IELTS Writing five connective words and devices to improve your Band 9 essays in this tutorial,
we're going to look at why we should use connecting words we're going to look at examples of how
to use them especially with contrasts and also we're going to look at what's called
legato and staccato, just stylistic elements that we've mentioned previously so first of
all, why are we going to use connecting words in our essays?
Firstly, they'll improve the flow of your writing especially from one sentence to another
and from one paragraph to another secondly, they're going to clarify the relative importance
of different aspects of your argument or narrative that's more higher-level thirdly, these connecting
words can clarify the logical relationships between different aspects of your essay now,
this might seem a little bit high level but hang in there we're going to explain it all
and we're going to use examples and try and make it as straightforward as possible and
most importantly, how we can use these, these elements these connective words in our IELTS
essays so first of all why are we going to connect at all?
well first of all, let's have a look at what our writing would look like without connecting
words and phrases so we'll have a look at a short -- a collection of short sentences
television is an important industry it reaches a mass audience it employs millions of people
world-wide it creates an immediate effect on viewers it allows viewers concretely to
visualize world events it can become an important influence on events so each time there was
a full stop, I just tapped the computer now that paragraph is staccato okay and it's very
unpleasant it's repetitive it's a repetitive paragraph four of its five sentences begin
with the pronoun ‘it’ also as I said it is the staccato paragraph that the rhythm
is unpleasantly broken up it doesn't flow in the way that a paragraph should with a
pleasing variety of sentence lengths and sentence openings so how do we correct this situation?
so at the moment the separate sentences in the paragraph are like separate individual
items in a shop no indication is given of the relationships between the different ideas
in this passage so let's try to connect them more effectively television is an important
industry it reaches a mass audience and employs millions of people world-wide it creates an
immediate effect on viewers and it allows viewers concretely to visualize world events
also it can become an important influence on events do you think that was an improvement
well slightly it was slight – there was a slight improvement because we've used connective
words such as ‘and’ and ‘also’ but they just simply can push or shunt the sentences
together so they aren't really any better so we've still got the full stops that we've
used before slightly less because now we've pushed them together using ‘also’ and
‘and’ it's slightly better with the flow but it's still a lot of like rambling disorganization
so can we do better?
Yes, to do better we need to use connecting words and phrases which do more than just
connect so let's look at the first three sentences as an example television is an important industry
not only does it reach a mass audience but it also employs millions of people world-wide
now we've used a very useful structure of “not only does it do this” comma, “but
it also does” this now this is an improvement because first of all with the help of the
colon the three sentences are now connected into a single-flowing whole but the sentence
is now also internally structured the construction of “not only… but” implies that the
first point is more self-evident the second more surprising yeah? so not only is Ben Worthington
a world-champion squash player, he's also a CrossFit master I’m just joking I’m
none of those but what I'm trying to say is that it could be even more surprising that
I was a CrossFit master okay so that's how we need to employ that structure and what
it does is it makes the relationship between the two points we’re mentioning, it makes
it more interesting okay so not only was I a squash master but I'm also a CrossFit master
in this case let's have a look at that example again not only does it reach a mass audience,
but it also employs millions of people world-wide can you see? so “it reaches a mass audience”
is important and it's quite obvious straightforward but this extra point is that “it employs
millions of people world-wide” so you can see now that sentence has a good legato in
sentence structure therefore, it's not only a matter of linking every point together piece
by piece it also depends upon establishing relations of contrasts between different points
these contrasts can be of various kinds in the remainder of this presentation we're going
to look at four kinds of contrasts employed by four different connecting words so the
first one we did because this tutorial is five connecting words was “not only… but”
and the next four are ‘furthermore’, ‘consequently’, nevertheless’, and ‘for example’ so
each of these connectives implies a different relationship between two sentences or arguments
so let's see how ‘furthermore’ changes the feel of our arguments so we have television
is an important industry not only does it reach a mass audience, but it employs millions
of people world-wide furthermore, it creates an immediate effect on viewers so ‘furthermore’
is a way of adding interest to what might otherwise be merely a boring addition so it
implies that it's an additional point which the reader might not have thought of the key
here is an additional point an additional point or an additional interest point so it
points up the contrast between the quantitative points made in the previous sentence and the
qualitative account of television as a medium made in this one okay so we're kind of linking
the two previous points we've made so another useful connecting word is “consequently”
so going back to our television sentence we have furthermore it creates an immediate effect
on viewers and it allows viewers concretely to visualize world events (semicolon) consequently,
it can become an important influence on events so how does “consequently” change the
force at the end of the paragraph?
well the connection between the last two points is no longer merely one of addition it's now
one of causal entailment the first point leads to or entails the second logical or causal
entailment is always a stronger connection than mere addition so mere addition could
be set as furthermore or even “in addition to this… it also does this” but if we're
adding causal entailment it's -- I love that I love the expression causal entailment so
it's much stronger okay and as I said the first point leads to the second this is the
causal entailment okay and this is one of the powerful devices we can use to improve
flow so just take a step back if we have X in addition to Y in addition to D that's okay
but if we have X leads us to Y as it does to Z you can see there's a smoothness there
now the next point “nevertheless” nevertheless implies a contrastive relationship between
two points it doesn't necessarily have to negate the first point but it does qualify
it so let's take an example Alexander Joy was a celebrated jazz composer he died in
poverty in 1957 so we've got two sentences there now the lack of -- the lack of connections
between these two sentences might give a misleading impression it might seem to imply that the
natural consequences of one of being a celebrated jazz composer is to die in poverty so let's
fix it Alexander Joy was a celebrated jazz composer (full stop) nevertheless, he died
in poverty in 1957 now the second statement ‘nevertheless, he died in poverty in 1957’
qualifies the first you see? so it's even though he was a celebrated jazz composer he
died in poverty so we're emphasizing that so sometimes one wants to sometimes you want
to indicate that subsequent points are illustrations of the main point and this is extremely useful
for IELTS because when we're building our paragraph if we’re indicating subsequent
points or building up with building up illustrations of our previous points, not only are we strengthening
our argument, making our argument stronger and stronger with each additional sentence,
but we're also going to use details, we're also going to -- we're going to improve the
flow we're going to give like a real-world example and this is exactly what we do in
the online course in the sentence guide online course we build up the paragraph exactly like
this and a key point of the course is to learn how to give strong examples which offer illustrations
so in the course we talk about using “for example” and it kind of links and subordinates
the points that follow the first point so let's just see how it works in this example
so William the Conqueror introduced many reforms to English governance he ordered the compilation
of the Domesday book he increased the Crown’s control over the Church that was the first
sentence okay now we're going to look at it again with using “for example” William
the Conqueror introduced many reforms to English governance for example, he ordered the compilation
of the Domesday book and he increased the Crown's control over the Church now the last
two points in that last paragraph the last two points are properly subordinated to and
illustrative of the first now it's almost it's strengthening the example, it's strengthening
our argument, and it's basically drawing a picture it’s giving you a reference to of
what the reforms William the Conqueror introduced into English governance so this is why examples
are very important and we go into them in a lot of detail in the online course, which
by the way, I should mention, is going to increase in price soon, probably in the next
week or two so if you’re thinking at taking the IELTS have a look at the course and it's
probably a good idea to start as soon as possible now final point let's just summarize what
we have covered in this class so in this presentation we have learned how and why to use connecting
words in sentences we've learned to achieve a legato style in sentence construction and
we've learned how to point up contrasts in our sentences now I'd recommend you listening
to this podcast again or listening to this tutorial again maybe writing out the sentences
and then you'll be able to see through your own eyes while you're listening the differences
between them this will help you get a real grip of what's being taught also it transfers
the learning from passive, a merely passive exercise of sitting on the couch or on the
bus whatever and just absorbing to active learning where we're taking out the pen and
we're following instructions and we’re implementing what we've learned and of course there's times
for passive learning and there's times for active learning obviously I think personally
the most powerful is active learning this is why I encourage students to get feedback
on their essays because it's the fastest way to improve so that's it for me and if you
enjoyed this podcast please leave -- if you enjoyed this tutorial and this podcast please
leave a review in the iTunes or on Soundcloud or on Spotify or wherever you're listening
to this or even on YouTube leave us a comment and yeah also if you send us a screenshot
of that review that you left you can get an essay correction actually just send it in
to our wonderful staff and we'd be happy to show you how to do the next how to take the
next step okay so have a great week and remember to keep on pushing with your IELTS preparation
eventually, you will get there trust me okay have a great day, and thank you very much
for listening take care