PEARSON
LONGMAN
Essay Activator
YOUR KEY TO WRITING SUCCESS
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PDF-ed by Tri Nguyen tee.freezie@yahoo.com
Table of Contents
Introduction 5
Advantages & Disadvantages 6
Writing about advantages 6
Writing about disadvantages 7
Agreeing 9
To agree with someone or something 9
To partly agree with someone or something 10
When a group of people agree 10
Aim or Purpose 12
Ways of saying what the aim or purpose of something is 12
Words meaning aim or purpose 13
Approximate / Exact 15
Words meaning approximately 15
Words meaning exactly 16
Causes 18
To cause something to happen 18
Ways of saying that something is caused by another thing 20
To be one of the things that cause something to happen 20
Certainty & Uncertainty 23
Ways of saying that you are certain about something 23
Ways of saying that you are not certain about something 24
Comparing & Contrasting 26
What you say when comparing things or people 26
To compare things or people 27
Concluding 29
What you say when concluding your essay or argument 29
Saying again what your aims were at the conclusion of an essay 30
Decreasing 31
To decrease 31
To make something decrease 32
A decrease 34
When something stops decreasing 35
Disagreeing 36
To disagree with someone or with an opinion 36
When people disagree about something 37
Causing disagreement 37
Effects 39
Words meaning effect 39
To affect something or someone 40
Emphasizing 42
What you say when emphasizing that something is important 42
Ways of emphasizing one person or thing more than others 43
To emphasize something 44
Explaining 45
What you say when you are explaining something 45
Words meaning to explain something 46
Giving Example 48
What you say when giving an example 48
What you say when there are a lot of other examples of something 49
To give something or someone as an example 50
Giving Exceptions 51
Ways of saying that something or someone is an exception 51
Someone or something that is not included 52
Giving Opinions 53
What you say when giving your opinion about something 53
Ways of saying what another person's opinion is 54
To say what your opinion is about something 55
Giving Reasons 56
What you say when giving reasons for something 56
Words meaning reason 57
A reason that does not seem believable 59
Increasing 60
To increase 60
To make something increase 61
An increase 63
When something does not increase, or stops increasing 65
Linking Parts Of A Sentence 66
Words meaning 'and' or 'also' 66
Words meaning 'because' 67
Words meaning 'but' or 'although' 69
Words meaning 'if' 71
Words meaning 'in order to' 72
Words meaning 'or' 73
Words meaning 'therefore' 74
Listing & Ordering 77
What you say when ordering a group of things that you want to mention 77
Ways of introducing a list of reasons, causes, points etc 79
Making Generalizations 81
1 .Ways of saying that something is true about most people or things 81
2. To say that something is true about most people or things 83
Problems & Solutions 84
Problems 84
Small problems 86
Solutions 87
Quoting People 90
Ways of quoting what someone has said 90
Reffering 92
Referring to an earlier part of an essay, report etc 92
Referring to a later part of an essay, report etc 93
Referring to another piece of work 94
Related / Unrelated 97
Ways of saying that two things are related 97
Related to what is being discussed 99
Not related 99
Not related to what you are discussing 100
Showing & Proving 102
To show that something is true 102
To show that something is likely 104
To show that something is untrue 105
Study & Research 106
To study something in order to try to find out more about it 106
The work of studying something 107
A piece of writing by someone who is studying a subject 109
The results of someone's research 110
Subjects & Topics 111
Ways of saying what the subject of something is 111
Words meaning subject 112
Introduction
The Essay Activator has been created to help you improve your written English. By varying the range of vocabulary and expressions that you use, your essays will become richer and your grades will improve.
You can see from the menu on the left-hand side of your screen that there are 28 Essay Activators. Each of these contains all the important words and phrases that can be used to perform a particular function in your essay, for example showing that you agree with an idea (Agreeing); explaining how something has increased (Increasing) or saying what other people think (Quoting People). The language covered by the Essay Activator is not related to any particular subject area. For subject-related vocabulary you should look at the Topic Activator.
Each Essay Activator is divided into sections. Look, for example, at the Essay Activator on Giving Examples. This is divided into 3 sections: what you say when giving an example; what you say when there are a lot of other examples of something; to give someone or something as an example. If you want to give some examples in your essay, look at Section 1 and you will find a variety of words and phrases to avoid repeating for example every time: for instance, be a case in point, by way of illustration etc. If there are a lot of examples you could mention, look at Section 2 for ways of dealing with this: such as, including, to name but a few etc.
Each word or phrase is followed by an explanation of the meaning and/or use and is illustrated with example sentences. These examples can be used as models for you to produce your own natural-sounding sentences.
In each of the Essay Activators you will also find Study Notes about grammar and formality. For example, in Section 2 of Giving Examples there is a Study Note at such as to explain that there is not usually a comma before this phrase, whereas there is usually one before for example and including.
Look at the Exercises section of the Writing Handbook for activities which will help you to practise using the vocabulary included in the Essay Activators.
Advantages & Disadvantages
Writing about advantages
Writing about disadvantages
1. Writing about advantages
advantage noun [countable] a good feature that something has, which makes it better, more useful etc than other things:
The great advantage of digital cameras is that there is no film to process.
The advantage of using a specialist firm is that the people who work there have years of experience.
One of the big advantages of this type of engine is that it is smaller and lighter than a conventional petrol engine.