If you are doing TOEFL IBT then you know you have speaking and writing sections to do along with all the listening and reading sections. Did you know that great speeches, pieces of writing and You Tube "talky" videos all have something in common - structure! There's other stuff too like vocabulary and interesting sentence construction but the main thing I am going to focus on here is the common structure you can use for the speaking and writing sections.
You may have seen this simple essay structure in the past but if you haven't, I will explain it for you. It is what I use to help my students with their writing.
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Source: www.onlineteaching.humanities.curtin.edu.au |
Introduction
Having decided on the main theme of your work (the thesis),the introduction is where you state what you are going to talk about. It is an inverted triangle because you should go from a general opening that may include a bit of history and background, to the actual point you are going to argue.Middle Paragraphs
Each paragraph represents one argument to back up the point you are making. It should begin with a topic sentence, should develop that topic and at the end, should restate strongly the topic of the paragraph and link to the next paragraph.
Conclusion
The triangle is the opposite of the introduction triangle because the opening of this paragraph is a restatement of the thesis, followed by a summary of the arguments used, and speculation on whether different approaches to the question may be taken in the future due to future developments, for example.
If you follow this simple structure for your TOEFL writing and speaking exercises, it should help you to be more organised and to focus on the question you have been asked to answer. Of course, using this structure for other work such as speeches and You Tube videos is another possibility.
And to see great speech/essay structure in action, watch this TED Talk (or read the transcript)!
A historic moment in the Arab world
I hope this helps!
