Steps in writing a discussion essay

There are some useful steps to make an effective discussion essay. The steps are also important in the real exam where you can manage your time effectively. The first step is to build a home consisting our main ideas or mind map in which the topic sentence are expanded into more details to support the author's arguments. As an example, this post will try to respond to the following question:

Can a country keep its traditional way of life and develop? Or does development necessarily mean a change in traditions?

The picture below shows how we can develop a home to respond to that question.

Now we can expand those ideas to write an essay. We will present the results on the next postings..

Read More

General English: Describing a place

BALI, The Island of The Gods

When you say ‘Bali’, most westerners will think of paradise tourism. Bali is a famous beautiful island known as ‘The Island of The Gods’.

Bali is located between Java and Lombok. It has an area of 5620 square km. The island is dramatically mountainous. Gunung Agung, known as The Mother Mountain, is over 3000 m high. Bali has four lakes: Lake Batur, which is located in Kintamani, and Lake Buyan, Lake Tamblingan, and Lake Beratan, which are located in the Bedugul area. Other famous natural things of Bali are its beaches. Kuta Beach is the widest beach where you can surf, swim, and watch the sunset. At Sanur Beach you can canoe, parasail, or look at the sunrise while At Tulamben you can snorkel and dive. Another beach is Lovina Beach, which is located in Buleleng, where you can see dolphins in the morning.

Bali is densely populated with approximately 3.1 million people. Most of its citizens are concentrated in Denpasar, the capital of Bali. Bali has 9 regencies i.e. Denpasar, Jembrana, Tabanan, Klungkung, Karangasem, Bangli, Badung, Gianyar, and Buleleng. Ninety percent of its people are Hindus. Therefore, there are many sea temples e.g. Tanah Lot Temple and Luhur Ulu Watu Temple, and traditional ceremonies such as Ngaben, Nyepi, and Galungan. Each temple has its own birthday festival known as Odalan. Ngaben is a cremation ceremony. Nyepi is the New Year’s Day for Hindus when they celebrate by keeping silent. Thus, there should be no fire/ light, no travel/ walking, no entertainment, no work, and Hindus is suggested to fast.

The average temperature hovers around 30 degree Celcius all year. There are two seasons in Bali i.e. the wet season and the dry season. The wet season runs from October and lasts on March while the dry season runs from April and lasts on September.

There’s very little manufacturing industry in Bali, so industrial pollution is not a big problem. Amongst all the industries, tourism accounts for about one-third of Bali’s formal economy.

Bali has some traditional food such as lawar, spit-roasted pig, Betutu Chicken, and Siobak. Those foods are all spicy. There are also snake fruits and salted peanuts that you can find in supermarkets or traditional markets.

Regrettably, Bali has limited public transportation. Still, we can travel to many places by taxi, car, motorbike or minibus. So, if you were looking for a tropical island holiday, then Bali would be well worth a visit.

Prepared by Arima and Ady ADS6mE

Read More

Describing a process: Making Chocolate

The writing example below is an example of writing task 1 in IELTS test. Unfortunately, we could not provide the picture of the process.

The first diagram illustrates the process of making chocolate. The process begins with cocoa grinding, in which cocoa seeds are grinded to produce cocoa liquor. It also results waste products. Then, cocoa liquor either is pressed become cocoa powder and sold to food industry or is pressed become cocoa butter. Next, industrial chocolate is made from cocoa liquor or cocoa butter. Finally, sugar and other ingredients are added to refine the industrial chocolate and produce chocolate bar.

The second diagram shows how is the proportion from the retail price of a chocolate bar divided up. The pie chart indicates that the farmer who provides the raw material receive only 4% of the retail price. The supermarket, on the other hand, receives 34%. A rather small 10% due to the chocolate company while 15% is taken by the government in the form of taxes. The cost of overheads and production, make up the largest proportion, 37% of the retail price of a chocolate bar.

Submitted by Ady (ADS6mE, 2006)

Read More