Having a strong guided analysis structure is the easiest way to earn marks in your IB English Paper 1. But wait–there’s even better news: The best structure doesn’t have to be elaborate or complicated at all. In fact, the simpler the structure, the better!
In this guide, I will answer the following questions:
- What is logical flow in a essay?
- How many points should I have in my essay?
- What’s the best way to organise the points in my essay body?
If you’ve just discovered LitLearn, be sure to read our complete guide on IB English Paper 1. Not to brag, but it’s amazing!
What is logical flow, and why is it important?
The key ingredient of a strong structure for your Paper 1 essay is logic. What do I mean by logic? I mean that the points in your essay must flow seamlessly from one point to the next in chain of reasonable connections.
If you want to take your essay to the next level, you should use these logical connections to not just connect points but to develop the argument of the essay.
To illustrate what I mean by logical flow, consider a bad example where there is absolutely no reasonable connection between subsequent points:
- The bully is characterised as an arrogant individual.
- The author uses metaphor to construct the excited atmosphere of the annual event.
- The use of structure in the poem portrays the tragic consequences of the car crash.
Huh? These points have no connections between them. They could easily have been scrambled and presented in another order, and it wouldn’t have mattered. Always ensure that your points connect and develop from one to the next.
The ideal number of points for IB English Paper 1
Always aim for 3 points. An essay with four points is also highly effective, especially for HL English students, given the complexity of your texts.
Avoid having only 2 points in your essay. You can still get a good mark, but this structure is not ideal because it doesn’t allow for a sufficient breadth of analysis. Breadth is just as important as depth of analysis.
As a funny side-story, I almost had to stick with 2 points for my final IB English Paper 1 exam, but luckily at the end I was able to conjure a third and final point to save my Paper 1 grade from the hot embers of failure… I’m just kidding. I’m sure the essay would’ve been fine if I’d only had 2 points. But of course, it’s the ideal.
Types of point organisation
My recommendations for the best essay structure is no doubt a biased opinion. Your teachers might have different recommendations, but what follows is simply an honest expression of what has worked well and not-so-well for me in my IB English experiences. Can you write a great essay with SPECSLIMS as your mode of organisation? Certainly. I just have haven’t seen the merits of this particular organisation, and of course, I’m not a perfect human.
| Type of organisation | Effectiveness rating |
|---|---|
| SPECSLIMS | ⭐️ |
| Technique | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ |
| Idea / theme | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ |
| Section | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ |
Techniques
Having your points as techniques is the best approach in only one scenario: When the text conveys one central idea, message or theme. This scenario happens about 10% of the time. Clearly, organising by techniques is a bad—or at least a non-ideal—choice in 90% of all Paper 1s.
Let’s be specific. Organising an essay by techniques has two main disadvantages:
- The points are usually difficult to integrate in a logical, flowing manner. How do you link metaphor, sound and poem structure in a logical flow? Not easy.
- You cannot analyse multiple techniques together to support a single point because each point must focus on a single technique; this leads to the isolated analysis of techniques (there is a way around this, but we’ll keep it simple here) and hence a low score for Criterion B—Appreciating writer’s choices.
SPECSLIMS
This type of organisation requires you to have a separate paragraph for each of the following: subject matter, writer’s purpose, emotion of reader (mood), and craftsmanship, which is in turn broken down into structure, language, imagery, movement, and sound.
This structure is disorganised and the paragraphs clearly have no logical progression between them. I avoid SPECSLIMS without hesitation, and I recommend that you do the same for the sake of your Criterion C Organisation mark.
Ideas and Section
Through five years of IB English experience as both a student and a tutor, I discovered that organising an essay by idea and section are the most effective structures. Organising by section means to split an essay into several parts and analyse each section in relation to an idea or technique that is present in only that particular section. There are two main reasons for why these structures are the best:
- They offer the most opportunity for a logically-developing argument and a 5/5 on Criterion C—Organisation. This is because ideas can be naturally connected by reasonable logic, and sections are already structured by definition.
- They allow you to analyse multiple literary techniques together in relation to a single point, which helps in scoring 5/5 on Criterion B. You aren’t just analysing techniques in isolation but appreciating how different language choices work together.