TOEFL WRITING: In 20 years from now on, students will not use printed books any more.

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? In 20 years from now on, students will not use printed books any more.

There is a trend that more and more people would like to buy a kindle or an ipad to read e-books. It seems that nobody is willing spend a lot of money to buy a printed book which is heavy and thick. As a result, somebody states that, students will not use printed books any more after 20 years. However, I don't agree with this viewpoint.

First of all, it is not practical to convert the copies of all published books into e-books. This exercise will involve high costs and labor that would be hard to justify. For example, there are large amount of books in our school library. It takes time, money and human resources for school to buy and keep these books. If a library transformed all their books in to electronic resources, it would take huge cost. And I think no school could burden this payout.

Secondly, it's impossible to transform all printed books into e-books, cause there are some certain kinds of books that should be kept in its original form for their special use and potential value. For example, the ancient books used for historical and literary research, which we have to read carefully by wearing a pair of gloves, must be kept in a specific place of the library. For another example, some books that are out of print or printed in limited edition always have collection value.

Moreover, some students claim that they prefer printed books than e-books because it's easy to take notes on paper. And more importantly, the electronic equipment doesn't touch like a book.

We can't deny that e-book does have its advantages over traditional printed book. It's convenient to carry, easy to share with others and so on. And we can imagine the future in which e-books are widely used in the world. But the printed book, with its own value and function, will not be completely replaced by e-books.

... This is not necessary... Do that in the body paragraphs. It's good to conclude the introduction stating your position.


.... in the body paragraphs you need to give the reasons to justify your position on the argument. So you have to give more emphasis to the reason and then you should support that with a specific examples. Here the reason ( which is the practicality of recovering of committed investment ) and example (books of your school library) are both mixed and therefore they do not provide the reader with more logical explanation that can convince them your point . Start with the reason and then have the example to follow it.

First of all, it is not practical to convert the copies of all published books into e-books. This exercise will involve high costs and labor that would be hard to justify. For example, there are thousands of books in our school library... (so on)

Hope you got my point :)

This is more than enough for your introduction. Up to this point it flows beautifully and also it contains all necessary feature of the intro :)

When you talk about a hypothesis situation, you had better use such helping verb as "would", "could" and "should".

e.g. It is huge cost to transform all these books into electronic resources.
You mean, "if a library transformed all their(these) bools in to electronic resources, it would take huge cost."
That is, this isn't a factual statement but a hypothetical statement.

So, it is clearer to use conditional phrase than to use normal phrase.

I'll be happy if it helps you.

have fun :-)

As a result, somebodysome people states that, students will not use printed books any more after 20 years



Well, your have the hook and also you have expressed your opinion clearly. But you have not introduced the argument properly. You need to tell both sides of the argument. Then only you should state your opinion.