🦩 IELTS writing: a case of fixed CC 🦩

🗒 Topic: "Some people say that the best way to teach children to behave well is to punish them. Others argue that rewarding and praising children is a better way to teach them the difference between right and wrong. Discuss both views and give your own opinion."

🗒 Here is the student's paragraph arguing the first view.

"On the one hand, it could be argued that punishment is the most effective instrument to make children acquire social norms. Knowing that misbehavior is punished, children are likely to follow the rules set by adults. When experienced on a regular basis, unpleasant emotions, associated with punishment, such as fear and guilt, will encourage children to avoid them in the future. Punishment is therefore believed by some people to have a much more forceful effect than any other method."

In the third sentence, "negative emotions" come out of the blue, which means cohesion is lacking. Why don't we connect the emotions to the punishment more directly?

🗒 My re-write:

"On the one hand, it could be argued that punishment is the most effective instrument to make children acquire social norms. When children are punished, they experience negative emotions, such as fear and guilt. In order to avoid these unpleasant emotions in the future, children follow the rules set by adults and avoid misbehaving. Punishment is therefore believed by some people to have a much more forceful effect than any other method."

The paragraph now has a smoother flow.

🗒 And here is a paragraph from my essay:

"On the one hand, it could be argued that punishment is the best behavior modification technique as it teaches children out of undesirable behavior most effectively and quickly. It does so because when children are punished for unacceptable actions, they indelibly connect these to extremely unpleasant emotions. This deters them from repeating the actions because avoiding negative consequences or feelings is an inherent drive all people have. Punishment is thus believed by some people to have a much stronger effect on behavior than any other technique."

My original paragraph is more complex than the student's paragraph or than my rewrite, but I think it's important to move from simplicity to complexity one step at a time rather than trying to write something fancy and complex immediately (it won't work anyway).

Btw, did you know that I write almost all the IELTS tasks I give my students? 😜