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How To Write an IELTS Process Diagram Essay

An IELTS process diagram question can contain a wide variety of different types of graphics. It could be a natural process such as the water cycle, a manufacturing process or a diagram of a system.

Using these 5 steps will help you to write a high-scoring process diagram essay:

1)  Analyse the question

2)  Identify the main features

3)  Write an introduction

4)  Write an overview

5)  Write the details paragraphs

In this lesson, we’re going to work through the 5 stages step-by-step as we answer a practice question.

Before we begin, here’s a model essay structure that you can use as a guideline for all IELTS Academic Task 1 questions.

Ideally, your essay should have 4 paragraphs:

Paragraph 1  – Introduction

Paragraph 2  – Overview

Paragraph 3  – 1 st  main feature

Paragraph 4  – 2 nd  main feature

We now have everything we need to begin planning and writing our IELTS process diagram essay.

Here’s our practice question:

The diagrams below show a structure that is used to generate electricity from wave power.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

Generating Electricity From The Sea

Source: Official website IELTS Essentials

Step 1 –  Analyse the question

The format of every Academic Task 1 question is the same, with the instruction sentence (highlighted below) identical in every question. Here is our practice question again.

Every question consists of:

• Sentence 1 – A brief description of the graphic
• Sentence 2 – The instructions
• The graphic – diagram, chart, graph, table, etc.

Sentence 2 tells you what you have to do.

You must do 3 things:

1.     Select the main features.

2.     Write about the main features.

3.     Compare the main features.

All three tasks refer to the ‘ main features ’ of the graphic. You  do not  have to write about everything. Just pick out 2 or 3 key features and you’ll have plenty to write about.

Step 2 – Identify the Main Features

The graphic in IELTS process diagram questions should not be difficult to understand. There are not usually any numbers to analyse as in other types of question, just a diagram to interpret or, as in our practice question, two diagrams which each show part of the process.

All you are looking for are the main features. These should be the easiest things to spot. There will be lots of information in the graphic to help you identify them, especially, titles, labels and captions.

Here are some useful questions to ask?

1) Is it a linear or a cyclical process?

A linear process starts and finishes at different places. It will often involve the manufacture or creation of something, starting with the raw materials going in at one end and the finished product coming out the other end. An example of this can be seen in this diagram from a past IELTS process diagram question about the manufacture of bricks.

Linear process

A cyclical process, on the other hand, is a process that goes back to the beginning and repeats over and over again, such as the life cycle of a frog or a butterfly.

Cyclical process

2) Where does the process start and end?

For a linear process this will usually be obvious. It may be harder to determine for a cyclical process so it’s important that you examine the graphic carefully to find out.

3) How many steps are there to the process?

If there are a lot, it can be helpful to number them from 1 to whatever number the final stage is.

4) Can the process be easily broken down into stages?

In the brick-making graphic, for example, there are three stages:

a) Creating the bricks from clay

b) Manufacturing the finished product by drying and firing

c) Packaging and delivery

In the life cycle graphic above, there are also three distinct stages as the frog passes through different stages of development – egg, juvenile, adult.

5) What are the raw materials? What is produced at the end of the process?

These questions obviously apply only to manufacturing processes.

For other types of process, it might be more appropriate to ask the following question.

6) What is the end result of the process?

This question is relevant for our practice IELTS process diagram question which shows a process that creates something using a particular structure. The end result is the production of electricity.

So, what main features stand out in our practice graphic? Here it is again.

This graphic doesn’t contain very much detail. There are only two stages to the process:

Stage 1:  Electricity is generated as the wave flows into the structure (Diagram A).

Stage 2:  Electricity is also created as the receding wave draws air back down the column (Diagram B).

Other diagrams are more complex and you have to go through them stage by stage to work out what’s happening and then pick out just 2 or 3 main feature to write about.

The key features you select will be the starting point for your essay. You will then go on to add more detail later. However, with just 20 minutes allowed for Task 1, and a requirement of only 150 words, you won't be able to include many details.

We’re now ready to begin writing our essay. Here’s a reminder of the 4 part structure we’re going to use.

Step 3 – Write an Introduction 

In the introduction, you should simply paraphrase the question, that is, say the same thing in a different way. You can do this by using synonyms and changing the sentence structure. For example:

Introduction (Paragraph 1): 

The two diagrams illustrate a method of creating electricity from the force of waves using a specifically designed man-made construction.

This is all you need to do for the introduction.

Step 4 – Write an Overview (Paragraph 2)

In the second paragraph, you should give a general description of the diagram/s or process. The detail comes later in the essay.

State the information simply using synonyms where possible. No elaborate vocabulary or grammar structures are required, just the appropriate words and correct verb tenses.

For example:

Overview  (Paragraph 2): 

The structure, consisting of a wave chamber and a tall column containing a turbine, is erected on a steeply sloping coastal cliff or sea wall where it is subject to the movement of the ocean waves.

Step 5  – Write the 1st Detail Paragraph

Paragraphs 3 and 4 of your IELTS process diagram essay are where you include more detailed information. In paragraph 3, you should explain the first key feature in more detail.

For this question, we will expand on the first stage of the process. Here it is again:

Stage 1: Electricity is generated as the wave flows into the structure (Diagram A).

And this is an example of what you could write:

Paragraph 3 :

The first diagram shows how the incoming wave fills a large chamber and forces the air inside this space up the column and through the turbine. The pressure of the air rotates the turbine which generates a current of electricity. The process does not end there for the structure is able to continue producing power as the sea recedes as can be seen in the second diagram.

Step 6  – Write the 2nd Detail Paragraph

For the fourth and final paragraph, you do the same thing for your remaining key features or, for this question, the second stage of the process.

Here it is again:

Stage 2: Electricity is also created as the receding wave draws air back down the column (Diagram B).

Here’s an example of what you could write:

Paragraph 4 :

As the water now flows away from the structure, it draws air back down the column and downwards through the turbine in the same direction as the previous upward flow of air. The turbine continues to turn thus generating even more electricity. 

Here are the four paragraphs brought together to create our finished essay.

Finished IELTS Process Diagram Essay

This sample IELTS process diagram essay is just over the minimum word limit so you can see that you don’t have space to include very much detail at all. That’s why it is essential to select just a couple of main features to write about.

Now use what you’ve learnt in this lesson to practice answering other IELTS process diagram questions. Start slowly at first and keep practicing until you can plan and write a complete essay in around 20 minutes.

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Ielts academic writing task 1 – all lessons.

IELTS Academic Writing  –  A summary of the test including important facts, test format & assessment.

Academic Writing Task 1  – The format, the 7 question types & sample questions, assessment & marking criteria.  All the key information you need to know.

Understanding Task 1 Questions  – How to quickly and easily analyse and understand IELTS Writing Task 2 questions.

How To Plan a Task 1 Essay  –  Discover  3 reasons why you must plan, the 4 simple steps of essay planning and learn a simple 4 part essay structure.

Vocabulary for Task 1 Essays  –  Learn key vocabulary for a high-scoring essay. Word lists & a downloadable PDF.

Grammar for Task 1 Essays   – Essential grammar for Task 1 Academic essays including, verb tenses, key sentence structures, articles & prepositions.

The 7 Question Types:

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International Conference on Theory and Application of Diagrams

Diagrams 2021: Diagrammatic Representation and Inference pp 553–561 Cite as

Diagrams in Essays: Exploring the Kinds of Diagrams Students Generate and How Well They Work

• Emmanuel Manalo 14 &
• Mari Fukuda 15  
• Conference paper
• Open Access
• First Online: 21 September 2021

2175 Accesses

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 12909))

Using appropriate diagrams is generally considered efficacious in communication. However, although diagrams are extensively used in printed and digital media, people in general rarely construct diagrams to use in common everyday communication. Furthermore, instruction on diagram use for communicative purposes is uncommon in formal education and, when students are required to communicate what they have learned, the usual expectation is they will use words – not diagrams. Requiring diagram inclusion in essays, for example, would be almost unheard of. Consequently, current understanding about student capabilities in this area is very limited. The aim of this study therefore was to contribute to addressing this gap: it comprised a qualitative exploration of 12 undergraduate students’ diagram use in two essays (in which they were asked to include at least one diagram). Analysis focused on identifying the kinds of diagrams produced, and the effectiveness with which those diagrams were used. Useful functions that the diagrams served included clarification, summarization, integration of points, and provision of additional information and/or perspectives in visual form. However, there were also redundancies, as well as unclear, schematically erroneous, and overly complicated representations in some of the diagrams that the students constructed. These findings are discussed in terms of needs, opportunities, and challenges in instructional provision.

