When we want to either recommend a specific person or course of action for a B2 or C2-level English examination we have to be clear that we don't confuse these types of letters or emails with the typical, business recommendation letters prospective employers or administration offices at universities might require candidates to give. At the exam you are about to sit, you will probably be required to play the part of someone who has been asked to a)  nominate a peer for a position at school or at a club, or put someone's name forward for an award that is to be given or b) suggest, among many other things, the best place to go on holiday or some activities that should held during a specific event which is set to take place, how to spend money at one's disposal, and so on. The following post should help you organize such a letter or email (even an oral statement, if necessary) as well as give you some useful phrases you should keep in mind when writing your...

In the first article in this series of posts, Essay Writing: The Overall Organization of an Essay , I pointed out what the general layout of an academic essay should look like. Today, we're going to see how the first paragraph of such an essay should be organized. By way of reminder, an entirely different organization is possible, but for the sake of helping exam takers sitting timed EFL (English as a foreign language and not the English Football League!) examinations, I stick to one particular style so that test-takers can focus on one kind of layout which should save time. Note also that I'm writing about academic essays and not letters or emails, reports, proposals, newspaper or magazine articles, or narratives. Those varieties of written work have their own traits and therefore need to be discussed in separate blog posts (which I hope to eventually address at some later time). But for now, let's get back to our academic essay introduction.

Let's bring different cases to the forefront and see if any of them fit the predicament you're in. Case 1: A teacher has told you to write an essay.  Case 2: You are preparing to sit an exam that determines your level of English and which includes a section that instructs you to write an academic essay. Case 3: You are a teacher who needs to explain how students should organize essays and aren't quite sure where to start from. All three of these cases have a common denominator called "essay" which needs to be tackled. What I've seen throughout the years is that students find the task of writing an essay daunting. The difficulties they tend to have are the following:

Whether it's to complain about something you bought or a service you found was unsatisfactory, as part of your job or because you are preparing to take an exam in English at B2 or C2 level, it is a fact that you should know the basics about writing or even orally expressing your dissatisfaction.  The following post should help you organize your letter or email (even an oral statement, if necessary) as well as give you some useful phrases you can use.

This overview gives you the basics to letter and essay writing primarily required for the Examination for the Certificate in Competency in English (ECCE) awarded by the University of Michigan but can, nonetheless, be used for writing at B2 level for other ESL assessments as well. This b log post is a starting point to help teach candidates the tricks to passing a test at B2 level and a springboard for writing tasks at subsequent levels (C1 and C2).  In any case, some of the pointers mentioned herein are so crucial to writing in an academic environ ment that if you grasp them , then you can transfer them onto any type of writing you may be asked to produce , no matter the level or context. The first main area to cover has to do with general pointers: L earn to use set phrases from sample essays provided in self-study textbooks or found here (look under the B2 or ECCE labels or follow the link from the key words category under ' letter ', ' essay ' or ...