Basic Structure for IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 -- and Skills You Need For It

Visual information that you could be given in Task 1 of IELTS Academic Writing include line graphs, bar graphs, pie charts, tables, processes, maps, or a combination of two types. Below is a basic structure that applies to most types of questions. 

Part	Description	Examples
​Introduction / Opening statement	Introduce the information that is being presented in the visual--graph, chart, map, diagram, etc--by paraphrasing the question. If it's data, include when and where the data was taken, and other relevant information presented in the visual.	The pie charts compare the average expenses of families in Japan in the years 1980 and 2010.  The diagram shows how red wine is produced. The table shows how much time different age groups spend on various types of internet activities namely online shopping, social networking, video streaming, and playing games.
Overview*	​Write the overview. Give a big-picture summary of the trends, most notable features, changes, or main processes that you see in the visual.  Identify if there is an increase, decrease, fluctuation or any other notable change in the graphic.	​Overall, the United States was the top importer of coffee over this period followed by Germany and France. To summarize, the town has gone through major changes transforming it from a countryside village to a resort city in eighty years.
Main text	​Select and describe all the key features of the graphic. Compare and/or contrast specific data to illustrate and support your descriptions.	According to the pie chart, more than half, or 55%, of cocoa beans imported into Switzerland came from Ghana. Although both companies increased their market share by 2% in 2022, Samsung still leads the smartphone market by having a 22% share compared to Apple's 19%.

*The overview could come at the end, but because it is a very important assessment criteria identified in the band descriptors, it's a good idea to ensure that it gets done by writing it immediately after the opening statement. 

What skills then do you need to get good at?

1. For the introduction, you need to be able to:

• paraphrase Task 1 questions to describe more quickly what a graphic is about.
• understand all types of visual information, whether pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs, and process diagrams to  know what each type of graphic is used for. 

​2. To write an effective overview, you need to know how to:

• understand  the overall trends, processes, developments, etc. in a graphic

3. To write the main text, you ought to be able to:

• know how to describe information accurately
• identify the numbers or data that are the most significant; for example, the highest or lowest elements, the elements that remain stable or unchanged, or if there are notable points of change
• identify things that have changed in other types of diagrams such as maps; for example, changes in buildings, roads, locations or other elements
• compare and contrast relevant parts of graphs and diagrams
• identify and accurately describe each stage in process diagrams

4. Finishing Writing Task 1 within the allocated time. 

• Test-takers are given only one hour to finish the whole Writing Test comprising of Task 1 and Task 2. 
• It is recommended to allocate only 20 minutes for Writing Task 1 and the rest of the hour (40 minutes) for Writing Task 2. 
• The challenge then for test-takers is to develop the ability to understand visual information quickly and write an accurate description within 20 minutes. This may not be an easy task for people who don't do this kind of writing but with enough structured practice, a test-taker can learn a step-by-step system to write more coherently on test day.