• Self-constructed diagrams
• Essay writing
• Effective communication
• Student instructional needs

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1 Introduction

Alongside problem solving and thinking, communication is one of the areas of human activity where diagram use is considered to be beneficial. When appropriately used, diagrams can clarify and/or complement verbal information presented in speech or text, so that both verbal and visual channels of working memory are utilized, thus facilitating more efficient cognitive processing [ 1 , 2 ].

Diagrams can contribute to both message encoding and decoding (i.e., the production and the comprehension of communication), thus being of value to both the communicator and the communication receiver. Especially in contexts where there are some constraints or limitations to conveying the message through verbal means, diagrams can be indispensable. They can supplement speech or text by providing complementary or alternative means of conveying the intended message. Examples of such contexts include communicating complicated procedures, like furniture assembly [ 3 ], and communicating with people who speak a different language [ 4 ].

However, despite the apparent usefulness of diagrams in communication, its actual use remains very limited. Pictures and various kinds of diagrams, including illustrations, are regularly used in books, magazines, websites, and various forms of printed and digital media, but most of those visual representations are commercially or professionally created. They are not generated by regular people in everyday communication contexts. Regular people are often only receivers of such visual representations. In most communication contexts, they do not generate their own diagrams: they rely almost exclusively on written or spoken words. In formal education provided in modern societies, diagram use for communicative purposes is rarely taught. Despite the recognition in research and policy documents of the value of being able to use multiple forms of representation [ 5 , 6 ], students seldom receive explicit instruction about how to create and use diagrams. In both school and higher education, when students are asked to communicate what they have learned and what they think (e.g., in essays, which are focused pieces of writing intended to inform or persuade), the general expectation is that they will express that information in words – without the use of any diagrams [ 7 ].

Considering that much of the knowledge and ideas that students have to engage with, learn, and then communicate are quite complex, and diagrams have the capacity of representing complex ideas effectively [ 8 ], the general lack of attention in education to cultivating skills in diagram use is troubling. Like words, diagrams can be used effectively or ineffectively [ 9 ], so the question of the extent to which instruction or guidance may be necessary would appear important to address. In tasks like problem solving and information organization in subjects like mathematics and science, the kinds of diagrams that students generate and use have previously been investigated [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. However, very few studies have examined diagram use in communicating information in the social sciences [ 13 ], where traditionally a greater emphasis has been placed on the quality of language that is used. In fact, the present authors are not aware of any studies that have examined students’ diagram use in essays . Our current understanding of student capabilities in using diagrams in such contexts is very limited, including what we know of the potential benefits that such use might afford.

The present study was motivated by this knowledge gap, and it comprised a qualitative exploration of student diagram use in two essays they produced for an undergraduate-level introductory course in educational psychology. In the two essays, the students were asked to include at least one diagram to portray processes or mechanisms of moderately complex ideas. Both essays were expository-type essays, hence requiring the students to demonstrate not only knowledge of the topic, but also the ability to communicate information clearly – which the appropriate use of diagrams is supposed to facilitate. The following were the main questions we addressed:

What kinds of diagrams would students use to portray processes/mechanisms?

In what ways do students use diagrams effectively in their essays?

In what ways do they not use diagrams effectively?

This investigation comprised analysis of the contents of two essays that students produced as part of their coursework. No experimental manipulation was involved. The analysis was conducted following completion of the course, so it had no bearing on the students’ grading. Permission was obtained from all the students for use of their essays.

There were 12 students in the course (females = 4), 7 of whom were in their first year of study, while the remaining 5 were in their second year or higher. Nine of the students were Japanese, and 3 were international students from other East Asian countries. All had English as a foreign language, but were adequately proficient in that language (a requirement for acceptance to the university). The course was conducted entirely in English, and all assignments (including the essays) had to be written in English.

The essays were each worth 20% of the students’ final grade, and they dealt with topics covered in the course. However, both essays required students to seek additional information (beyond what was covered in class), and to provide explanations that could not simply be obtained from the instructions provided in the course. The first essay required the students to research and then explain one theory about how young children develop their understanding of the world around them. The second required them to undertake research on formative assessment and explain how it can promote more successful learning. In both essays, the students were asked to include at least one diagram, which was allotted 3 points (out of 20) in the grading rubrics (in this case, for “demonstrating a clear understanding of the mechanisms or processes that it illustrates”). Diagrams can assist in clarifying ideas [ 8 ] and so, from a pedagogical perspective, one purpose of asking the students to include the diagram was for them to better understand key processes covered in the course. The diagram had to be self-constructed (i.e., not copied-and-pasted from some other source). In the first essay, the instruction given to the students indicated that the diagram was to “help in explaining the progress in understanding that children develop ”, while in the second essay the diagram was to “help in clarifying how formative assessment facilitates learning ”. No other instruction was provided on what form the diagram should take or how they should construct it, and no diagrams relating to those or other similar mechanisms/processes were shown during instructions provided in class. During grading of the essays, apart from the score out of 3 on the grading rubrics (see above), no explicit comment or feedback was provided on the type, content, or quality of construction of the diagrams the students included.

In the analysis, firstly the number and kinds of diagrams included in the essays were determined with the use of a coding schema comprising categories from previous research [ 10 , 11 , 13 ]. Apart from the first author’s coding, the second author, who initially was not involved in this research, also independently coded the diagrams. Initial inter-coder agreement was 75%. Differences were then discussed and subsequently agreed upon. Second, the diagrams were evaluated in terms of how effectively they were used. For this, key questions asked were: Does the diagram contribute to clarifying the process it refers to – and, if so, how? Apart from clarification, does it serve other useful functions? When diagrams did not appear to work well, the reasons were also carefully considered. Again, both authors independently coded the diagrams (initial inter-coder agreement was 92%), and then discussed differences to reach agreement.

Examples of diagrams belonging to each of the categories that were identified

3 Results and Discussion

3.1 kinds of diagrams used to portray processes/mechanisms.

Table 1 shows the kinds/categories and corresponding frequencies of diagrams the students included in their first and second essays, and in total, while Fig.  1 shows examples of the diagrams belonging to each of those categories. In the first essay four of the 12 students included more than one diagram (two student with 3 diagrams, and two with 2 diagrams), and in the second essay two students included more than one diagram (both with 2 diagrams). The frequencies shown in Table 1 include all the diagrams the students generated.

All except one student included self-constructed diagrams (as the assignments required). We were fairly confident about this because the language use in and appearance of the diagrams included suggested non-native and/or non-professional creators. The one student who included diagrams that obviously came from some Internet source (they were both watermarked) did so in both the first and second essays. Both diagrams were in the category of illustrations.

Although a “list” on its own does not – technically speaking – count as a diagram, it has been included in the categories because one student erroneously included a list as one of his 3 diagrams for the first essay, and three other students included lists as part of their “combination” diagram.

The kind of diagram most frequently used was a flow diagram: apart from the total of 10 flow diagrams shown in Table 1 , 7 of the 9 combination diagrams comprised a flow diagram with another kind of diagram. This is probably understandable given that flow diagrams (also known as “flow charts”) are meant to depict processes, procedures or sequence of steps, and cause-and-effect relationships. An interesting point to note is how the number of flow diagrams increased from the first to the second essay. No instruction or hint was given to the students about what diagram to use, so this increase could have been due to a number of other possible reasons, including differences between the two essays in the procedures/mechanisms that needed to be represented, the students seeing other diagrams their peers have generated (although there were no indications of copying), and development in the students’ understanding of what works well (or not) in using diagrams to communicate particular kinds of information.

It is also worth noting that although we often consider flow diagrams as being most appropriate for representing processes and mechanisms, other forms of diagrams can work as effectively when designed well to match their intended purposes. For example, Panels C and F in Fig.  1 show two examples depicting the progression through the stages of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, using a table in C, and a combination of illustration (of steps) and line diagram in F. Although they differ in appearance, the diagrams can be considered as working equally well not only in showing the proposed stages of the theory, but also in conveying the incremental progression through key cognitive abilities with increasing age (corresponding to those stages).

3.2 Ways that Diagrams Were Used Effectively

The majority of the students did not refer to their diagrams in the text of their essays: only two students did in both essays. Thus, this is perhaps an academic writing method that undergraduate students (like these students) could usefully be instructed to do. However, in general, the students placed their diagrams appropriately, following the text where they deal with the information that is portrayed in the diagram – thereby making the connection between text information and the diagram more apparent.

Concerning the question of whether the diagrams that the students constructed contributed to clarifying any of the processes or mechanisms they were explaining: in the first essay, 7 of the students were considered to have satisfactorily achieved this with at least one of their diagrams, while 8 of them were considered to have done so in the second essay. In each of these cases, the diagrams served a useful function in the essay, to the extent that if they were not included, something sufficiently important in the essay would have been lost, not achieved, or not conveyed as adequately. In most of the cases, the diagrams clarified how the stages or processes referred to in the essay text connect or relate to each other and progress through particular sequences: Panels A and D in Fig.  1 are good examples of this. However, in a few cases, the diagrams also made clearer concepts that – to those unfamiliar with them – could be difficult to understand, such as what is involved in developing the ability of conservation (Panel B of Fig.  1 ).

In some cases, the diagrams also showed or clarified the connections to other components, such as children’s abilities in connection to the progression of developmental stages in the previously referred to Panels C and F in Fig.  1 . In a way, some of the diagrams that worked well served a summarizing function: they visually represented key components and showed more saliently how they were related to each other – which were not as easy to apprehend in sentences because of temporal/sequential separation. This is one of the reasons diagrams are considered effective: they integrate all information that is used together, reducing the need and effort for searching [ 14 ].

In the majority of cases where the diagrams worked well, they visually represented content that was already represented in words in the text – albeit with some enhancements like integration, as noted above. However, in a few exceptional cases, the diagrams also introduced content that was not present in the text of the essays. Figure  2 provides two examples of this. In Panel A, the diagram includes details in the lower part about unsuccessful (arrows with x) and successful (arrows with o) outcomes which require different responses. These details were not explicitly provided in the text but they enable readers to better understand how formative feedback is used in the example of solving story problems. Likewise, in Panel B, the diagram shows details not duplicated in the text about how different categories of complexes are formed, leading eventually to the formation of concepts [ 15 ]. The illustrations of different object combinations make the categories of complexes easier to grasp and distinguish from each other.

Examples of diagrams that introduced content or elaborations not present in the text

3.3 Ways that Diagrams Were Not Used Effectively

There were also numerous instances when the diagrams the students included did not appear to serve any useful function in the essay. In a couple of those cases, the diagrams were redundant: they showed images that portrayed information from the text that was simple enough not to require visual clarification. The illustration in Panel A in Fig.  3 is an example of this. Another ineffective use manifested was when the schematic structure of the diagram was unclear or erroneous. Examples of this are shown in Panels B and C of Fig.  3 . In Panel B, both the intended message and the connections between the components shown are unclear. In Panel C, the meaning of the arrows, and therefore what process might be depicted by the diagram, is unclear. In addition, there were a few diagrams, like the one shown in Panel D of Fig.  3 , which were quite complicated and therefore hard to understand. The contents of Panel D were also referred to in the text of the student’s essay, but the relationships shown in the diagram are new configurations that are not obvious and not explained explicitly in the text. It is therefore difficult to grasp its possible contribution to explaining, in this case, children’s development of understanding of the world around them.

Examples of diagrams that did not effectively serve their intended purpose in the essay

3.4 Implications for Theory, Research, and Practice

The many purposes that diagrams can serve in enhancing communication have been established in previous research [ 2 , 5 , 8 ], and the findings of the present study provide additional evidence for those in the area of student essay writing at the tertiary level. The findings also provide support for the idea that the same communicative purpose can be served by different kinds of diagrams [ 14 ]. Thus, for example, conveying the progression of a particular process can effectively be achieved using a flow diagram – or a table … or an illustration. This means that, in the same way that different words can convey the same meaning, different diagrams – if used/constructed appropriately – can communicate the same meaning. However, in future research, it would be useful to examine the range of communicative purposes that different kinds of diagrams can serve as there are probably important limitations to it. For example, if the communicative purpose is to describe what something looks like , other kinds of diagrams may not be quite as effective as an illustration (e.g., a table or a flow chart would be quite limited in conveying qualities pertaining to appearance).

The findings of the present research also suggest that many students, even at the tertiary level, would likely benefit from receiving some instruction or guidance on the use of diagrams not only in essays but also other forms of communication. While some students were able to generate diagrams that served useful functions in their essays, there were also quite a few who did not manage to do this. However, the findings of this exploratory study were based on a small sample of students taking the same course, so future investigations about spontaneous use and the effects of instruction provision ought to be conducted with larger and more diverse student groups.

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Acknowledgment

This research was supported by a grant-in-aid (20K20516) received from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

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Manalo, E., Fukuda, M. (2021). Diagrams in Essays: Exploring the Kinds of Diagrams Students Generate and How Well They Work. In: Basu, A., Stapleton, G., Linker, S., Legg, C., Manalo, E., Viana, P. (eds) Diagrammatic Representation and Inference. Diagrams 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12909. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86062-2_56

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86062-2_56

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Grammar check | Essay checker | Writing checker

December 22, 2018

Writing about Charts, Graphs, and Diagrams

by Nicholas Walker , under IELTS and TOEFL

Make sure to organize your IELTS Task 1 essay so that the reader can navigate it easily.

Step 1: Give a clear overview of what the figure is about, showing that you understand the main message it conveys.

Step 2: Describe the data in a systematic way (left to right, top to bottom, biggest to smallest) using numbers and words from the figure.

Step 3: Compare significant elements of the figure, mentioning any trends or changes in the past, extrapolating for the future if you can.

Useful chart, graph, and diagram vocabulary

Some words are likely to appear in a discussion of a chart, graph, or diagram. Use the target structure checker with the following list of common chart, graph, and diagram vocabulary to see if you are using the vocabulary your readers (the examiners) are expecting to see.

above, according to, apparent, are compared, are presented, bar graph, below, can be seen, chart, climbed, comparable, compares, considerable, considerably, decline, decrease, demonstrates, detailed, details, difference, dipped, diving sharply, downward, dramatic, dropped off, evident, falls, fell, fluctuation, fluctuations, gap, gradual, graph, greater, grew, grows, high, higher, highlighted, highlights, highs, histogram, illustrated, illustrates, increase, indicates, jump, leads, led, level, leveled, levelled, leveling, levelling, levels, lists, low, lower, lows, moderate, narrowed, note, number, observe, peak, peaks, period, photo, pie chart, pinpoints, plummeted, presents, proves, rapid climb, rates of, reports, reveals, remained, remains, rise, rises, rose, shown, shows, significant, slid, slight, steady, summarizes, results, value of, to every, to the left, to the right, total, trend, upward, we can see, widened, widening, widens

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Notes on the diagram, arts & culture.

The art and life of Mark di Suvero

This is the third, previously unpublished version of “an endlessly revised essay” that Amy Sillman started in 2009 during a residency at the American Academy in Berlin. The first version was published in the O.-G. , v. 1, “Zum Gegenstand / Das Diagram” (2009), which Amy Sillman elaborated in parallel with her solo exhibition “Zum Gegenstand” at CarlierGebauer, Berlin, May 2–June 13, 2009. The second version appeared in the O.-G. , v.1–2, “American Edition” (2009), published on the occasion of a presentation of drawings by Sillman at the Sikkema Jenkins booth, Art Basel Miami Beach, 2009.

