背模板，背作文……这应该是一些烤鸭在应对雅思写作中常用的伎俩吧?烤鸭们拿到雅思作文题目第一个想法是什么?是马上回忆之前背过的跟题目相关的词汇句型呢?还是迅速头脑风暴要写什么?无论如何，在动笔之前一定要对文章有个大致的安排，在心里面给出一个outline!千万不要提笔就写，然后写到一半发现没思路了，或者写着写着就跑题了~~

　　总而言之，写作之前还是好好为你的大作选几个好的ideas，并把它们组织起来~~下面就看看具体怎么操作吧!

　　Planning IELTS essays and finding ideas

　　This lesson looks at how planning better can help you write better essays. I focus in particular on “ideas” – something that catches many candidates out. The two key points are that the ideas you need to write an IELTS essay are fairly simple and it helps to make a difference between ideas, reasons and examples.

　　Problem 1 – not enough ideas 观点不够

　　This is one of most common reasons for candidates to go wrong in the writing paper. They see a question. Try to think of ideas. Come up empty and panic. You will find part of my solution to this below. For now, I will just say that you need very few ideas to write a good essay and those ideas can be simple ideas too. Don’t buy a book on ideas for essays, instead learn this tip:

　　Tip – you need only 2 ideas to write an essay and those ideas are often found in the question

　　Problem 2 – the ideas are confused 观点混淆

　　This is also a very common mistake. There are plenty of ideas to write an essay. The problem is that the reader/examiner does not know what the main ideas are.

　　Tip – make sure you have one main idea per paragraph. This should be clear from the first sentence of the paragraph

　　Problem 3 – too many ideas 观点太多

　　Yes, some people do have too many ideas. This is a trap for candidates aiming for a high score. In particular, if they are used to writing academic essays. IELTS is a 250 word essay marked on language. That means it is probably much shorter than you are used to and there are no marks for quality and quantity of ideas.

　　Tip – select only enough ideas to write a complete essay – that means one per paragraph

　　Finding ideas for essays 怎么确定观点呢?

　　Step 1 – understand the difference between ideas, reasons and examples 区分观点、原因、例子的区别

　　When I ask my students in a class for “ideas”, they quite often stare at me in silence. When I ask them the question “why” or ask them to give me an example, they (normally!) have plenty to say. That should tell you there is a difference between ideas, reasons (why) and examples. The good news is ideas are not the problem in IELTS, what you need are reasons and examples. They are normally much easier to find.

　　A paragraph is one idea: supported with reasons and examples. You only need two ideas.

　　Step 2 – learning where to find ideas for essays?试着从问题里找观点

　　The ideas you need for an essay are nearly always found in the question. They are typically so big that you think they are too easy to be a real idea. That’s the trap. What do I mean? Take this example: