'Harmful effects on our environment' - Benefits and Drawbacks of Urbanisation

Topic: Many people leave the countryside for the greater opportunities which are offered by cities. This move, is not without disadvantages for both people and the environment.

What are some benefits and drawbacks of urbanisation?

As the industries of the world are growing fast, urbanisation is proceeding so rapidly that it is generating largely unpredicted problems one hundred years ago. Although, of course, there can be some benefits like more employment and economic benefits, there are also bad effects like polluting our environments as lots of factories are built on the new areas following the urbanisation.

During the process of clearing out natural habitats as the first phase of the urbanisation, destroying an ecosystem existing on those areas is inevitable. Though governments are ocasionally keep them in its original condition for the image ofthe town when the habitats are small in size, normally, most of the living creatures in the areas are getting extincted. Nevertheless, this tragedy is happening even now for people's well-being itself.

A wide range of employment are offered in return. Many factories are built on the areas since economical benefit was the sole purpose of the urbanisation from the beginning, which will benefit to local economy, which goes to the wealth of government. Then the government find another place to develope.

While the country is becoming wealthy economically, it is also becoming poor environmentlly as a result of the exploiting. Toxic gases and severly polluted water from the factory will bring air, water pollution, which will eventually lead to the low quality of life.

Even though there was positive effects such as the increase of employment, urbanisation brought serious harmful effects on our environment. It seemed like we are improving our quality of life at the cost of destruction of ecosystem, was actually setting back in a long term. It is advisable for the nations to care more about the environment and to be critic on government's absurd decision.

I'm student who is preparing IELTS exam.
I know this essay has many problems, but as I don't have a personal tutor to correct mine I decided to try here. I've been practicing writing for 2months by myself ever since I arrived here Australia, but my english skill seems not improving at all.

I want to see as many samples as I can but I can't find the essay which is suitable for my purpose(about250words,formal,like this essay;;),so I'll be very appreciated if you let me know any good website or any book that has many samples.

thanks

Overall, your writing is quite good for someone who is practicing for the IELTS exam. Indeed, the advanced level of your writing is what causes you problems. You are clearly able to write simple grammatically correct sentences. You have moved on to trying to write more complex sentences in which more complicated ideas can be expressed. However, you are writing such long and complex sentences that you sometimes get tangled up in your phrasing or write sentences that are altogether too long.


The way this is phrased makes it sound like the changes you are talking about happened one hundred years ago. Rephrase as "urbanisation is proceeding so rapidly that it has generated changes that could not have been predicted one hundred years ago."


You are trying to say too much in one sentence here. I count four ideas crowded into this one sentence.

Getting fedback here -- Liebe? Noto? Orlando? Let's hear your critiques! -- will be a good way for you to improve your ability to write complexly in English. However, for purposes of the IELTS, you may want to strive to keep your sentences as short and simple as possible in order to avoid the grammatical errors that tend to creep into longer and more complex sentences.

^ :)

I am not too familiar with what the IELTS Exams require, in terms of content, depth of knowledge and evaluation. However, I can make suggestions on grammar, if that is fine.

As the industries of the world are growing fast, urbanisation is proceeding so rapidly that it is generating largely unpredicted problems one hundred years ago. Although, of course, there can be some benefits likesuch asmoreincreased employment and economic benefits,.thereHowever,there are also bad effectsurbanization also has it's consequences such aslike polluting our environmentsthe environment as lots of factories are built on the new areas following the urbanisation.

During the process of clearing out natural habitats as the first phase of the urbanisation,
The first phase of urbanization clears out natural habitats.
destroying an ecosystem existing on thoseecosystems in these areas are inevitable. Though governments are ocasionally keep them in its original condition for the image of the town when the habitats are small in size, normally, most of the living creatures in the areas are getting extincted becoming extinct.

^This sentence needs some grammar revision. I did not quite understand what you were trying to say Harry.

Nevertheless, this tragedy is happening even now for people's well-being itself.

