Writing Practice

Graph Writing

Cause and effect essays are concerned with why things happen (causes) and what happens as a result (effects). Cause and effect is a common method of organizing and discussing ideas. The following tips can help you draft this type of essay:

1. A brief introduction

(1) Graph writing, in fact, is a way to transfer information into written language from  a graph or chart.

(2) Here the word “graph” refers to Graphs, Charts, and Tables. Graphs and charts are pictures which show numbers or figures, and tables are just rows and columns of information.

(3) Usually, graph writing consists of three parts: Introduction, Body and Conclusion. Introduction should describe the purpose of report and say what overall trends you see. Body should describe the most important trends, while all information is summarized to avoid unnecessary details. Conclusion should sum up the global trends shown on the figure and compare them if possible.

(4) In order to have a better composition, the writer should be familiar with some special expressions in graph writing.  (Details can be seen in Some common connects below)

2. An example  

Directions: Write a composition entitled “Leading Causes of Road Accidents in

                 China”. The composition should be based on the following graph.

 Your composition should be in three paragraphs:

1) introduce the causes;

2) report the information given in the graph;

1) conclude the composition by giving some suggestions.

1. Some useful expressions in graph writing  

1) The picture shows….

2) This table shows the differences between….

3) The diagram represents…

4) The chart above indicates…

5) The information represented in the graph indicates …

6) As can be seen from the chart, …

7) As is shown in the bar graph, there were …

8) From the diagram it can be seen clearly that…

9) From these figures one can easily see that…

10) According to the graph given above, we can see that…

11) This is an illustration of…/a typical example of…

12) There was a great/slight increase/rise.

13) There has been a sudden/slow/rapid fall/drop…

14) Take the above chart as an example,…

2. Homework  

(Directions: )

Write a composition entitled “Us Spending Patterns, 1966-1996” based on the

 following pie charts.