CAE ESSAY

How to Write an Essay

Introduction
An essay in the C1 Advanced Writing paper is usually written for an academic tutor and may be
written as a follow-up to a class activity, such as attending a seminar or watching a documentary.
The main purpose of the task is to underline relevant salient issues on the stated topic, and to
support an argument with subsidiary points and reasons. An essay should be well organised, with
an introduction, clear development and an appropriate conclusion. It should hold the target
reader’s attention and communicate complex ideas using an appropriate range of vocabulary and
structures.

Essays are part of the first section of the CAE Writing paper. The task is mandatory, which
means that you always have to write an essay unlike the other texts (emails/letter, proposals,
reviews, reports) where you can choose which one you would like to tackle in the exam.

What a typical essay task looks like

. A typical task might look like the one below:
Every essay writing task looks like this with the content changing, but the structure staying
exactly the same.

First of all, in the bigger box there is always the question you have to answer and three options
to choose from and, as the rubric tells you, you have to pick two of them. These two points
need to be discussed and compared and then you explain (with reasons!) which option you
think is better, more suitable, nicer or whatever the task asks you to do (Here: Which
facility is it more important for local authorities to give money to?).

Apart from that, you are also gifted a few ideas in the smaller of the two boxes. You can use
these in your essay (You don’t have to.), but make sure that you don’t just copy them word for
word. Instead, paraphrase them and make them your own, or simply come up with your own
ideas.

Formal or informal language in an essay?

:Keep your language formal, which means no contractions (I’m, don’t, etc.), no colloquial
expressions (Hey, what’s up?, I liked it heaps., etc.), and no slang or phrasal verbs that
convey informality (I’m bursting vs. I have had enough to eat; carry on vs. continue).

How to organise your essay

When organising a piece of writing you should always think about what it is that you have to
include in your text. In a C1 Advanced essay there are basically four things:

1. Introduction
2. First topic point
3. Second topic point
4. Conclusion

From that, we can make four paragraphs and this applies to every single essay you are going to
write to practise or in the official exam.
Let’s have another look at our example from earlier. The three options are museums, sports
centres and public gardens. Museums and sports centres are both buildings and probably similar
to talk about so I’m going to choose sports centres and public parks, just because we can contrast
them better in my opinion.

Adding our two topic points to the list from before, this specific essay structure looks like this:

1. Introduction
2. Sports centres
3. Public parks
4. Conclusion

So there you go. I think that the process up this point is fairly simple and from there most
students jump right into the deep end and start to write their essay – but not so fast!

Plan before you start writing

One of the most crucial yet most undervalued tools for excellent writing is a good plan.

It takes around five minutes to make a plan which helps you organise your thoughts and ideas in
a way that makes sense. You will be able to focus on your language and arguments instead of
worrying about possibly forgetting to include content while saving you time. It works and you
should do it as well.
To make your plan just take the list we created above and add a couple of thoughts to each point
so you know what you want to write about.

1. Introduction (panel discussion, local authorities, sports centres & public gardens –>
Which one is more important?)
2. Sports centres (public health, wide variety of activities, social aspect)
3. Public parks (green lung of the city, place to relax from city life, social outdoor activities)
4. Conclusion (sports centres better choice –> more variety, more social, greater health
benefits)

It took me 4 minutes to create this plan. I used the idea from the task for sports centres (“Sports
centrs mean healthier people.”), but I paraphrased it (public health) while the idea for public
parks seems too vague for me so I left it out. Remember that it is optional to include these
thoughts in your essay. If you feel that you have better ones, go for it.

The different parts of an essay

Introduction

The introduction to your essay serves several different purposes. It presents the
topic/question to the reader and puts it in context, introduces the topic points you are going
to discuss and creates interest and anticipation in the reader.

All of this sounds like an awful lot of stuff to include, but with a little bit of practice you’ll find
out that it is a fairly repeatable process. Once you’ve got the hang of it, you’ll produce one great
introduction after another without having to think about it too much.

With all that being said, let’s look at a possible introduction for our example task.

“In recent years, public funding for local facilities has become more problematic for many
towns, which has become more obvious to me after listening to a panel on the financial needs of
several different local facilities like sports centres and public parks. As these places battle for
funds, the main question is which ones deserve the money more.”

Let’s have a closer look at this intro. At the beginning the whole issue is put into the context of
the financial problems many local authorities have experienced. Sports centres and public parks
as our two topic points are included as well and, last but not least, a question is asked to create
a little more interest in the reader.

With all our boxes being ticked we can now move on to the next part of the essay.

Body

After you finish your introduction, you can turn your attention towards the main topic
paragraphs. These are called ‘the body’ of you essay.

Your topic paragraphs should be longer than the introduction and conclusion, but at the same
time balanced and about the same length between the two of them. Remember, however, to stay
within the limit of 220-260 words total.
A couple of characteristics that are useful and important for every topic paragraph are the
following:

1. Start with a topic sentence that makes it clear what the paragraph is about.
2. Always support your arguments with reasons and/or examples.
3. Avoid being too personal unless you give your own opinion at the end of the
paragraph.

This is not rocket science, but let me show you what I mean in a couple of examples.

“It is widely known that sports centres provide many different benefits to the local community.
Someone on the panel mentioned that, from a public-health standpoint, it is crucial to offer
opportunities to exercise in order to keep everyone healthy physically as well as mentally due to
the social character of sports. In addition to that, exercise comes in many different shapes and
forms, from team sports to individual activities like swimming, so there is something for everyone
to enjoy in a dedicated group of people.

While green spaces in a town or city have their own benefits, it can be difficult to maintain such
large areas in order to keep parks pleasant and inviting to everyone. Nevertheless, considered by
many as the green lung of a city their use as a refuge from hectic city life cannot be debated, and
groups of people as well as individuals can be seen following their favourite pastime or
socialising with others, which makes the discussion about allocating funds even more difficult.”

At the beginning of each paragraph it immediately becomes clear what to expect as I mention
sports centres and public parks (green spaces, parks). I managed to include all the points from
our plan and I supported my arguments with some examples. Also, you can see that, for
example, I didn’t use the word ‘I’ in these paragraphs at all even though my opinion on each
point is pretty clear. Instead, I used more general statements (“It is widely known that…”,
“considered by many as…”, “…can be seen”) which help convey your opinion without
simply stating it.

Last but not least, both parts are balanced in terms of their length, but they don’t have to be
perfectly equal. If there is good reason to give one part a little bit more attention over the other,
that’s fine. For example, you can say in your essay that one of the ideas is more complex than the
other, which tells the examiner that you actually thought about this instead of just having messed
up your text. Be clear about it and think it through before you even start writing.

Conclusion

Finally, the conclusion of your essay is there to summarise and to give your opinion on the
topic as well as to answer the question in the task (Which facilities should receive money
from local authorities?). Your opinion can be nuanced and doesn’t have to be simply black or
white as long as you can justify what you say.

In our example, a conclusion might look something like this:

“Taking into account all the positions from above I come to the conclusion that funding should
be allocated to both facilities as they provide essential resources to the local community.
However, due to their more social character and possibly greater public health benefits I would
give more funds to sports centres.”

. The conclusion summarises the findings from the body of the essay and I answered the question
giving my opinion.