In this sense, a subject is “a nothingness, a void, which exists.” (Lacan) —Slavoj Žižek, Organs without Bodies A virtual particle is one that has borrowed energy from the vacuum, briefly shimmering into existence literally from nothing. —David Kaiser, American Scientist magazine The Higgs boson is apparently the most powerful particle on Earth, but it has never been seen. —2009 Wikipedia article on the Higgs boson Look who thinks he’s nothing. —Punch line of a joke about a priest and a Jew One paints when there is nothing else to do. After everything else is done, has been “taken care of,” one can take up the brush . —Ad Reinhardt, “Routine Extremism” I can swim like everyone else, only I have a better memory than them. I have not forgotten my former inability to swim. But since I have not forgotten it, my ability to swim is of no avail and in the end I cannot swim. —Franz Kafka What happens next? Of course, I don’t know. It’s appropriate to pause and say that the writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do. —Donald Barthelme, “Not-Knowing”

In 2009, I got a grant to live in Berlin, arriving with barely any German language under my belt. An old friend, who seemed in the know, warned me: “German is a spatial language.” I have no sense of space, so it sounded ominous. I got what she meant fast at my first German lesson, when they said that in German you can’t just ask “where?”—you have to specify where to or where from . And German grammar went on from there, a thicket of specificities. And German history was a veritable morass. I was an American: I hadn’t read Hegel or Schlegel! But once I got into it, I went into an accelerating state of diagram fever, going a little crazy thinking about how everything in the world is a diagram. I took a seminar on diagrams at the Freie Universität with Danish diagram expert Frederik Stjernfelt; I got new diagram study-buddies, my mind stretched out with increasingly dizzying interconnectivity; everything started to make a weird kind of sense, and I got it: everything was related to everything else . The Enlightenment, Romanticism, Symbolism, modernism, Bad Painting, it was all locatable on one big map. I also sheepishly realized that I was probably the last person to figure this out—that this diagram thing had already been laboriously theorized by many others. But thinking about the diagram liberated my work. Abstraction itself suddenly seemed like one big diagram of moving time and space. The process of making something go away from “realness” to abstraction seemed like a big memory-diagram—things seen and then registered in the mind’s eye undergoing a process of being stripped clean, or becoming a bit tattered and distorted as they move off into your past. I was planning an art show at the time, and I also thought, if everything is everything, then why not hang things all together: satirical diagrams next to figure studies next to abstract paintings? I would just need some way to explain it all, a kind of translation device. And what is a zine if not a slapdash chance to present one’s own epiphanies? And what is a diagram but a way of holding disparate ideas together?

So I began planning my exhibition with everything in it, from abstract paintings to comical seating diagrams, to figure drawings to a zine on a table. Let jokes be paintings, paintings be memories, and memories be meaning. I decided to write an essay about diagrams for my first zine (and I’ve been slowly adding to it ever since).

Diagrams are great because you can put anything in them. No wonder they have been so useful for generations of kooks, mystics, Cubists, ecstatic poetics, Dadaists, Futurists, and weird scientists. A diagram is a perfect visual schema for posing impossible things, invisible forces, enigmas like the future—all posed as perfectly plausible vectors. The diagram even outdid the camera as the early twentieth century’s best new thing because it could depict things in the universe that exceed the eye, like particles, waves, and quarks. A diagram’s scale is endless. It can indicate how dwarfed we are by the universe, or how busy the microscopic world is, all mapped out on the back of some envelope. Tides, black holes, white dwarfs, red rings around Saturn, crazy particles, the waves of the Big Bang, all teleporting around in unstable ways, all this stuff and how it interacts can appear equally on the diagram, democratically, like the pedestrians in Times Square or the people in a Saul Steinberg cartoon all walking around together. The diagram’s arms, its vectors, embrace everything at once. Parts are not distinct from wholes, and divisions between aesthetic formats don’t have to exist. Diagrams aren’t medium-specific: everything is a continuum; everything is relational. In this sense a diagram is utopic, showing how things should or might go, reenvisioning things expansively, not merely describing them categorically. It can include contradictory grammars, fragments, part-objects, nouns and verbs, acts and objects. As a painter, I was on solid ground, then, because I already knew that paintings are both things and events. And one of the first things artists learn is that scale and size are different. Scale is relational, whereas size is just measurement. Likewise, a mere page in a notebook, a flimsy joke, a drag act, can change the world. My own life was altered definitively by the aesthetic detonating charge of a confessional 16 mm George Kuchar film, Hold Me while I’m Naked (1966), in which an erstwhile filmmaker from Queens tries in vain to complete a porn film. It affected me way more than beholding the majesty of the Pergamon Gate, or beholding the Mona Lisa. (Likewise, in Freud’s famous diagram, the idea of a Baby holds the same valence as Shit!) Any little thing, impure as can be, can change your life.

My favorite diagram thinking was about painting and language: Gilles Deleuze, Charles Olson, David Joselit. In Deleuze’s book on the painter Francis Bacon, The Logic of Sensation , the very concept of the diagram is an action, not a thing but a moment, a moment of transformation. Perhaps inspired by the visual portals, stages, and furniture that Bacon sets his figures against, Deleuze’s “diagram” is his way to describe the action of Bacon’s figures as they transform agonistically. David Joselit’s essay “Dada’s Diagrams” describes diagrams as a kind of container, a come-one-come-all structure for representing the polymorphous perversity, the rupture, of the early twentieth century: “Far more important than [Francis] Picabia’s adoption of a vocabulary drawn from industry in his ‘machine drawings’ is the model of polymorphous connectivity between discrete elements that these works deploy in order to capture the uneven economic and psychological transformations and the jarring disequilibrium characteristic of modernity.” The poet Charles Olson’s manifesto from 1950, Projective Verse , also describes a kind of spatial diagram of action. He imagines language as a set of something like arrows—utterances as projectiles that ride out of the poet’s mouth and land in the world, demarcating a sort of invisible forcefield. This kind of invisible language-force might be subtle but it’s big: the relational aesthetics of language as a force.

I always felt that what made the painter Ad Reinhardt great wasn’t the otherworldly clarity of his abstract paintings (I wasn’t really that into the religious way that people would gasp when they finally saw the colors); it was the fact that alongside his austere experiments with pure color and structure were his diagrams about the art world, which included puns, mockery, and sarcasm. It was the split of his greater whole, the parts mapped together, neither his solemnity nor his jokes but the passage between such states (and, in between those two, his deadpan slideshow presentations of shape-forms). When I realized the larger diagram of his work, I realized that what was great was his circulation system, an economy of high and low parts given equal value. I had never been able to resolve the two coasts of my own sensibility, my love of cartoons with my love of serious-minded abstraction. But diagrams made me realize that they were related, constituted precisely by the interactions between them. All the good funny Modern art (like Daumier, Guston, Reinhardt, Beckett) was tragicomic. Making art came from the same psychic pneumatics that Freud mapped out as the origin of jokes: distillation and compression. The joke work, the dream work, the art work: all of these were ways to cope. Ways for the mind to grasp what it has seen, moving it from the optic nerve to the mind’s eye as it moved from the present to memory, via abstraction. Jokes were the bailiff of high art, getting it out of its cramped quarters, and providing skepticism so you didn’t love it too much.

At first I was in this love affair with diagrams. Weren’t they wonderfully inclusive models of multiplicity, contradiction, and change? Weren’t they democratic? That was before I read Benjamin H. D. Buchloh’s sobering essay on Eva Hesse, “Facing the Diagram.” In his more critical eyes, the diagram was also a manifestation of social conditions, a state of quantification, surveillance, and bureaucracy. Diagrammatic works like Duchamp’s Network of Stoppages (1914) or Hesse’s drawings from 1966–67 therefore also registered “the total subjection of the body and its representations to legal and administrative control.” This diagram was not my protagonist! Was the diagram also a form of violence? Was the flip side of the feeling of the “authentic” body always bounded by the “externally established matrix” of conditions? Was the body even possible without the conditions surrounding it? Oh god, Buchloh was probably right—I had been filled with euphoria, but the diagram and painting were linked, and in the bad sense: the same problematics that I had faced in painting were back to haunt me with the diagram.

Postwar painting, which I loved, was riddled with the same problems. It was the same sentimental stuff that Ad Reinhardt was attacking with his diagrams, with his stubborn refusal to be boxed in. When I first learned about AbEx painting as a student, I had felt liberated by it, not oppressed—the way it located thinking as something you do with your body—the way that by including the body in intelligence, you were attacking something. I felt that gesture painting was done with a kind of political body, maybe akin to the poets and their projective verses. I went for the idea that gesture painting was a form of expression lying between language and image, an utterance that implicates the maker, along the lines of “the personal is political.” I got out of the AbEx-by-genius-men problem by seeing how many women painters there were, how many great painters of color there were, and thought the problem wasn’t the art but the art history. Art history was wrong. Critical theory didn’t seem wrong but I got out of the commodity problem by focusing on drawing, not painting. Could I also get out of the diagram-as-control problem by thinking about the way a diagram makes you think? Could emancipatory possibilities exist in new thinking? Could instrumentalization be defeated? Could diagram-thinking/studio practice/painting go “beyond control”? I felt intuitively that the answer had to be located in some way in something messy: accidents, negations, a spill, some excess found on the floor, some physical inexplicability, the idea of desire, urges, pleasure, which I thought was exactly bound up with the not-knowing part of the art-making process, the drawing process as entirely separate from value-formation. This was not utopian, it was just practical: thinking and hoping that exactly where those arrows of Projective Verse land is where something like being and life can be felt. As in Emily Dickinson:

