IELTS HOPECO: Processes (Part 2) - Using the correct writing style

Like all forms of writing, you must also decide on the correct writing style. Look at part of a recipe explaining the process for making chocolate sponge cake.

Place the baking trays in the centre of the preheated oven and cook for 30 minutes. You must not open the oven door during this time. After 30 minutes, you can take the trays out of the oven and leave them for one minute to slightly cool. Turn the trays upside down onto a wire rack and remove the cakes. You must let them cool completely before removing the greaseproof paper.

Do you think this is informal or formal? Discuss with your classmate whether or not it is the correct style to use and if not, what could be done to improve it.

The key point to remember is: when writing about any process in IELTS Writing Task 1, you must NOT have any direct or indirect reference to people. This means that you can­not use words like you, they, we, people, I in your writing. These are direct references to people and are used more often in an informal style of writing. Academic writing, however, is seen as being more formal and usually has no (or very few) direct references to people.

Taking out any reference to people makes it a typical style for writing recipes but still the wrong style for academic purposes. This is because sentences like Place the baking trays in the centre of the preheated oven and cook for 30 minutes tell someone how to do something and is still an indirect reference to people.

This means that the style of writing is not formal enough. So the question is: how do you change a sentence that has an indirect reference into a more formal style? To do this, you must use the passive form of the verb.

Look at the example.

Place the baking trays in the centre of the preheated oven and cook for 30 minutes.

The verbs can be turned from the simple present active into the simple present passive.

The baking trays are placed in the centre of the preheated oven and are then cooked for 30 minutes.

One problem, however, is trying to decide if a verb is regular or irregular. In this example, it is regular and follows the rule: is / are verb + ed (regular). When you do not know for sure if the verb is regular or irregular, the only thing you can do is guess.




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