems unreasonable when their illness may not
be their fault it goes without saying that the government should invest energy
occasion about how to take care of our diet and lifestyle so that health
services are not burdened by preventable illnesses however at the same time
forcing everyone to pay for their own health care when they may not be able to
afford it seems unfair as a consequence all of society contributing through
taxation seems to be the fairest option overall
so you can see if that conclusion we considered the counter-argument and said
again why we thought it wasn't good we restated our argument and we also
offered possible solutions that would make our argument even stronger that was
that the government could educate the public more in order to avoid
preventable illnesses that are related to diet and lifestyle this way less
people would complain about the fact that they're having to pay for
individuals who are irresponsible so we also offered a possible solution
so in a nutshell that would be our five paragraph essay structure suitable for
IELTS CAE and also college papers and university assignments however if you
were writing any of those you would probably want to write more paragraphs
and extend your point but you could still use the same structure I do hope
this was useful guys please ask me questions below about anything in this
video that you're not sure about you can ask me suggestions about how you could
improve your writing and things like that and do let me know if you would
like a video on linking words and which words to use in which part of the essay
good luck with your English exams if you're taking them or your a University
assignment and if you did like this video please give it a thumbs up we'll
see you soon on love English guys bye bye