I am alive—I guess— The Branches on my Hand Are full of Morning Glory— And at my finger’s end—

At finger’s end, beyond the graph, off the chart, in the realm of not-knowing, lay the weird unformed excess, the chora , not information . The fact that I don’t know what word will come out of my mouth next, exactly, when speaking a sentence, or what jerky motion I’ll make when taking a step, or whether I’ll continue living past the bus stop at all, made me turn to the idea of improvisation as a kind of conscientious reminder of how fragile everything is, how unstable and unknowable. The diagram’s best form, painting’s best aspect, seemed to lie in its unknowns, its silence, its way of not working out, or being at risk, a matter of fate, ruin, or possible resuscitation. Painting was dead, but it surprised me. So, isn’t there an end zone, an offstage in the theater? The painter Charles Garabedian said making a painting is like purposefully stumbling around in a fog near a cliff. It’s a mess of unknowns, beyond diagrammable. So it seemed like the very idea of knowing was where the problem lay, maybe. The diagram only shows us the stuff arrayed in a space. The diagram doesn’t consider its errors. Therefore, comedy, accident, mistake, is the corrective for the diagram, because it includes everything the diagram can’t even hope to establish as a solid: spasms, screwups, sabotage, refusal, stupidity, the saggy droop between the vector showing “what you did” and what really resulted. Whatever is incalculable, including the feeling of a mistake. I’d like to see the diagram of that. Failure and dread. That’s why I still loved abstraction, because we knew it didn’t work, that it was a failure, a paradox, a realm of both potential and unchartability. David Joselit wrote that the “act of reconnection does not function as a return to coherence, but rather as a free play of polymorphous linkages which … remains a central motif of modern (and postmodern) art.” Diagrams are failures, paintings are failures, and life is a failure. The diagram can only do so much. The rest is as Donald Barthelme asks, “What happens next?” And then the answer is, “I don’t know.” That’s what a good diagram indicates: that there are things beyond control.

Based in New York City, Amy Sillman is an artist whose work consistently combines the visceral with the intellectual. She began to study painting in the seventies at the School of Visual Arts and she received her M.F.A. from Bard College in 1995. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Whitney Biennial in 2014; her writing has appeared in Bookforum and Artforum , among other publications. She is currently represented by Gladstone Gallery, New York.

Excerpted from Faux Pas. Selected Writings and Drawings. , by Amy Sillman, published by After 8 Books and distributed by Artbook | D.A.P.

Free IELTS lessons signup

• Academic practice
• General practice
• Task 1 Academic
• Task 1 General
• Task 2 (essay)

IELTS Writing task 1: describing a diagram

In this lesson you will learn how to describe a diagram in IELTS Writing task 1 .

We will deal with a process diagram . Although diagrams are not very common in IELTS, they do appear in Writing and are very different from other types of graphs you can get. So it's a good idea to learn how to structure your answer when describing a diagram.

• See IELTS Writing digram question
• Learn how to write a band 9 answer
• Learn useful vocabulary
• See video tutorial

As an example, let's take a look at the following question card:

The diagram illustrates how steel rods are manufactured in the furniture industry.

Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

You can watch a video tutorial on how to describe diagrams in IELTS Academic Writing task 1:

• Introduction
• General overview
• Specific features

Now we'll take a look at each part of the answer.

1. Introduction

The first paragraph of your answer should be an introduction. For the introduction, you need to paraphrase the topic in your own words. It shouldn't be longer that 2 sentences.

And this is a possible way to write your introduction:

You could also write the introduction in another way:

In fact, there are plenty of ways to write your introduction. Just keep in mind that you should use synonyms and paraphrase the topic from your question card.

2. Overview

• how the process begins and ends
• the number of stages

If the diagram has loops or repeating stages, or your process is cyclic - write that in your overview too!

Here is a good way to write a general overview:

Overall, the process consists of eleven stages, beginning with the raw material and ending up with the product’s inspection.

Always use word overall to start your overview. This way you will indicate the examiner that you’re describing general trends.

3. Specific features

After you've given the overview, you should write about specific details of your diagram. To do that, you need to describe each stage of your process in detail . Don't forget that you should provide information in a logical way!

This is a possible way of describing the specific features of our diagram:

First of all, iron ore, yellow ore and carbon are collected to serve as a raw material for steel rods manufacturing. After that, the raw material is melted in a melting slit, where it is heated to a temperature in range of 1300-1500 °C. The melted mass is then transferred to a smelting cabin to undergo refinement. Next, the candescent metal is put in a pouring machine and poured into ingots.

In the next stage, the ingots are connected to a cooling reservoir, where the temperature falls to 60-100 °C. Metal goes through special nozzles and cools down, forming strands. Following this, the metal strands proceed to rollers that change their shape. Next, the products are put into a heating machine, where they undergo heat treatment. Subsequently, a measuring automaton completes a surface check of the products.

After that, the metal rods are sized by special cutters and get ID stamping. Finally, the products undergo inspection and are ready for use.

Using connectors

• first of all
• in the next stage
• following this
• subsequently

Using additional information

Your diagram will often provide you some additional information and hints for most stages of the process. Make sure that you use all that information while describing specific features of your diagram!

However, sometimes you may see that some stage lacks information for description . For example, we only know that the third stage of our process is called refinement and it happens in a smelting cabin . But we don't know what exactly happens during this stage.

In this case, you can use a verb to undergo . To undergo = to experience. For example, you can write: " the material undergoes refinement in a smelting cabin ".

And don't forget that you should NOT write a conclusion in Writing task 1 as you're not giving your opinion, you're describing the data.

Practice. Choose the correct options:

• The table shows the amount of students who study abroad in 2001 and 2011. The table shows the number of students who study abroad in 2001 and 2011.

Amount or number? Note that students are countable.

• The graph illustrate China's annual growth rate of exports of goods. The graph illustrates China's annual growth rate of exports of goods.

Look at the verb that follows the word graph . Hmm, the graph should be singular, so illustrates is the correct option.

• The line graph shows how many Finnish people went to the cinema between June and October 2014. The line graph shows how much Finnish people went to the cinema between June and October 2014.

You can say how much water or how much effort (these nouns are uncountable). But people are countable, so you should use how many in this case.

• The pie charts compare the world population of 1900 with 2000 . The pie charts compare the world population in 1900 and 2000 .

You should use phrase in + year , not of + year or at + year . Moreover, it seems like you compare population with year in the first sentence.

• The bar chart gives information about average household expenditure in Japan. The bar chart shows information about average household expenditure in Japan.

You can use either gives information about or shows , but not both at the same time.

Comparing and Contrasting

What this handout is about.

This handout will help you first to determine whether a particular assignment is asking for comparison/contrast and then to generate a list of similarities and differences, decide which similarities and differences to focus on, and organize your paper so that it will be clear and effective. It will also explain how you can (and why you should) develop a thesis that goes beyond “Thing A and Thing B are similar in many ways but different in others.”

Introduction

In your career as a student, you’ll encounter many different kinds of writing assignments, each with its own requirements. One of the most common is the comparison/contrast essay, in which you focus on the ways in which certain things or ideas—usually two of them—are similar to (this is the comparison) and/or different from (this is the contrast) one another. By assigning such essays, your instructors are encouraging you to make connections between texts or ideas, engage in critical thinking, and go beyond mere description or summary to generate interesting analysis: when you reflect on similarities and differences, you gain a deeper understanding of the items you are comparing, their relationship to each other, and what is most important about them.

Recognizing comparison/contrast in assignments

Some assignments use words—like compare, contrast, similarities, and differences—that make it easy for you to see that they are asking you to compare and/or contrast. Here are a few hypothetical examples:

• Compare and contrast Frye’s and Bartky’s accounts of oppression.
• Compare WWI to WWII, identifying similarities in the causes, development, and outcomes of the wars.
• Contrast Wordsworth and Coleridge; what are the major differences in their poetry?

Notice that some topics ask only for comparison, others only for contrast, and others for both.

But it’s not always so easy to tell whether an assignment is asking you to include comparison/contrast. And in some cases, comparison/contrast is only part of the essay—you begin by comparing and/or contrasting two or more things and then use what you’ve learned to construct an argument or evaluation. Consider these examples, noticing the language that is used to ask for the comparison/contrast and whether the comparison/contrast is only one part of a larger assignment:

• Choose a particular idea or theme, such as romantic love, death, or nature, and consider how it is treated in two Romantic poems.
• How do the different authors we have studied so far define and describe oppression?
• Compare Frye’s and Bartky’s accounts of oppression. What does each imply about women’s collusion in their own oppression? Which is more accurate?
• In the texts we’ve studied, soldiers who served in different wars offer differing accounts of their experiences and feelings both during and after the fighting. What commonalities are there in these accounts? What factors do you think are responsible for their differences?

You may want to check out our handout on understanding assignments for additional tips.

Using comparison/contrast for all kinds of writing projects

Sometimes you may want to use comparison/contrast techniques in your own pre-writing work to get ideas that you can later use for an argument, even if comparison/contrast isn’t an official requirement for the paper you’re writing. For example, if you wanted to argue that Frye’s account of oppression is better than both de Beauvoir’s and Bartky’s, comparing and contrasting the main arguments of those three authors might help you construct your evaluation—even though the topic may not have asked for comparison/contrast and the lists of similarities and differences you generate may not appear anywhere in the final draft of your paper.

Discovering similarities and differences

Making a Venn diagram or a chart can help you quickly and efficiently compare and contrast two or more things or ideas. To make a Venn diagram, simply draw some overlapping circles, one circle for each item you’re considering. In the central area where they overlap, list the traits the two items have in common. Assign each one of the areas that doesn’t overlap; in those areas, you can list the traits that make the things different. Here’s a very simple example, using two pizza places:

To make a chart, figure out what criteria you want to focus on in comparing the items. Along the left side of the page, list each of the criteria. Across the top, list the names of the items. You should then have a box per item for each criterion; you can fill the boxes in and then survey what you’ve discovered.

Here’s an example, this time using three pizza places:

As you generate points of comparison, consider the purpose and content of the assignment and the focus of the class. What do you think the professor wants you to learn by doing this comparison/contrast? How does it fit with what you have been studying so far and with the other assignments in the course? Are there any clues about what to focus on in the assignment itself?

Here are some general questions about different types of things you might have to compare. These are by no means complete or definitive lists; they’re just here to give you some ideas—you can generate your own questions for these and other types of comparison. You may want to begin by using the questions reporters traditionally ask: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? If you’re talking about objects, you might also consider general properties like size, shape, color, sound, weight, taste, texture, smell, number, duration, and location.

Two historical periods or events

• When did they occur—do you know the date(s) and duration? What happened or changed during each? Why are they significant?
• What kinds of work did people do? What kinds of relationships did they have? What did they value?
• What kinds of governments were there? Who were important people involved?
• What caused events in these periods, and what consequences did they have later on?

Two ideas or theories

• What are they about?
• Did they originate at some particular time?
• Who created them? Who uses or defends them?
• What is the central focus, claim, or goal of each? What conclusions do they offer?
• How are they applied to situations/people/things/etc.?
• Which seems more plausible to you, and why? How broad is their scope?
• What kind of evidence is usually offered for them?

Two pieces of writing or art

• What are their titles? What do they describe or depict?
• What is their tone or mood? What is their form?
• Who created them? When were they created? Why do you think they were created as they were? What themes do they address?
• Do you think one is of higher quality or greater merit than the other(s)—and if so, why?
• For writing: what plot, characterization, setting, theme, tone, and type of narration are used?
• Where are they from? How old are they? What is the gender, race, class, etc. of each?
• What, if anything, are they known for? Do they have any relationship to each other?
• What are they like? What did/do they do? What do they believe? Why are they interesting?
• What stands out most about each of them?

Deciding what to focus on

By now you have probably generated a huge list of similarities and differences—congratulations! Next you must decide which of them are interesting, important, and relevant enough to be included in your paper. Ask yourself these questions:

• What’s relevant to the assignment?
• What’s relevant to the course?
• What’s interesting and informative?
• What matters to the argument you are going to make?
• What’s basic or central (and needs to be mentioned even if obvious)?
• Overall, what’s more important—the similarities or the differences?

Suppose that you are writing a paper comparing two novels. For most literature classes, the fact that they both use Caslon type (a kind of typeface, like the fonts you may use in your writing) is not going to be relevant, nor is the fact that one of them has a few illustrations and the other has none; literature classes are more likely to focus on subjects like characterization, plot, setting, the writer’s style and intentions, language, central themes, and so forth. However, if you were writing a paper for a class on typesetting or on how illustrations are used to enhance novels, the typeface and presence or absence of illustrations might be absolutely critical to include in your final paper.

Sometimes a particular point of comparison or contrast might be relevant but not terribly revealing or interesting. For example, if you are writing a paper about Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” and Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight,” pointing out that they both have nature as a central theme is relevant (comparisons of poetry often talk about themes) but not terribly interesting; your class has probably already had many discussions about the Romantic poets’ fondness for nature. Talking about the different ways nature is depicted or the different aspects of nature that are emphasized might be more interesting and show a more sophisticated understanding of the poems.

Your thesis

The thesis of your comparison/contrast paper is very important: it can help you create a focused argument and give your reader a road map so they don’t get lost in the sea of points you are about to make. As in any paper, you will want to replace vague reports of your general topic (for example, “This paper will compare and contrast two pizza places,” or “Pepper’s and Amante are similar in some ways and different in others,” or “Pepper’s and Amante are similar in many ways, but they have one major difference”) with something more detailed and specific. For example, you might say, “Pepper’s and Amante have similar prices and ingredients, but their atmospheres and willingness to deliver set them apart.”

Be careful, though—although this thesis is fairly specific and does propose a simple argument (that atmosphere and delivery make the two pizza places different), your instructor will often be looking for a bit more analysis. In this case, the obvious question is “So what? Why should anyone care that Pepper’s and Amante are different in this way?” One might also wonder why the writer chose those two particular pizza places to compare—why not Papa John’s, Dominos, or Pizza Hut? Again, thinking about the context the class provides may help you answer such questions and make a stronger argument. Here’s a revision of the thesis mentioned earlier:

Pepper’s and Amante both offer a greater variety of ingredients than other Chapel Hill/Carrboro pizza places (and than any of the national chains), but the funky, lively atmosphere at Pepper’s makes it a better place to give visiting friends and family a taste of local culture.

You may find our handout on constructing thesis statements useful at this stage.

Organizing your paper

There are many different ways to organize a comparison/contrast essay. Here are two:

Subject-by-subject

Begin by saying everything you have to say about the first subject you are discussing, then move on and make all the points you want to make about the second subject (and after that, the third, and so on, if you’re comparing/contrasting more than two things). If the paper is short, you might be able to fit all of your points about each item into a single paragraph, but it’s more likely that you’d have several paragraphs per item. Using our pizza place comparison/contrast as an example, after the introduction, you might have a paragraph about the ingredients available at Pepper’s, a paragraph about its location, and a paragraph about its ambience. Then you’d have three similar paragraphs about Amante, followed by your conclusion.

The danger of this subject-by-subject organization is that your paper will simply be a list of points: a certain number of points (in my example, three) about one subject, then a certain number of points about another. This is usually not what college instructors are looking for in a paper—generally they want you to compare or contrast two or more things very directly, rather than just listing the traits the things have and leaving it up to the reader to reflect on how those traits are similar or different and why those similarities or differences matter. Thus, if you use the subject-by-subject form, you will probably want to have a very strong, analytical thesis and at least one body paragraph that ties all of your different points together.

A subject-by-subject structure can be a logical choice if you are writing what is sometimes called a “lens” comparison, in which you use one subject or item (which isn’t really your main topic) to better understand another item (which is). For example, you might be asked to compare a poem you’ve already covered thoroughly in class with one you are reading on your own. It might make sense to give a brief summary of your main ideas about the first poem (this would be your first subject, the “lens”), and then spend most of your paper discussing how those points are similar to or different from your ideas about the second.

Point-by-point

Rather than addressing things one subject at a time, you may wish to talk about one point of comparison at a time. There are two main ways this might play out, depending on how much you have to say about each of the things you are comparing. If you have just a little, you might, in a single paragraph, discuss how a certain point of comparison/contrast relates to all the items you are discussing. For example, I might describe, in one paragraph, what the prices are like at both Pepper’s and Amante; in the next paragraph, I might compare the ingredients available; in a third, I might contrast the atmospheres of the two restaurants.

If I had a bit more to say about the items I was comparing/contrasting, I might devote a whole paragraph to how each point relates to each item. For example, I might have a whole paragraph about the clientele at Pepper’s, followed by a whole paragraph about the clientele at Amante; then I would move on and do two more paragraphs discussing my next point of comparison/contrast—like the ingredients available at each restaurant.

