Concision Rides Again (10 of 12) @ Andrew安德魯雅思權威

Concision Rides Again (10 of 12)

No one wants an IELTS 5, right? Let’s look at the original paragraph from the previous post.

Another cause of the losing of culture of aboriginal groups is that the youth of these native aboriginals usually do not understand the importance of protecting their unique and traditional customs. These days, most aboriginal children need to go to the city to get an education, and most of them stay and do not go back to their hometowns after they graduate from university. As a result, they usually lose the opportunity to undertstand the history of their culture. [79 words]

I will cut this to …

Another cause of cultural loss is that the the youth involved often fail to understand the importance of their customs. They usually go to cities for education, and seldom return. [30 words]

This time I didn’t cut out as much as the previous ‘circling paragraph’, but I certainly cut out a lot. Why?

Well, the first sentence was good enough, so I kept that part, although I did not repeat the word ‘aboriginal(s)’ or use the unnecessary ‘protecting their unique and traditional’, since these words would have been used before earlier in the essay, and therefore already be clear. For stylish purposes, I tried to remove the ‘do not’, using the less common ‘fail to’ instead. [See my IELTS Writing Two book, Tip 7, Hint 5.]

Another cause of cultural loss is that the the youth involved often fail to understand the importance of their customs.

Similarly, the second sentence was okay, but ‘education’ = ‘graduate from university’, so we didn’t need the second phrase. If we change the ‘usually do not’ to ‘seldom’, we can give exactly the same message with:

They usually go to cities for education, and seldom return.

This is so concise, and crystal clear. As for the third sentence, it just repeats; hence, it can be removed completely. So, we are left with:

Another cause of cultural loss is that the the youth involved often fail to understand the importance of their customs. They usually go to cities for education, and seldom return. [30 words]

However, because I am an IELTS teacher, I’ll take this further. Instead of giving the reason using the structure, ‘... is that [Subj.]+[Verb] ...’, I’ll follow my tip in my IELTS Writing Task Two book, Tip 6: Hint 6: Think about Noun Phrases, which says, ...

Think about formal nouns for some of your verbs.

... and Tip 8: ‘Reason Grammar’, which says, ...

The second grammar [Noun Phrases] is more academic but [harder to write].

Another cause of cultural loss is the rejection of its relevance. The youth involved usually go to cities for education, and seldom return.

[23 words]

Well, we really need to build up this paragraph. Do you remember how to do it? Tip 16 of my book (‘Include Specific Support’) mentions a simple way to think.