Accessing news - [IELTS writing task 1] - pie chart

How Australians and Canadians get their news?

The pie chart shown above illustrates and compares the ways citizens of Australia and Canada access the news. In general, we can see that there's some similar patterns and also some significant differences between each country.

To look into details, 36% of Canadian citizens prefer to go online while in Australia there is a significant more amount of people that use the internet which is 52% ,more than half, of all Australians. This makes a 16% difference between each country. Another method of learning about news that is similarly popular in both countries is watching the news on TV. 40% of Canadian and 37% of Australian citizens prefer TV, which makes a 3% gap between them. According to the chart we can clearly radio and print are the less preferred ways accessing news. 14% of Canada uses prints and 7% use radio, making radio the lesser preferred between the two. Comformably it is in the same order in Australia too, with print being 7% and radio taking up only 2%.

Overall, it can be confidently said while people of both countries share similar methods of accessing news however the number of people using them varies by each country. It's clear the usage of modern ways (such as internet and TV) are used more commonly than others.

**i know i'm not good with academic language so i would appreciate constructive criticism.

The first thing you have to note about a task 1 essay is that it is unnecessary and actually frowned upon to note the position of the image within the summary overview or reporting paragraphs. That is because the reader is assumed to not have a copy of the image and therefore, incapable of looking at the image directly to compare your reporting to. The target audience will simply have to take your word for it. So do not mention the image position at all.

When it comes to pronoun usage, it is best to not make any reference at all since this is a general audience presentation. There is no need to use first, second, or third pronouns, singular or otherwise since this is supposed to be an unbiased analytical presentation rather than an opinion discussion. Just report the facts in a straightforward manner. Do not say "According to..." because the chart is not saying anything. While it is a reference point for the discussion, the use of "according to" shows a limitation in the writer's knowledge of English writing rules and general word usage. Pay more attention to the target audience word usage instead. For example, use an academic tone for university professors, a professional tone for business executives, etc.

Task 1 essays do not need to have more than a 200 word count. That is because the focus of the essay is on a quick reporting style rather than a heavily analytical one. Do not overcompose any of the paragraphs either. There needs to be a balanced 3 paragraph discussion. Rather than placing the trending statement at the end, which is still acceptable, it is usually more effective for task clarity purposes to place that as a merged presentation within the summary overview. That way more focus can be made to explaining and comparing the content of the image over a 2 paragraph setting.

This is not a bad effort though. Just remember the corrections and observations made above and the next essay should come across as better written and developed.