I sometimes write articles about myself so I can read them later. It's a passion of mine. But what if you decide to write an article for the B2 First writing exam?
Well there are some mistakes that you definitely do not want to make. My name is Toby, this is SMASH English and here are the five most common mistakes that students make when writing an article for the B2 First exam. Number one: the introduction does not grab the reader's attention.
The introduction of an article must grab the reader's attention! The introduction to an essay is boring and general. We talk generally about the topic and we do not address the reader.
The introduction to an article is the opposite. An article must shout to the reader. Hello reader!
Read me! So how can you do this? How can you shout to the reader?
How can you grab the reader's attention in your introduction? Well it's easy! Begin your introduction with a question.
Personally address the reader with this question. Here are some examples: how would you feel if. .
. ? What would you do if.
. . ?
Have you ever thought about. . .
? Have you ever wanted to. .
. ? Are you the sort of person that.
. . ?
After asking a question we should add a sense of mystery. Mystery? Yes, mystery!
In the introduction we want to introduce the general topic but we don't want to reveal too much. If we reveal too much why should the reader continue reading? Wow I have an idea!
Let's compare the introductions of an article and an essay. Both of these introductions will be about the same topic: whether the government should invest money in museums. Museums help to present and preserve a nation's culture and history and are a vital educational tool however should they receive government funding?
Are you the type of person that loves visiting museums? Well imagine having to pay an arm and a leg just to visit one! There's a big difference right?
The article begins with a question directly addressed to you the reader, also it is mysterious! Why would I have to pay money to go to museums? Well the answer is maybe the government will stop putting money towards them but we have not revealed that yet!
It is a secret so the reader will continue reading. We have also used exclamation marks! !
! ! These are cool and informal so use them in articles.
So grab the reader's attention, be personal, be mysterious and be informal in your introduction. Number two: there is no point to the article. What is the point to anything?
Soon all of us will be dead. . .
But even if there is no point to your existence your article must have a point and that point should be in your conclusion. When you write a conclusion to an essay you should summarize the points of the essay and then present your conclusion based on those points. When you write a conclusion for an article you should conclude with something the reader can think about or something the reader can do.
I call this the take-away point. What do you want the reader to do after they finish reading your article? What do you want the reader to think about after they finish reading your article?
Why did you write this article? You wrote it because you want people to think about something, you want people to do something! That's the point!
We need a point! Let us look at an example. Again we will compare the conclusion of an essay with the conclusion of an article the topic of this essay and article again is should governments put money towards museums.
To conclude although it could be argued that money is needed elsewhere museums are still an invaluable tool for preserving culture and educating the young. I therefore tend to think that governments ought to invest more in them. So next time you casually wander into a museum near you maybe take some time to appreciate the money that goes into maintaining it and on top of that why not make a donation?
Notice how the conclusion of the essay simply provides a summary and then gives the opinion of the writer. On the other hand the conclusion of the article actively asks the reader to think about something and asks them to do something: "why not make a donation? ".
So remember the conclusion of your article should always ask the reader to do something or think about something! That is the takeaway point. That is the point to your article!
Your life has no point but your article does! Yes! Number three: the student does not plan.
If you do not plan you might not include all of the things that you need to include or you might include irrelevant information. If you do either of those two things you will lose marks and then you will be sad which will make me sad and you do not want me to be sad because you love me. So please plan.
The first thing you need to do when beginning your article is think about two things. Number one: who are the target readers and number two: what do I need to do? What information do I need to include?
When you first look at your question please underline this information with a pen. A pen! I love pens.
So here the article will be published on a university blog so our target readers are students. I can see three things that we need to do. The first is introduce a difficult experience we have had.
The second is to explain what happened and the third is to discuss what we learned from it. After you do this please organize your tasks into paragraphs. Yes paragraphs!
They are very important when you write your article. I think we can introduce our difficult experience in our introduction, in our first paragraph. Of course we will ask questions to the reader and we will add mystery.
