2- You shall not confuse ‘a‘ with ‘an‘

Yes! That’s right. It is easy but often ignored. Always pay attention to the sound of the next word not the letter.

• A one-year-old child knows his or her mother instantly.
• An SMS in Britain costs a few pennies.
• A usual job for an unusual person.

3- No contraction of any kind!

Writing is considered more formal than speaking; therefore, we should not write words the way we use them in speaking. In IELTS, you had better write words in their full forms. For instance:

• ads => advertisements
• don’t => do not
• can’t => cannot (be careful how ‘not’ is attached to the word ‘can’. It is one word NOT two)

Exceptions: i.e. and e.g. and etc. are contracted forms of Latin words and are accepted and considered formal in their short forms.

What is more, in General Training writing task 1, it is OK to use contraction.

• I’m writing to inform you about …

4- No less than 3 sentences for a paragraph

A healthy paragraph is a group of six to twelve sentences. You need to have enough sentences to support the main idea in any paragraph you write. Avoid writing paragraphs with 1 or 2 sentences as they seem incomplete.

5- Remember capitalization

Here are some situations where you need to use an upper-case letter:

• ‘i‘ is always I no matter where it is; for example, as far as I am concerned, …
• Beginning of sentences
• Abbreviations of English words: USA, AIDS, NATO, …
• Proper names and names of cities and countries and nationalities: John, New York, English
• Days of the week and months of the year

6- Honor words for numbers

Instead of writing 2 in digits, write ‘two’ as a word. What is more, avoid starting a sentence with numbers but if you have no other choice, consider writing it in full form.

• There are 2 important factors to consider.
• There are two important factors to consider.
• 25 years are left to the completion of this project.
• Twenty-five years are left to the completion of this project.

7- Never miss a comma after discourse markers

When starting a sentence by discourse markers, commenting adverbs, adverbs of time and place always put a comma right after them:

• Interestingly, the thieves did not find any jewels.
• First, you should prepare the table. Then, start decorating it.
• In the US, the Americans tend to eat more than average people in Europe.

8- Do not commit tense confusion

Your sentences should remain loyal to the given verb tense. By that we mean, the verb and the adverb must go with each other.

• Yesterday, we have a nice meal.
• Yesterday, we had a nice meal.
• My friend and I have watched this film last night.
• My friend and I watched this film last night.

9- Bear in mind your word count

Count the number of words you write in a normal line. That is a key piece of knowledge every English learner and especially IELTS candidate needs to know. Through this, you can estimate the number of words you have written. For example, if you normally write on average 10 words in a line, you need to write at least 15 lines for IELTS writing task 1 (150 words).

10- Take examples seriously

The main idea of a paragraph should be fully supported with examples and further support. If you do not support your argument with enough details and explanations, the reader may fail to comprehend what you exactly mean.