In many workplaces online communication has overtaken face to face meetings. Do the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?
Sample Response
In today’s ever-increasingly digital world, online communication has become the norm for many workplaces. While this development offers numerous advantages to companies, includingfor companies such as greater flexibility and efficiency, it also bringsbrings with it certain disadvantages, such as miscommunicationdisadvantages like miscommunication, which must be weighed against theseits benefits.
One of the primary advantages of online communication is that it makes it easier for teams to stay in touch without needing to meet in personwithout having to physically convene. This is especially beneficial when individuals or groups are geographically disperseddispersed across vast distances. Reduced travel costs, as well as time saved by avoiding traveltime saved from not having to travel to and from meetings, also represent meaningful savings for businesses. Additionally, online communication platforms often include featuresoften have a range of features designed to make collaboration more efficient, such as making it easy to shareproviding an easy way to share documents and other materials with remote team members. To illustrate, digital resources can be sent quickly and securely via email or other cloud-storage services such as Dropbox or Google Drivesoftware services like Dropbox or Google Drive.
There is a potential drawback associated with relying too heavily on online communication at work, as the lack of physical proximity between members of a team can often lead to misunderstandings due to a loss of context or nonverbal cues that would otherwise be present during face-to-face meetings. However, in my opinion, these issues can be reducedissues of this nature can be solved by using written language more carefully to avoid confusionavoid any confusion or miscommunication among colleagues.
In conclusion, when online communication tools are used properly, they undoubtedly provide companies with greater flexibility in how their teams collaborate without sacrificing clarity of communication, quality or efficiency.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response is clear, concise, and well organised, with a persuasive case that the practical benefits of online communication outweigh a manageable communication risk. Its main limitation is that the disadvantage is treated briefly and resolved somewhat too easily, so the comparison lacks depth. Prioritize developing the counterargument and explicitly weighing its significance against the main benefits before reaching the conclusion.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response answers the comparative question with a clear position and relevant, developed advantages, although the disadvantage receives relatively limited analysis.
Develop the communication drawback with a concrete consequence and explicitly compare its severity with the time, cost, and flexibility benefits.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument is easy to follow, paragraphs have clear purposes, and cohesion is handled naturally across the response.
Strengthen the transition into the final judgment by making the weighing step more explicit at the end of the disadvantage paragraph.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a broad and precise range of workplace and communication vocabulary with strong control of collocation and register.
Polish the few slightly cumbersome choices, such as ever-increasingly digital, and avoid repeating communication and efficiency where concise alternatives are available.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide variety of complex sentence forms is used accurately, and errors are rare enough not to affect clarity.
Maintain this accuracy while occasionally shortening long multi-clause sentences to sharpen emphasis and readability.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
In many workplaces online communication has overtaken face to face meetings. Do the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.