IELTS Research Reports

Anthony Green and Roger HawkeyText searchJane Anne William Elizabeth‘I don’t normally have textswaiting’‘I have certain sources that Igo to regularly’’There were quite a few textsand I made a decision‘Texts are nearly alwaysnearly three or four times thelength we will need’If I can’t understand a text, Iwouldn’t use itOpinion texts are moredifficult to find‘You can’t assume that thecandidates are specialists’Sometimes has to reject textsat her typing stage ‘one of thehardest decisions to take’‘I think sometimes beinginterested in a text is apositive disadvantage’It is a challenge to findarticles that have enoughdiscrete information oropinions: ‘A lot of articles, theproblem is they say the samething in different ways’It may not be for theacademic reader, it may befor the interested layperson…if the complexity is rightThe over complexity is whenthe research itself or thetopic itself needs so muchspecialist languageThis text was longtherefore… ‘I ended upnot only cutting it a lot andmoving things around morethan I would aim to dousually’Journalistic texts tend tobegin from a hook – anexample or ‘attractive littleanecdote’ – more academictexts start from the generaland move to the specificexamples. IELTS texts shouldreflect the latter an have anacademic tone.‘Adapt the text to fit thetasks’, don’t see the text as‘sacrosanct’‘Rewriting the text and tryingout a task, then rewriting thetext again and so on’ ‘Make atask loosely based on the textthen make sure the text canfit the task.’Expressing a number ofideas and opinions, whichwould make it a Section 3If its fairly factual moreSection 1Genuine academic texts areunsuitable because theyassume too much knowledgeand would require too muchexplanationI try and make sure that Iunderstand it and can make itcomprehensibleArticles that are not writtenby a specialist, but by ajournalist can misrepresent asubject. To check this, ‘I quiteoften Google stuff or askpeople [about the topic]’Need to edit out referencesto ‘amazing’, ‘surprising’ or‘incredible’ information injournalistic text292 www.ielts.org