A wide range of employment are offered in return. Many factories are built on the areas since economical benefit was the sole purpose of the urbanisation from the beginning, which will benefit tobenefits the local economy, which goes toand the wealth of government. Then the government find another place to develope.

While the country is becoming wealthy economicallyAs the country becomes increasingly wealthier , it is also becoming poor environmentlly as a result of the exploitingit's environment suffers as a result of the exploitation . Furthermore Toxic gases and severly polluted water from the factory will lead tobring air, waterair and water pollution, which will eventually lead to the low quality of life.

Even though there wascan be positive effectsresultssuch as the increase of employment, urbanisation brought serious harmful effects on our environmentseriously harms the environment . It seemed like we are improving our quality of life at the cost of destruction of ecosystem, was actually setting back in a long term.Whilst we are improving our quality of life, this is done at the cost of the environment.It is advisable for the nations to care more about the environment and to be critic on government's absurd decision.I believe that nations should be more concerned about their environment rather than their government's economic welfare.

^Well I made some grammar revisions. Commenting on IELTS would not be a strongpoint of mine since I am quite unfamiliar with what the test looks for, besides fluency in English. I am sorry if I was meant to comment on the structure and content, however I did not know if I was required to do so.

Good luck for your IELTS Harry.

*Grin* I am not very confident when it comes to helping non-native speakers either! I don't want to discourage people by nitpicking, but I would like to be helpful too. I haven't figured out how to walk that line yet. There are so many things in English that native speakers just know because they sound right to us. The use of articles (the, a, an) before nouns is a prime example of the difficulty English presents. I am not sure how one learns when and when not to use an article. When I see minor errors in the writings of non-native speakers, those errors usually have to do with article use, verb/noun agreement, or using a word that is close to the intended word, but not the right word (whether/weather, there/their, etc). Heck, even in the work of native-speakers, those are the most common errors.

Let me see if I can pick up on a few errors and analyze the idiosyncrasies behind the English.


Simone already commented on this sentence. It starts out very strong, but the one hundred years ago confuses the reader. Simone gave you a good revision for this sentence.


Liebe already commented on this sentence as well. I did want to point out that environment is almost always singular in English. Crazy, I know. When you think of the environment, you think of the air, the land, and the water. Lots of environments, right? We lump all of those things together and just call it the environment. The end of this sentence gets a little confusing when you talk about new areas following urbanization. I understand what you are saying (I think). With urbanization, comes new factories. New areas in English almost makes it sound like the urbanization is creating new open space--the opposite of what I think you are trying to say. Area is a word that, unless you modify it with other words, implies big and empty space.


Verbs! Verbs are so hard to learn in any language because there are so many tenses and nuances. You don't need the word are here because keep is already acting as your verb. Extinct is an adjective. It describes nouns. You are wanting to use is as a verb here because it looks like it should be one. Extincted isn't a word. To make it past tense, you have to change the verb in front of it. To make it future tense, you need to change the verb as well. The dwarf lemur will become extinct if precautions aren't taken. The passenger pigeon is extinct. The woolly mammoth became extinct when the ice age ended.


You have some great vocabulary going here, but the pieces don't quite fit together in the way that an English-speaker would expect (we are a demanding lot) and the reader gets a little lost. Did you mean something like: Nevertheless, this tragedy is happening even now and threatens the well-being of mankind.


Wide range of employment is singular so you would need to say "A wide range of employment is offered in return." Crazy. It is obvious that we are talking about more than one employment opportunity, but that's just the way it is.


Like Simone said, this is a long sentence. You can make it work with a little more organization, but it could be better to split it. "With economic benefit being the sole purpose of urbanization, many factories are built. These factories benefit the local economy and increase the government's wealth through taxes collected."


Yes! This whole section works well the way it is. The only thing I would do is omit the comma between air and water and put the wrod and there instead.


A couple of little changes here. The verb was isn't working. You need a plural verb to go along with effects. You could either say that there were positive effects or there are positive effects.


