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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.