IELTS Writing Task 1: How to Write an Overview Paragraph

An overview paragraph simply presents a summary of the main features that you are going to discuss in the body paragraphs. This is the second and the most important paragraph for IELTS Task 1 essay (The first paragraph was paraphrasing the question statement). Without writing an overview paragraph in Task 1, you cannot expect more than 5 band score in IELTS Writing section. 

An overview paragraph contains only 2-3 sentences. It is just for stating the major features and giving an outline how you are going to discuss those features throughout the essay. This paragraph will convey an advanced impression to the examiner about your essay. Therefore, you need to take a very special care for this.

Overview Paragraph Writing Strategy

You can resort to some effective strategies to write a smart overview paragraph. Let's discuss in detail:

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At first you have to understand the question properly. You need to select the major features in the diagrams, and then decide what you are going to focus on. That's why question analysis is the most important part for an IELTS essay writing. 

You need to find three major areas in the question sentence:

1. Topic Words or Keywords

2. Micro Keywords

3. Action Words

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Look at the example question below and see how we develop an Overview paragraph for this Task 1 question.

Source: Cambridge English IELTS Past Papers

If you analyse the pie chart question above, you will find the followings:

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Topic words

Volunteers by organisations

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Micro keywords 

Environmental, Art, Sport, Health Care, Educational, and Others.

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Action words

'Compare' is the action word. (Look, action words might not be stated directly, in that case you need to understand what the examiner is expecting from you. For example, if there are more than one diagrams like the ones in this question above, you can just go for comparing the major changes/features.) Therefore, 'Compare' is the action word.

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After completing the question analysis, you need to find the major features in the diagrams. Just 2 features are enough to discuss as you have word restriction.​

2008                            2014

Major contributors     Major contributors

Educational (24%)       Environmental (29%)

Environmental (21%)   Sport (25%)

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Increased: Health Care, Sport, and Environmental

Decreased: Others, Art, and Educational

Most significant change: Sport

Units are measured in percentage.

In Writing Task 1, you might either face a dynamic diagram or a static diagram. Dynamic diagram means data changes over time, whereas static diagram shows data for a specific point in time. Take a look at the following issues, it might make your task easier to develop an Overview paragraph.

If it is a dynamic diagram:

• See the starting and finishing points of data

• See the trend line of data how it changes over the time. See whether it is increasing or decreasing, or remaining stable over the period.

• Find if there are significant changes in the general trend line.

• Locate the highest and the lowest points that the data reached

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If it is a static diagram:

• See where are the extreme values

• Locate the significant differences

• Look if there is any exception

• Find if there are similarities

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If you analyse a Task 1 diagram this way, it should not be difficult to write 2-3 sentences for the overview paragraph. Remember, you will not explain any data in the overview paragraph. Just state the major features in general. Save the details for the body paragraphs. 

Remember the Overview paragraph structure that we discussed in our Complete Guide on IELTS Task 1 Essay Structure:

Sentence 1: summary statement 1(preview of the essay without presenting data)

Sentence 2: summary statement 2 (more preview without presenting data)

Sentence 3: outline sentence (State how the discussion will proceed.)

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Let's form the paragraph:

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Sentence 1(Summary Statement 1)

"Overall, out of the total 6 participating organizations, the rate of volunteers from three organizations increased."

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Sentence 2(Summary Statement 2)

"Though Sport experienced the most significant change, Educational and Environmental organisations contributed the highest percentage of volunteers in 2008 and 2014 respectively."

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Sentence 3(Outline Sentence)

"Major changes are explained below."

"Overall, out of the total 6 participating organizations, the percentage rate of volunteers from three organizations increased. Though Sport experienced the most significant change, Educational and Environmental organisations contributed the highest percentage of volunteers in 2008 and 2014 respectively. Major changes are explained below."

That's it. Pretty simple. We've just completed the Overview paragraph for a Task 1 Pie Chart question. Look, we didn't provide any explanation in this paragraph. We just stated the major features that are very obvious in the diagram. We will discuss the details in the body paragraphs.

Up next,

How to write a body paragraph for IELTS Writing Task 1.

We suggest you check all the most important question types for IELTS Task 1 essay:

Pie Chart                     Bar Chart      

Line Graph                   Map

Table Chart                  Process Diagram 

Multiple Graphs

Check the following resources:

A complete guide on IELTS Writing

A complete guide on IELTS Writing Task 1 Academic

A complete guide on Writing Task 2 (GT + Academic)

IELTS Important Grammar and Vocabulary