Writing Skills 1: Analysis, Planning, Structure & Cohesion
The craft underneath all three tasks: reading a prompt like a rater, planning in seconds, structuring paragraphs, and making sentences hold together.
Task analysis — understanding the prompt
Every prompt hides three instructions: the AUDIENCE (who receives this?), the JOB (inform? request? persuade? contribute?), and the REQUIRED CONTENT (bullets, the question, the sources). Underline all three before writing a word. Most low scores are analysis failures, not language failures.
Planning
Planning is not outlining an essay — at TOEFL lengths it is assigning each paragraph/sentence a job and an order. 30-60 seconds of role-planning saves minutes of mid-writing wandering and prevents the classic unfinished ending.
Thesis & control ideas
Emails and discussion posts have a control idea too: the ONE sentence that states your purpose/position. Put it early. Every following sentence must serve it; a sentence that doesn't is cut in proofreading.
Paragraph structure
The reliable academic paragraph: topic sentence (the point) → explanation (why/how) → example or evidence → closing link. Discussion contributions chain 1-3 of these; emails map one per bullet.
Supporting ideas, examples & explanation
Raters reward SPECIFIC support: a number, a name, a short scenario beats three adjectives. Explanation answers "why does this matter?"; examples answer "like what?". Alternate them and development takes care of itself. Comparison is premium support: contrasting two options shows control of both content and language.
Cohesion & transitions
Cohesion is visible logic: reference words (this, such, the former), repetition of key nouns, and transitions that NAME the relationship (however = contrast, therefore = result, for instance = example). One accurate transition per relationship — a paragraph stuffed with connectors reads worse, not better.