A common grammatical mistake I see is when people use It, This and That in their writing. These words are important because they are used to refer back to something mentioned earlier. Referencing, or referring back in this way, has an impact on your Coherence and cohesion score. The image below shows how to use It, This and That correctly, so that you can explain your ideas clearly in IELTS writing.
You can find out more about clearly explaining your ideas and improving your Coherence and cohesion score in my interactive course: The Key to IELTS Writing Task 2.
Thank you, Pauline. I found your explanation of how to use these demonstrative pronouns is extremely useful. Not only does it help me to understand cohesion in IELTS Writing, but I also start appreciating how the test writer link ideas in IELTS reading.
Looking for to seeing more :-).
Yes, it’s really helpful to see that all of our language skills are linked and overlap – this means you don’t need to study one skill in isolation (you can think about writing when you are listening or reading). It helps to make your study more varied and interesting but it also reinforces the language you are learning.
Does “it” in example 1 act as a dummy pronoun, Ms.Cullen?
No, it is a pronoun replacing ‘a cold’. The type of ‘it’ you mean looks like this: ”It is important to realise that…” As you can see, in this example, we can’t replace ‘It’ with a noun. Example 9 is the type of pronoun you mean.