One of the criteria according to which your IELTS Writing is marked is Coherence & Cohesion. In this post, we will discuss how to make our writing more coherent by using Conjunctive Adverbs. With this, we can increase our IELTS Writing Task 1 score. Specifically, there are three main contents for us to take into consideration:
- First of all, we will look at a bunch of conjunctive adverbs.
- Next, we will categorize them into groups to see WHEN to use and HOW to use them.
- Last but not least, we will put them into practice!
Video on Coherence – IELTS Writing Task 1 Process
Increasing your Coherence in IELTS Writing Task 1 Process
Conjunctive Adverbs
Conjunctive Adverbs are words or phrases that are considered adverbs. And people (writers and speakers) usually use them to connect their idea and sentences. There are a great number of conjunctive adverbs which is impossible to present in one post. Thus, we are going to look at just a handful of the most frequently used words and phrases.
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The First Step
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Theses are words and phrases indicating that the readers are reading THE FIRST THING.
- First of all,
- To begin with,
- Initially,
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The Second Step
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These are words and phrases that people use to indicate that they are about to read the next thing.
- After that,
- Next,
- Subsequently,
- At this point,
- Then,
- Following this,
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The Last Step
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This group is to indicate the words and phrases that writers and speakers can use when they writing/saying the last thing.
- Eventually,
- Finally,
- Ultimately,
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How to Use Conjunctive Adverbs
It is virtually easy to use conjunctive adverbs. In order to use them, you just have to make sure that before them is a PERIOD and after them is A COMMA. Of course, you also need to make sure that followed and following the adverb is a complete sentence.
Sentence 1. Conjunctive Adverb, Sentence 2.
Another thing to remember is that if “sentence 1” is rather short. Then you can replace period (.) with a semicolon (;).
For example:
- First of all, you should go to the highest floor in the building.
- After that, you jump down (but with a parachute).
Practice in IELTS Writing Task 1 Process
Now I have an exercise for you to do. There are a total of 8 sentences here:
- Pour the water in a cup.
- Fill a kettle with water.
- Add milk and sugar.
- Leave the tea for two minutes.
- Boil the kettle
- Drink the tea.
- Take the kettle off the stove.
- Put a tea bag or tea leaves in the cup.
First of all, I need you to please REORDER it! Specifically, you have to find out what happens first, what happens next,…up to what happens last. After reordering them, you need to put an appropriate conjunctive adverb in between the sentences.
For example, if I think the first step is number (1) and the second step is number (2). Then I’ll write:
To begin with, pour the water into a cup. After that, fill the kettle with water.
Okay, after you have finished doing the exercise, open the Key to check!
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(answer may vary)
First of all, fill the kettle with water. After that, boil the kettle. Then take the kettle off the stove. Following this, pour the water into a cup. At this point, put a tea bag or tea leaves in the cup. Next, leave the tea for two minutes. Subsequently, add milk or sugar. Finally, drink the tea.
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How to Increase Coherence in IELTS Writing
You can, of course, learn these conjunctive adverbs by heart! But I think the better and more effective to learn is to download IELTS Process Writing Test. After that, write yourself some IELTS reports, leave them in the comment for correction. And before you know it (approximately after 5~10 reports), you become a pro! Flowchart and Pictures.
Before you leave
- You may want to watch the whole playlist of IELTS Writing Process Task 1.
- Download the Process test and write as many as you can.
- Don’t be shy and post your reports in the comment section.
- Thanks for watching this video on LearningEnglishM!
