Add more detail is not advice
Every student has been told to develop your ideas and add more detail. It is true, and it is almost useless, because it describes the result and not the move. So let us do it the other way round. Below is one body paragraph, on one question, written three times. The question is whether governments should make public transport free. The idea stays exactly the same in all three. Only the writing changes.
One idea, three versions
1What most students write
"I think free public transport is good. It is good because many people will use it. If many people use it, there will be less cars. Less cars is good for the city. So it is a good idea." Five sentences and one idea, repeated five times. There is no example, nothing is measured, and every sentence has the same shape. The word good appears three times.
2Better, with a reason and an example
"Free public transport would help because more people would choose it. If buses and trains cost nothing, many drivers would leave their cars at home, and traffic in city centers would fall. For example, a commuter who drives to work every morning might take the bus instead." Now there is a reason, an example, and sentences of different lengths. This is already a clear step up, and most students stop here.
3Strong
"The strongest argument for free transport is that it changes the daily choice, not the yearly one. When a bus costs nothing, deciding whether to drive stops being about principles and starts being about money, and many people who would never give up their car to help the environment will give it up to save fifty dollars a month. A city that removes even a fifth of its morning traffic gains cleaner air and shorter journeys, including for the drivers who stay. That is why free buses are better understood as an investment than as a loss."
What actually changed
01A first sentence that commits
02An example that could not be moved
03A last line that points home
3 sentence-level moves you can copy
Replace good and bad with what you mean
✕Less cars is good for the city.
✓Fewer cars means cleaner air and shorter journeys.
Good tells the reader nothing. Naming the actual benefit turns one empty word into two pieces of content, and it costs you no extra length.
Turn a repeat into a reason
✕It is good because many people will use it. If many people use it, there will be less cars.
✓If buses cost nothing, drivers leave their cars at home, and traffic falls.
The first version says the same thing twice with different words. One if clause carries both steps and shows a complex structure at the same time.
Give the example a person
✕Many people would use public transport more.
✓A commuter who drives every morning might take the bus instead.
One imagined person is more convincing than a crowd, and it is easier to write. You do not need real data. You need something the reader can picture.
The part that surprises people
Read the third one again and look for advanced vocabulary. There is almost none. No rare words, no thesaurus, nothing you did not already know. The whole distance between the first and the third is structure and specificity, which is very good news, because those are things you can practice tonight without learning a single new word.
Read next
Put it into a whole essay: one essay shape that fits every Task 2 question and 5 small changes that take your writing from 6.5 to 7.
Rewrite one of your own tonight
Take a paragraph you already wrote and run the three moves on it: a first line that commits, an example that could not be moved, and a last line that points home. Then write the whole essay in VoyaLang and compare your version with the stronger one it gives you, paragraph by paragraph. Seeing your own idea written better is the fastest way this ever clicks. Create a free account and try it in about a minute.