There are no hard and fast rules about organizing a comparison/contrast paper, of course. Just be sure that your reader can easily tell what’s going on! Be aware, too, of the placement of your different points. If you are writing a comparison/contrast in service of an argument, keep in mind that the last point you make is the one you are leaving your reader with. For example, if I am trying to argue that Amante is better than Pepper’s, I should end with a contrast that leaves Amante sounding good, rather than with a point of comparison that I have to admit makes Pepper’s look better. If you’ve decided that the differences between the items you’re comparing/contrasting are most important, you’ll want to end with the differences—and vice versa, if the similarities seem most important to you.

Our handout on organization can help you write good topic sentences and transitions and make sure that you have a good overall structure in place for your paper.

Cue words and other tips

To help your reader keep track of where you are in the comparison/contrast, you’ll want to be sure that your transitions and topic sentences are especially strong. Your thesis should already have given the reader an idea of the points you’ll be making and the organization you’ll be using, but you can help them out with some extra cues. The following words may be helpful to you in signaling your intentions:

• like, similar to, also, unlike, similarly, in the same way, likewise, again, compared to, in contrast, in like manner, contrasted with, on the contrary, however, although, yet, even though, still, but, nevertheless, conversely, at the same time, regardless, despite, while, on the one hand … on the other hand.

For example, you might have a topic sentence like one of these:

• Compared to Pepper’s, Amante is quiet.
• Like Amante, Pepper’s offers fresh garlic as a topping.
• Despite their different locations (downtown Chapel Hill and downtown Carrboro), Pepper’s and Amante are both fairly easy to get to.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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• The four main types of essay | Quick guide with examples

The Four Main Types of Essay | Quick Guide with Examples

Published on September 4, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An essay is a focused piece of writing designed to inform or persuade. There are many different types of essay, but they are often defined in four categories: argumentative, expository, narrative, and descriptive essays.

Argumentative and expository essays are focused on conveying information and making clear points, while narrative and descriptive essays are about exercising creativity and writing in an interesting way. At university level, argumentative essays are the most common type. 

In high school and college, you will also often have to write textual analysis essays, which test your skills in close reading and interpretation.

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Table of contents

Argumentative essays, expository essays, narrative essays, descriptive essays, textual analysis essays, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about types of essays.

An argumentative essay presents an extended, evidence-based argument. It requires a strong thesis statement —a clearly defined stance on your topic. Your aim is to convince the reader of your thesis using evidence (such as quotations ) and analysis.

Argumentative essays test your ability to research and present your own position on a topic. This is the most common type of essay at college level—most papers you write will involve some kind of argumentation.

The essay is divided into an introduction, body, and conclusion:

• The introduction provides your topic and thesis statement
• The body presents your evidence and arguments
• The conclusion summarizes your argument and emphasizes its importance

The example below is a paragraph from the body of an argumentative essay about the effects of the internet on education. Mouse over it to learn more.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An expository essay provides a clear, focused explanation of a topic. It doesn’t require an original argument, just a balanced and well-organized view of the topic.

Expository essays test your familiarity with a topic and your ability to organize and convey information. They are commonly assigned at high school or in exam questions at college level.

The introduction of an expository essay states your topic and provides some general background, the body presents the details, and the conclusion summarizes the information presented.

A typical body paragraph from an expository essay about the invention of the printing press is shown below. Mouse over it to learn more.

The invention of the printing press in 1440 changed this situation dramatically. Johannes Gutenberg, who had worked as a goldsmith, used his knowledge of metals in the design of the press. He made his type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, whose durability allowed for the reliable production of high-quality books. This new technology allowed texts to be reproduced and disseminated on a much larger scale than was previously possible. The Gutenberg Bible appeared in the 1450s, and a large number of printing presses sprang up across the continent in the following decades. Gutenberg’s invention rapidly transformed cultural production in Europe; among other things, it would lead to the Protestant Reformation.

A narrative essay is one that tells a story. This is usually a story about a personal experience you had, but it may also be an imaginative exploration of something you have not experienced.

Narrative essays test your ability to build up a narrative in an engaging, well-structured way. They are much more personal and creative than other kinds of academic writing . Writing a personal statement for an application requires the same skills as a narrative essay.

A narrative essay isn’t strictly divided into introduction, body, and conclusion, but it should still begin by setting up the narrative and finish by expressing the point of the story—what you learned from your experience, or why it made an impression on you.

Mouse over the example below, a short narrative essay responding to the prompt “Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself,” to explore its structure.

Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and math over the humanities. My instinct was always to think of these subjects as more solid and serious than classes like English. If there was no right answer, I thought, why bother? But recently I had an experience that taught me my academic interests are more flexible than I had thought: I took my first philosophy class.

Before I entered the classroom, I was skeptical. I waited outside with the other students and wondered what exactly philosophy would involve—I really had no idea. I imagined something pretty abstract: long, stilted conversations pondering the meaning of life. But what I got was something quite different.

A young man in jeans, Mr. Jones—“but you can call me Rob”—was far from the white-haired, buttoned-up old man I had half-expected. And rather than pulling us into pedantic arguments about obscure philosophical points, Rob engaged us on our level. To talk free will, we looked at our own choices. To talk ethics, we looked at dilemmas we had faced ourselves. By the end of class, I’d discovered that questions with no right answer can turn out to be the most interesting ones.

The experience has taught me to look at things a little more “philosophically”—and not just because it was a philosophy class! I learned that if I let go of my preconceptions, I can actually get a lot out of subjects I was previously dismissive of. The class taught me—in more ways than one—to look at things with an open mind.

A descriptive essay provides a detailed sensory description of something. Like narrative essays, they allow you to be more creative than most academic writing, but they are more tightly focused than narrative essays. You might describe a specific place or object, rather than telling a whole story.

Descriptive essays test your ability to use language creatively, making striking word choices to convey a memorable picture of what you’re describing.

A descriptive essay can be quite loosely structured, though it should usually begin by introducing the object of your description and end by drawing an overall picture of it. The important thing is to use careful word choices and figurative language to create an original description of your object.

Mouse over the example below, a response to the prompt “Describe a place you love to spend time in,” to learn more about descriptive essays.

On Sunday afternoons I like to spend my time in the garden behind my house. The garden is narrow but long, a corridor of green extending from the back of the house, and I sit on a lawn chair at the far end to read and relax. I am in my small peaceful paradise: the shade of the tree, the feel of the grass on my feet, the gentle activity of the fish in the pond beside me.

My cat crosses the garden nimbly and leaps onto the fence to survey it from above. From his perch he can watch over his little kingdom and keep an eye on the neighbours. He does this until the barking of next door’s dog scares him from his post and he bolts for the cat flap to govern from the safety of the kitchen.

With that, I am left alone with the fish, whose whole world is the pond by my feet. The fish explore the pond every day as if for the first time, prodding and inspecting every stone. I sometimes feel the same about sitting here in the garden; I know the place better than anyone, but whenever I return I still feel compelled to pay attention to all its details and novelties—a new bird perched in the tree, the growth of the grass, and the movement of the insects it shelters…

Sitting out in the garden, I feel serene. I feel at home. And yet I always feel there is more to discover. The bounds of my garden may be small, but there is a whole world contained within it, and it is one I will never get tired of inhabiting.

Though every essay type tests your writing skills, some essays also test your ability to read carefully and critically. In a textual analysis essay, you don’t just present information on a topic, but closely analyze a text to explain how it achieves certain effects.

Rhetorical analysis

A rhetorical analysis looks at a persuasive text (e.g. a speech, an essay, a political cartoon) in terms of the rhetorical devices it uses, and evaluates their effectiveness.

The goal is not to state whether you agree with the author’s argument but to look at how they have constructed it.

The introduction of a rhetorical analysis presents the text, some background information, and your thesis statement; the body comprises the analysis itself; and the conclusion wraps up your analysis of the text, emphasizing its relevance to broader concerns.

The example below is from a rhetorical analysis of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech . Mouse over it to learn more.

King’s speech is infused with prophetic language throughout. Even before the famous “dream” part of the speech, King’s language consistently strikes a prophetic tone. He refers to the Lincoln Memorial as a “hallowed spot” and speaks of rising “from the dark and desolate valley of segregation” to “make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” The assumption of this prophetic voice constitutes the text’s strongest ethical appeal; after linking himself with political figures like Lincoln and the Founding Fathers, King’s ethos adopts a distinctly religious tone, recalling Biblical prophets and preachers of change from across history. This adds significant force to his words; standing before an audience of hundreds of thousands, he states not just what the future should be, but what it will be: “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” This warning is almost apocalyptic in tone, though it concludes with the positive image of the “bright day of justice.” The power of King’s rhetoric thus stems not only from the pathos of his vision of a brighter future, but from the ethos of the prophetic voice he adopts in expressing this vision.