This should be about 30 words. My difficult experience will be when my internet went down for seven days and I was not able to watch SMASH English videos Seriously it was traumatic. God I just love watching my own videos!
I'm the only one that does. . .
. The second paragraph will talk about what happened. This will be about 50 to 60 words.
The third paragraph will talk about what I learned from the experience. I learned not to take anything in life for granted especially SMASH English videos! I love them!
This will also be 50 to 60 words and my conclusion at the very end will be the take away point. What do I want the readers to think about or do after reading my article? And my takeaway point will be to encourage the readers to value the time they have with the things that they care about like SMASH English so they should all subscribe.
Right now! Please. Thank you.
This will be 30 words or so but please do not worry too much about your word count. Do not, I repeat, do not count how many words you have written in your exam because you do not have time and the examiner does not have the time either to be counting your words. The point is, if you write too little then you probably have not included all of the information, if you write too much then you are probably talking about irrelevant information and you will lose marks.
This is why you plan: to avoid doing these two things. And finally we need to write a title: My Seven Days of Hell. Because seven days without SMASH English is hell.
It's terrible. Number four: the article is boring. An article is not an essay.
Essays are boring and formal. An essay is something that will be read by a teacher, a boring teacher. .
. like me. Oh!
See! Look! I opened an umbrella inside!
I did this inside! I'm crazy! I'm not boring!
I'm really cool. . .
kids love me. . .
The target readers of an article are usually people like you: a student, someone cool, someone that reads a magazine. Yes, because people that read magazines are cool. That is a fact.
This means you should write your article in an informal style. Use contractions, use phrasal verbs. An article is an opportunity for you to be creative with the language.
It allows you to tell a story, it allows you to ask the reader to start thinking about new and exciting ideas. Remember to use short and long sentences to keep things interesting. Remember to use ungradable adjectives.
Instead of saying "I felt very tired" say "I felt absolutely exhausted". It adds some life and variety to your writing. And if you want to learn all about ungradable adjectives there is a video here!
Remember to use rhetorical questions to involve the reader. Use idioms like I did in my introduction. Instead of saying "imagine having to pay a lot" which is very boring I said "imagine having to pay an arm and a leg".
To pay an arm and a leg is an idiom that means to pay a lot of money. That is so exciting! What a brilliant idiom!
Yes? Yes it is! And if like me you are very very funny, try telling a joke in your article!
Just do something! Add some personality! Don't be boring.
Be boring in your essay and be boring in your report and be boring in a formal letter or email but don't be boring in an article. No. No one likes a boring article.
Number five: present simple, present simple, present simple. Okay I don't seriously think that any of you will try and write your entire article in the present simple but you do need to use a variety of grammar structures. This links to point 4: your article must be interesting and you can make it interesting by using a variety of different grammatical forms.
So let's have a look at my plan from before about a terrible experience. Here is my plan. So in my introduction I want the reader to put themselves in my position to imagine how terrible it was for me so I have done this with a second conditional interrogative.
In the next paragraph I must describe what happened so I need to tell a little story that means narrative tenses. Here I have used the past simple, the past continuous and the past perfec. t Next I need to say what I learned from the experience.
Well I learned to value what I have so let's imagine how I would be now if my internet had not come back. That's a mixed conditional! Wow!
Impressive! Of course if you want a video all about mixed conditionals it's in the top right corner right now. .
. yeah. And finally to leave my readers with a takeaway point I have used a second conditional to give advice, a modal verb to talk about possibility and the passive.
So remember you need an interesting introduction, you need a point for the reader to think about or something for them to do in the conclusion, you must remember to plan your article, please do not be boring: you should be creative when writing your article and please, please, please use a variety of grammar structures. And if you do that you will write the perfect, most magnificent article ever seen by anyone ever. .
. apart from mine. Mine was great.
And with that we are finished! If you liked the video don't forget to SMASH that like button, subscribe if you haven't already, leave a comment down below! My name is Toby and this was SMASH English.
. .
