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Supporting ideas

This section is just about how to support your ideas with content. For phrasing, please look at the coherence and cohesion page.

What does it mean to support ideas?

You need to make your ideas in the body paragraphs clear to the reader.

How can I support my ideas?

There are 3 main ways you can support your ideas:

Give examples (structures)
Give reasons (structures)
Give results (structures)

You don't have to choice just one, and sometimes you can mix them together such as an example of a result or a reason.

What should I avoid doing?

Avoid using very local examples that may not be clear to a reader in another country because your writing might be checked by an examiner in another country.

Example:

Living in cities is more convenient as there are many options to get around the city such as using the MRT.

In this example, the MRT is the metro system in Singapore, but a person outside of Singapore may not know what it means.

What are some common mistakes made when supporting ideas?

One common error is giving a very unclear example, reason, and/or result.

Example:

Modern technology has made life easier such as food apps.

Even though an example has been given, it is not clear to the reader how food apps have made life easier.

Another common error is repeating the same information through paraphrasing it.

Example:

There are many students who wish to study in a famous western university to get a good education. This is because these institutions are renowned for providing high quality courses.

Even though a reason has been given, it is just repeating the same information as the idea. Look at it again with words highlighted which have the same meaning:

There are many students who wish to study in a famous western university to get a good education. This is because these institutions are renowned for providing high quality courses.

Brainstorming support

I find it helps to think of it in a linear pattern when planning support. Put your idea in the middle and think of what causes it on the left side, and what it results in on the right side. Examples can go anywhere.

Look at the following examples:

Topic: Living in a city

Body paragraph 1: Advantages - many cultural events/ job opportunities.

Body paragraph 2: Disadvantages - high cost of living/ traffic congestion.

Let's take the disadvantage of traffic congestion and think about how it can be supported in the table below.

What support should I choose?

There is too much in that table to wrote in your essay, so you need to select the support you wish to include. I recommend thinking about these three points when selecting your support:

Which will make it clear to the reader?
Which answers the essay question best?
Which can I write well? (Show off some good vocabulary.

Sample body paragraphs

Topic sentence

Idea

Example

Reason

Result

There are considerable advantages gained when an individual resides in a city. This dweller will likely have access to far greater job opportunities than living in small villages. This is because many businesses have their offices in cities offering a greater range of jobs such as administrative roles, accounting, and lawyers to name just a few, whereas outside of the city jobs are often limited to labour positions involving farming or factories. A further incentive to reside in urban areas is the greater amount of cultural event available. This can easily be seen in London where there are many national museums including the British museum and the Tate modern. This means a lot of different interests are covered for all to be entertained and informed.

Despite those clear benefits, living in an urban environment is not without significant drawbacks. One of the most obvious is the high cost of living that comes with living there. It is common for necessities like accommodation and transport to be far more expensive in a city than in other areas. Consequently, they have a lower expendable income and a reduced ability to save money. Traffic congestion also negatively affects the daily inhabitants. Due to the large population in cities, especially mega cities like Beijing and Tokyo where the populations are in the tens of millions, there are too many vehicles on the roads. Such congestion produces a substantial amount of air pollution, causing a lot of health problems, particularly respiratory diseases.