Literary analysis

A literary analysis essay presents a close reading of a work of literature—e.g. a poem or novel—to explore the choices made by the author and how they help to convey the text’s theme. It is not simply a book report or a review, but an in-depth interpretation of the text.

Literary analysis looks at things like setting, characters, themes, and figurative language. The goal is to closely analyze what the author conveys and how.

The introduction of a literary analysis essay presents the text and background, and provides your thesis statement; the body consists of close readings of the text with quotations and analysis in support of your argument; and the conclusion emphasizes what your approach tells us about the text.

Mouse over the example below, the introduction to a literary analysis essay on Frankenstein , to learn more.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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At high school and in composition classes at university, you’ll often be told to write a specific type of essay , but you might also just be given prompts.

Look for keywords in these prompts that suggest a certain approach: The word “explain” suggests you should write an expository essay , while the word “describe” implies a descriptive essay . An argumentative essay might be prompted with the word “assess” or “argue.”

The vast majority of essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Almost all academic writing involves building up an argument, though other types of essay might be assigned in composition classes.

Essays can present arguments about all kinds of different topics. For example:

• In a literary analysis essay, you might make an argument for a specific interpretation of a text
• In a history essay, you might present an argument for the importance of a particular event
• In a politics essay, you might argue for the validity of a certain political theory

An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.

Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.

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101 Compare and Contrast Essay Topics

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Compare and contrast essays are taught in school for many reasons. For one thing, they are relatively easy to teach, understand, and format. Students can typically understand the structure with just a short amount of instruction. In addition, these essays allow students develop critical thinking skills to approach a variety of topics.

Brainstorming Tip

One fun way to get students started brainstorming their compare and contrast essays is to create a Venn diagram , where the overlapping sections of the circle contain similarities and the non-overlapping areas contain the differing traits.

Following is a list of 101 topics for compare and contrast essays that you are welcome to use in your classroom. As you look through the list you will see that some items are academic in nature while others are included for interest-building and fun writing activities.

• Apple vs. Microsoft
• Coke vs. Pepsi
• Renaissance Art vs. Baroque Art
• Antebellum Era vs. Reconstruction Era in American History
• Childhood vs. Adulthood
• Star Wars vs. Star Trek
• Biology vs. Chemistry
• Astrology vs. Astronomy
• American Government vs. British Government (or any world government)
• Fruits vs. Vegetables
• Dogs vs. Cats
• Ego vs. Superego
• Christianity vs. Judaism (or any world religion )
• Republican vs. Democrat
• Monarchy vs. Presidency
• US President vs. UK Prime Minister
• Jazz vs. Classical Music
• Red vs. White (or any two colors)
• Soccer vs. Football
• North vs. South Before the Civil War
• New England Colonies vs. Middle Colonies OR vs. Southern Colonies
• Cash vs. Credit Cards
• Sam vs. Frodo Baggins
• Gandalf vs. Dumbledore
• Fred vs. Shaggy
• Rap vs. Pop
• Articles of Confederation vs. U.S. Constitution
• Henry VIII vs. King Louis XIV
• Stocks vs. Bonds
• Monopolies vs. Oligopolies
• Communism vs. Capitalism
• Socialism vs. Capitalism
• Diesel vs. Petroleum
• Nuclear Power vs. Solar Power
• Saltwater Fish vs. Freshwater Fish
• Squids vs. Octopus
• Mammals vs. Reptiles
• Baleen vs. Toothed Whales
• Seals vs. Sea Lions
• Crocodiles vs. Alligators
• Bats vs. Birds
• Oven vs. Microwave
• Greek vs. Roman Mythology
• Chinese vs. Japanese
• Comedy vs. Drama
• Renting vs. Owning
• Mozart vs. Beethoven
• Online vs. Traditional Education
• North vs. South Pole
• Watercolor vs. Oil
• 1984 vs. Fahrenheit 451
• Emily Dickinson vs. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• W.E.B. DuBois vs. Booker T. Washington
• Strawberries vs. Apples
• Airplanes vs. Helicopters
• Hitler vs. Napoleon
• Roman Empire vs. British Empire
• Paper vs. Plastic
• Italy vs. Spain
• Baseball vs. Cricket
• Jefferson vs. Adams
• Thoroughbreds vs. Clydesdales
• Spiders vs. Scorpions
• Northern Hemisphere vs. Southern Hemisphere
• Hobbes vs. Locke
• Friends vs. Family
• Dried Fruit vs. Fresh
• Porcelain vs. Glass
• Modern Dance vs. Ballroom Dancing
• American Idol vs. The Voice
• Reality TV vs. Sitcoms
• Picard vs. Kirk
• Books vs. Movies
• Magazines vs. Comic Books
• Antique vs. New
• Public vs. Private Transportation
• Email vs. Letters
• Facebook vs. Twitter
• Coffee vs. an Energy Drink
• Toads vs. Frogs
• Profit vs. Non-Profit
• Boys vs. Girls
• Birds vs. Dinosaurs
• High School vs. College
• Chamberlain vs. Churchill
• Offense vs. Defense
• Jordan vs. Bryant
• Harry vs. Draco
• Roses vs. Carnations
• Poetry vs. Prose
• Fiction vs. Nonfiction
• Lions vs. Tigers
• Vampires vs. Werewolves
• Lollipops vs. popsicles
• Summer vs. Winter
• Recycling vs. Landfill
• Motorcycle vs. Bicycle
• Halogen vs. Incandescent
• Newton vs. Einstein
• . Go on vacation vs. Staycation
• Rock vs. Scissors
• Write a Compare and Contrast Essay
• Beef Up Critical Thinking and Writing Skills: Comparison Essays
• How to Teach the Compare and Contrast Essay
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• Writing About Literature: Ten Sample Topics for Comparison & Contrast Essays
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• Climate in the Northern vs Southern Hemispheres
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Entity Relationship Diagram, Essay Example

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An entity-relationship diagram (ERD), also known as an entity-relationship model, is a graphical representation that depicts relationships among people, objects, places, concepts, or events within an information technology (IT) system.

Healthcare Database

The above Entity Relation Diagram describes how patient data is related to the reminder data. In the patient entity, it contains the Name, Address, and email of the patient. The email attribute would contain the primary key because every patient contains a specific email and cannot share the email. In the reminder entity, it contains the Reminder ID, Subject, and Body. The Reminder ID attribute contains the primary key because the IDs are not the same for different patients. In the relationship between the patient entity and the reminder, a one-to-many entity relationship is where one patient can receive numerous reminders. In the relationship between reminders and patient entity is that one to one relationship where one reminder can be sent to one patient.

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Home — Essay Samples — Economics — Economy — Circular Flow Model

The Usefulness of The Circular Flow of Income Model

• Categories: Economy Taxation

About this sample

Words: 964 |

Published: Jan 15, 2019

Words: 964 | Page: 1 | 5 min read

Works Cited

• Stafford, A. (2022). Resource Sharing between Business and Household Structures during Economic Crises. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 129, 104411. doi:10.1016/j.jedc.2022.104411
• American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Pub. L. No. 117-2, 135 Stat. 4. (2021).
• Investopedia. (n.d.). Fiscal Policy. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiscalpolicy.asp
• Mankiw, N. G. (2001). Principles of Economics. Cengage Learning.
• Noor, A. A. (2012). The Circular Flow of Income and Expenditure: A Textbook Example. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 2(1), 34-41.
• Acemoglu, D., Laibson, D., List, J. A., & Mankiw, N. G. (2014). Principles of Economics (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.
• Blinder, A. S., & Solow, R. M. (1973). Does Fiscal Policy Matter? Journal of Public Economics, 2(4), 319-337. doi:10.1016/0047-2727(73)90026-5
• Congressional Budget Office. (2021). The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2021 to 2031. Retrieved from https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56973
• Taylor, J. B. (2020). Monetary Policy Rules Work and Discretion Doesn't: A Tale of Two Eras. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 52(S1), 183-197. doi:10.1111/jmcb.12675
• World Bank. (2022). World Development Indicators 2022. Washington, DC: World Bank. doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-1909-1

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