I believe that police protection and good schools are the main factors to create an ideal community

Topic: Most people have an idea of what they consider an ideal community to be. Some people value good schools or public transportation, while others consider police protection or the appearance of the neighborhood most important. In a composition, explain what represents an ideal community in your view. Identify what you believe to be the most important features and explain why they are important to you. Support your position with specific reasons and examples.

There has been a necessity of creating an ideal community since people first started a settled type of life. There were several issues that people put importance on to achieve this such as good schools, police protection, appearance of neighboorhood and public transportation. I believe that police protection and good schools are the main factors to create an ideal community.

First, police protection is essential to provide security and welfare to people in a community. As the proportion of crimes is increasing day by day, people are becoming to feel more insecure in the society. When there is more crime, then more people have the fear of being harmed and it creates a large number of withdrawn individuals. Therefore, this situation affects the welfare of the community in the negative way. As it is claimed that the appearance of neighborhood is essential to create and ideal community, I believe that the security of people is essential for the appearance of neighboorhood. Consequently, individuals should be protected by police in order to create an ideal community.

Second, the more there are good schools, the less there is nescience in a community. In my opinoin nescience is one of the major barriers in front of the development of individuals thereby the community. Good schools are to create well informed and sophisticated individuals and by the help of these people a community has more chance to provide solutions to its main issues such as technologic and economic development. Therefore, good schools should be provided in order to avoid nescience in a community and to create knowledgeable individuals who will take part to create an ideal community.

In conclusion, as it is claimed that there is more need for people to create an ideal community, I believe that good schools and police protection are the main needs should be provided. When there is more secure and knowledgeable people in a community, then there is more chance for that community to solve other problems and take a step in order to become an ideal community.

I am not happy with this sentence. I try to mean that people always needed to create an ideal community ever since they found a need to settle in an area permanently .

How can I express this with a different sentence which actually makes sense.

Aprt from that I also noticed that I used the term 'ideal community' alot in my essay. Is it not good ?

Did they? Did they need to set up an ideal community? I think you are mixing up two ideas:

(1) People always have had to decide how to construct their communities.
(2) Some people have always longed for or wondered how to construct an ideal community.

Is my mistake generalising this longing of constructing an ideal community for everyone? or would it still be wrong to make an introduction like that even if I did not generalise the issue.

No, it's in saying that people need to construct an ideal. We need to meet basic requirements; we long for ideals. It would be fine to say that people have always longed for an ideal community and many people have come up with specific ideas about the elements thereof.

Thanks alot. See you in new threads : )

Now wait a minute, I don't see why you couldn't say that people have always needed to try to make their community more ideal. The longing to make things better than they are, even when they are already pretty good, seems to be fundamental to the human race. One could disagree with this proposition, of course, but it doesn't seem immediately nonsensical.

This might lead, in an essay not meant to be written in under an hour, to an interesting discussion of the paradox inherent in the notion of creating an ideal community when the individuals who compose it, according to the very phrasing of the prompt, have different ideas of what an ideal community should be.

Sean, I actually wanted to base my arguments onto my introduction, but then I have to touch different points which may make the essay longer than it should be. I think I can not just leave the statement there. What do you think about the essay in general. Does it meet the general requirement of an Ielts essay in contex ?

You're on the right track, I'd say. Mostly, I would have written the introduction differently, to emphasize the key principles that underlie my version of the ideal community. You essentially picked two items from the list in the prompt, without really connecting them to any underlying principles. But, the two you picked work really well together, because they both go to issues of security. The most basic prerequisite for a strong community is security. A police presence to deter criminals is certainly one way to provide security, but by itself it isn't very ideal. The police are their to punish, not to protect, in most cases. That is, they show up after someone has been harmed, and track down and punish the evildoers. They have a much harder time preventing crime in the first place. That's where education comes in. The higher a person's level of education, the less likely he or she is to engage in crime, and the more likely that any crime he or she does engage in will be non-violent. So, having a highly educated populace also makes a community more secure. You don't make these (or any other) connections, and so your essay seems a bit odd, as if you had picked out the points for your answer from the prompt without ever really getting at the core issue you are supposed to be discussing. At least, that was my feeling after reading your essay a couple of times.

Thank you

Orlando, I would like to read your next draft with all changes pointed by Sean, if you can! I choose in my essay to discuss about schools (like you) and neighborhood.

Simone, is that the way that you are looking for? For me is very useful to see different approach of the same topic. Thanks for that idea!

I just have one question for Sean. Do you mean I should relate those two items I picked to the security of people after mentioning the most basic prerequisite for a strong community is security in my introduction, Then there will be connection between those items ?


I will soon bubuvio, but I first have few things to do so it might take a while. I also want to write an essay about the topic 'the age of invention'.

Yes, this is fine. It would also be possible, when you're ready to start on a new one, to begin a thread by stating explicitly that you challenge other essay members to write on the same topic for comparison. Then they could post their essays in the same thread without feeling that they are intruding on yours.

Exactly. Start by identifying what you think is the most important aspect of an ideal neighborhood (security) then tie your points (police, education) back to it.

Thank you Sean. I realise that it is not as hard when you keep it simple and support with logical arguments. There is no need to bring in extreme ideas.

Don't worry -- you'll eventually get to the point where you can express yourself as you would like in English, too. In the meantime, just keep treating these essays as what they are: tests of your English proficiency, not tests of your critical thinking abilities.

Lately, I am reading whatever I find, especially newspapers; also working on words and structures on others' essays and your comments.
It may sound like cheating (especially if getting prepared for Ielts exam, you know we wont be allowed to use dictionary etc) but I am also searching for the best academic word in order to express my thoughts during writing an essay to post here. Otheriwse I will just keep making sentences with the same words that I know. I have never attempted to write an essay in English before I visited here so I was a lot worse than I am now. Takes time but not impossibe.

You're doing everything right. Just keep at it and you will see improvement. I am already seeing improvement in your postings here.