How to write an article
B2 Exam
What is an article?
• An article is usually written for an English-language magazine or
newsletter
• the reader is assumed to have similar interests to the writer.
• The main purpose is to interest and engage the reader, so there
should be some opinion or comment.
Sample article
When you see a task like this (and please remember this for the
future) you have to check two things:
• What do you have to include in your article?
• Who is going to read it?
OK, let’s start with what we have to include. In the box I underlined
three questions we have to answer:
•What is the most useful thing you
have learned?
•Who did you learn it from?
•Why is it useful?
There are three topic points to write about and you will see that there
are always three things that you have to include in your articles. If you
can’t find three topic points, then look again because they must be
there.
Writing style
• in articles we normally expect the readers to be people like us so we
can write in a more informal style.
• Informal English means that you should use
+)contractions like ‘I’m’ or ‘don’t’
+) colloquial words and expressions, for example, ‘awesome’ or ‘tons
of’.
+) add some phrasal verbs because they are definitely a feature of
informal language
+)involve the reader personally by addressing them directly and even
ask a question or two.
How to organize your article
• Paragraph 1: Title & Introduction / Topic point 1 (What is the thing
you learned?)
• Paragraph 2: Topic point 2 (Who did you learn it from?)
• Paragraph 3: Topic point 3 (Why is it useful?)
• Closing paragraph / conclusion
Introduction
In your introduction you always want to get the reader interested in
your article. Your goal is to make the reader want to continue. As
always, there are a couple of things for you to remember when you
start writing:
• Give your article a title.
• Start with a personalised question.
• Include the topic and give your opinion or comment on it.
Sample introduction
The most useful thing I’ve ever learned (Title)
Have you ever learned something that completely changed your life? I
(personalized question)
can remember exactly how it was for me when I got interested in
(your opinion and comment)
learning English and who helped me become the person I am today.
Body
In our plan we decided to break the topic points up into two
paragraphs, but we also have to focus on the other requirements of an
FCE article:
• Stick to the topic and don’t write about unrelated things.
• Support your answers with some examples and/or reasons.
• Use neutral to informal language (check the section ‘What a typical
article task looks like’ above to find out what that means).
• Use other language to make your article sound more interesting
(adjectives/adverbs, idioms, phrasal verbs, linking words, play with
some grammar).
Sample body
• I had always been in love with English music and I put in some
work by myself, but only when I ended up in the English class of Mr.
Weiss I got completely hooked. His amazing style of teaching struck a
chord and my skills skyrocketed in no time.
• Feeling confident, I took the leap and moved
to beautiful Australia where I was able to travel and even call it
home for over seven years. And you know what?! I became an English
teacher and now help people who are just like I used to be with the
same passion as Mr. Weiss.
Conclusion
Last but not least, we want to round off our article with a good closing
paragraph. In the conclusion we want to achieve a few different things:
• Summarise what you wrote in your article.
• Comment on the topic or give your opinion one last time.
• End your article in an interesting way.
Sample conclusion
• I really think that I wouldn’t be teaching English had it not been for
Mr. Weiss and his inspirational lessons. So, looking back, I hope my
experience inspires others to find ways to help the people around
them as well.
