When writing an essay, there might be many times when you find yourself repeating a word again and again, and you cannot think of a way to paraphrase it. This is a very common problem for many students. We all know that we need to paraphrase keywords to avoid repeating them, but there will be situations in which our range of vocabulary is not enough for us to do it.
Don’t worry. If you find yourself in this situation again, there is a simple trick. You can use the phrase ‘this/these + a noun’ to replace almost any word that you don’t want to repeat in your essay.
Let’s look at an example to make things clearer.
Example 1.
Let’s say you’re writing an essay which discusses the advantages and disadvantages of museums. We all know that there is no perfect synonym for the word ‘museum’, which means it is likely that you will have to repeat this word many times throughout your essay.
However, this problem can be solved using the aforementioned trick. You can use ‘this/these + a noun’ to replace the word ‘museum’. In this case, you can use ‘these places’ or ‘these sites’. You can write like this:
-> ‘There are several benefits of museums. Firstly, these sites can help visitors learn about the culture and history of a country’.
As you can see, this trick allows you to avoid repeating the same word in two consecutive sentences.
Example 2.
Let’s look at another example. You are writing about why doctors should be highly paid. In this case, ‘doctors’ is also a word that does not have a synonym, and this makes it very difficult for us to paraphrase it. Then, what should we do? It’s simple. Just use the phrase ‘these individuals’ or ‘these people’.
-> ‘There are several reasons why doctors should receive a high salary. The first reason is that these individuals contribute greatly to improvements in citizens’ health.’
Okay, now you can see that this is a great trick. But that’s not everything. You can also use this trick when writing Task 1 essays.
Example 3.
Let’s say we’re looking at a bar chart with all the figures recorded in one country, Canada. As all the figures are in Canada, does this mean you have to repeat the word ‘Canada’ again and again in your essay?
I don’t think so. Just simply use the phrase ‘this country’ to replace it.
-> ‘The percentage of Internet users in Canada was lowest, at 20% of the total population in this country.’
Okay, so this is a simple trick that you can use when writing an IELTS essay. This trick is particularly useful for those of you who do not possess a wide range of vocabulary. Remember this trick and use it for your next essays!
