Writing an IELTS Essay Introduction

In the writing for task 2, you must write an IELTS essay introduction, but you only have 40 minutes.

In this time you need to analyze the question, brainstorm ideas to write about, formulate an essay plan, and then write your response. Even for a native writer of English, this is a lot to do in 40 minutes!

So you need to use your time carefully. You need a good IELTS essay introduction, but one thing you do not want to do is spend too long writing it so that you end up rushing your paragraphs. Your paragraphs are the most important thing as they contain all your supporting arguments and demonstrate how good you are at organizing your ideas.

The Two Elements of an IELTS Essay Introduction

You therefore need a method to write your IELTS essay introduction fairly quickly. When you write an introduction, you should make sure you do two things:

1. Write a sentence (or two) introducing the topic and giving some background facts about it 
   
2. Tell the reader what you are going to be writing about (thesis statement)

How you do this will vary depending on the question, but here is an example:

Question:

Sample IELTS essay introduction:

Despite the fact that killing animals for sport is popular in modern society, it remains a contentious issue. I believe that blood sports are cruel and uncivilized and so should be banned as soon as possible.

This does the following things:

• First sentence: consists of the topic plus some background facts on the topic which have been taken from the rubric.
• Second sentence: gives the writers opinion and tells us that in the essay the writer will be arguing the reasons why it is cruel.

The topic does not have to be in the first sentence, but it should be made clear somewhere in the introduction. You must always have a thesis.

Paraphrasing

Another important point - don't copy from the question! You must paraphrase (put it in your own words). To do this you can use synonyms and move the order of the sentence around.

Using some of the same words is acceptable, but don't copy whole phrases.

You can see how the question above has been paraphrased. All the information is from the question, but it has been written in a different way and has not been copied.

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You can also check out a short video on this lesson:

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Further IELTS Introduction Examples

Example 1:

Question:

Sample IELTS essay introduction:

Societies have developed rapidly over time due to the many advances in science and technology. However, the arts are also very important and provide our world with many things that science and technology cannot.

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Example 2:

Question:

Sample IELTS essay introduction:

A recent study has shown that as people use the Internet more, they are spending less time with human beings. I believe that although this has increased the communication around the world in positive ways, it has also led to negative effects on the day-to-day social interaction of human beings.

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Example 3:

Question:

Sample IELTS essay introduction:

Over recent years, the level of unemployment has been increasing at an alarming rate in many countries around the world. This essay will discuss the reasons for this increase and consider what practical solutions are available.

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Example 4:

Question:

Sample IELTS essay introduction:

While some people are of the opinion that it would be useful to include international news as a subject in the school curriculum, others believe that this is a waste of students time because they are already overloaded with subjects to study. This essay will examine both sides of the issue.

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