IELTS Task 1- How to Write an

Overview
By Christopher Pell
46481

482

Shares

The overview is probably the most important paragraph in the whole essay. In fact, as
we will see later in this post, it is very difficult to score 7 or over without a good one.
An overview is simply a summary of the main or most important points in a graph,
chart, process or map. It is normally 2-3 sentences long and should be the second
paragraph you write in your essay. As we will see below, it also influences what you
write in the rest of your essay.
Learn how to write a good one and you are much more likely to get a high score.
What does the examiner want?
An overview is one of the first things an examiner looks for because it shows them
that you can identify the most important information from the graph or chart and
clearly identify overall trends and comparisons.
If we look at the official marking scheme we can see that the word overview is
mentioned three times:

This means that to get at least a 5 for task achievement we must give some kind of
overview. If we do not give any overview we will always get below a 5. If we select the
appropriate data to include in our overview we get a score of 6 and if it is clear we
get a 7 for this part of the exam.
If you know how to select the appropriate data and you practice writing a clear
overview, then you are likely to get the score you deserve in this section.
What is an overview?
To understand this we must look at the question. The question for academic task one
is always the same:
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make
comparisons where relevant.
We therefore need to provide a short summary of the main features. You do this in
the overview paragraph by picking out 3-4 of the most significant things you can see
and writing them in general terms. By general, I mean you do not support anything
you see with data from the graph or chart, just write about what you can see visually.
Lets look at an example:

Overall, I notice that there are 7 regions. Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America
make up the majority, with North America being the largest. Africa, India, Latin
America and China make up a very small proportion.
We can then include these things in an overview paragraph:
The pie chart is comprised of 7 regions in total with Europe, Asia-Pacific and North
America making up the vast majority of global wealth. North America has the single
biggest share and Africa, India, Latin America and China combined, only make up a
small proportion.
As you can see, I have not talked about individual fractions or percentages, in fact I
have not supported any of my features with data. Instead, I have just reported what I
can see visually, without looking closely at the data. If you have to look at the data,
then you probably wont write a good overview.

How do I select the correct features?

To understand this we have to think about the different types of graphs and charts we
might see. There are generally two different kinds of charts and graphs: dynamic and
static.
Dynamic charts show data over time and static charts show data at just one point in
time. This will affect the type of data we select.
Lets look at a dynamic chart:

As you can see, the graph is dynamic because it shows data over a period of time.
We should therefore look at the general trend over the time period.
First, we should look at what happened from the start (2011) to the end (2014). From
the start to the end both lines increased. Then we should look at any other general
trends for each of the two lines. We can see the blue line (women) goes up until 2013
and then does down a little. The green line (men) goes up slightly and then has a
very large increase between 2012 and 2014.
These are the most striking or most obvious things we can see when first looking at
the graph and these are perfect for our overview.
Lets put this information into a sentence:

Over the entire time period the number of men and women reading books increased.
Women saw a steady increase between 2011 and 2013 before declining in
2014, while men increased gradually at first before rocketing up in the last two years.
When we are looking at dynamic graphs we should be looking out for:

What does the data do from the start to the finish?

Do they generally go up or down or do they fluctuate?

Any significant difference from the general trend?

Overall increase/decrease?

Peaks/lows?

No lets look at a static chart:

This chart is different from the last one because there are no dates to look at; it is
data from just one point in time. We can therefore not talk about general trends over
time.

Instead we are more concerned about comparing the data between the different
sources. In this case, we will be comparing the data between countries.
The first thing I notice is that all countries are below 400k except two of them.
Switzerland and Australia are the biggest and Singapore and the U.K. are the
smallest. Switzerland has almost double the average. There isnt a significant amount
of difference between the bottom 6 countries.
Lets try and turn the things Ive noticed above into an overview:
The graph compares eight countries with only a small amount of difference between
the bottom 6. Australia and Switzerland have the highest average
wealth, with Switzerland averaging nearly double the value of the two bottom
countries.
When we look at static graphs we should be looking for:

What are the highest/lowest values?

What are the most noticeable differences?

Any similarities?

Any significant exceptions?

Is there any special grammar?

You should try and make a complex sentence by making a subordinate clause.
Complex sentences are sentences with more than one clause and they help increase
our marks in the grammatical range part of the marking criteria.
You can easily make a subordinate clause structure in the overview by joining two
pieces of information with the words while. although, with, even though, whereas
or and. However, make sure you know the meaning of these words and how they
are correctly used in a sentence.
How does an overview fit into the rest of my essay?
The overview should be the second paragraph of a four paragraph structure:

Paragraph 1- Paraphrase Sentence

Paragraph 2- Overview
Paragraph 3- Details
Paragraph 4- Details
I tell my students to write the overview before the details because it makes it clear to
the examiner that you have identified the main features and it also helps you write the
details paragraph. In the details paragraphs you will simply take the statements you
made in the overview and support them with data.
Shouldnt I write a conclusion?
No. Conclusions are really a summary of what you think or opinions. This is not an
opinion essay and you therefore do not need to write a conclusion. Save your
conclusions for task 2.
Example
Below is one final example following the structure I used above. I have highlighted
the overview in yellow.
Notice how I have picked out the most significant/noticeable/important features and
talked about them very generally in the overview. I have not used any data in the
overview. However, I have taken the features from the overview and supported them
with data in paragraphs 3 and 4.

I hope you found this post useful and if you have any questions please let me know in
the comments section below.
For a more detailed post on how to answer IELTS task 1 chart questions, please click
the link.
You may also find my grammar guide for IELTS task 1 useful. It has lots of phrases to
help you describe data.