A Guide to IELTS Writing Presentation

While it is true that the IELTS writing test is not marked for presentation, there is the psychological aspect you may want to consider.  Imagine attending an IELTS review class where the center has litter everywhere and the place doesn’t look like it has been cleaned for months; you would probably be able to focus more intently on the lectures if the place was cleaner and smelled better to.

You are not there in person to present your work to the examiner, try to always make your writing look presentable and easy to read as possible; I’m not suggesting that you have to have the penmanship of a scribe to pass the IELTS, all I’m suggesting is that make sure your work is easily read, I’m sure the examiner will appreciate it and hopefully be kinder when marking your work.

Here are some suggestions you may want to consider when practicing your IELTS writing:

·         There is no need to rewrite the question task or put a title, rewriting the question task will simply be using up time which you could have spent writing about the topic.

·         Use margins.  Notice that documents written on the computer have default margins, books and magazines have margins. Margins aren’t there to just waste paper space; it helps make the document look neat.

·         Block Format vs. Traditional Format – this is a matter of personal preference, any of the two format is acceptable. The difference of the two are the following:

o   Traditional Format – there is an indentation at the beginning of every paragraph and there is no need to use a double space after a paragraph.

o   Block Format – there is no indentation at the beginning of every paragraph, instead the format uses a double space to indicate where a paragraph ends and a new one begins.

   
·        Use cursive writing, a writing style where the letters are linked together – some books and website suggest this to make your work look more mature; I don’t disagree with the reasoning, but I prefer to think of it as a faster way to writing and most native speakers would writing that way too (this of course is based on speculation and not backed by any scientific study or surveys).

·        Write with a consistent number of words per line, the reason behind this is to make your penmanship more consistent and make the word count easier; although it is impossible to have exactly the same number of words per line, having a range will make your word count faster.

To find out what to expect from the IELTS Writing test click here

For other Writing Tips visit the Writing Category