You start this sentence with a past-tense verb, then use a present-tense verb and then another past-tense verb. Ecosystem is one of the words that needs an article. Hmmm . . . let's see . . . would it be something like: It seems like we are improving our quality of life by destroying the ecosystem. Although there appear to to short-term gains, this approach will hurt us in the long term.


More weird English rules here . . . nations doesn't need the word the. When you use just nation, then you do need to say the nation. Don't ask me why; I don't know. We would also say to be critical of instead of to be critic on.

You have a few spelling errors. Is that because you are practicing without the benefit of spellcheck or are they just typing errors?

ocasionally should be occassionally
develope should be develop
enviromentlly should be environmentally
severly should be severely

I don't feel like I was of much help at all! I have thought about tutoring people in my community who are learning English, but I don't think I would be very good at it. I can't really explain why we do some of the things that we do.

Your English is pretty good. It think it will become better with practice. BUT . . . you must let people know that you want to improve and ask them to correct you when you say something wrong. Practice without feedback isn't going to help you improve as quickly. You will improve faster if you have English-speaking friends and watch television in English.

Why certainly, I have heard of Spain and France. In fact, I visited the nations quite recently. Okay, not really. But, there is a "the" in front of nations, because I am referring to specific nations. And that's one of the ways you can tell if you should use "the" -- it tends to introduce specifics. It can get more complicated than that, but its a good place to start. Likewise, nation in the singular goes with "a" for general purposes, and "the" for specific ones. So, "A nation should guard its borders. The nation of America barely does this."

Sean is right. Of course, Sean is right. Sean is just about always right. In fact, I cannot think of an instance when Sean wasn't right, *grin*

I understand the use of the definite article in English (the) and the indefinite article (a, an), but I don't know how to explain why we use articles with some nouns some of the time and why nouns don't always use an article! English is tough--even for native speakers!

I kind of get that the and a/an are not only articles, but adjectives because they modify nouns. And I am getting better at using an instead of a when there's another adjective that starts with a vowel--that's an ugly dog!

I have an inkling that article use depends on if a person is talking about all of something in a very general way . . . I like dogs! (with no article) Or if they are talking about just one of something . . . I want a dog. (an indefinite article) Or if they are referring to a particular dog . . . The dog needs to go outside. (definite article)

What I can't seem to wrap my head around (at least well enough to ever explain it to an English learner) is why we don't always use articles. There are times when nouns have other kinds of modifiers . . . my dog, your dog, that dog, those dogs, but then there are times when we plop the noun down with nothing there. I think it has to do with referring to something in an all-encompassing, generic way.

I am ill-equipped to explain English grammar, Simone called me out by name (next time, I just might have to ignore her). I reread my post from last night and it doesn't make much sense. You all ought to restrict my usage to times that I am fully awake and functional.

Harry, can I ask what your native language is? That might help me to better understand how you approach learning English.

Thanks you all for the feedbacks, Simone, Liebe, notoman.
First, I'm sorry for not asking you for corrections, perhaps,some part of me, I might not expect someone would correct my mistakes with such a effort, thanks again for that.

And I'm sorry for the late reply since America and Ausrtalia's are in different time zone and my school is keeping me very busy.

I know I'm not ready for the writing but, since my parents pouring money on my english course for the university entrance, I want to pass the english course as soon as I can, so I must write something even if that has many problems^^;;

I looked through your replies throughly which were exactly I was looking for.

Simone) [could not have been predicted one hundred years ago]
sorry, I don't quite understand why you used present perfect in this sentence. How can we not predict problems which we are already facing now.

I'm not sure if I'm being rude quetioning back like this, but you should know I focused only on my grammatical problem. As I haven't even talked to foreigner before I arrive here so I don't know about your culture, so I apology in advence. Please teach me if you feel I'm being rude cause I really don't know. If there's anything you want to say as advise, please^^

Liebe) yes the IELTs test only look for the english fluency and granmatical mistakes besides ideas unless the stream goes completly wrong.

I only wrote sentences complexly because I don't know how to shorten the sentences with short of my vocab and idiom background which I'm learning seperatly.

you erased 'of course' at first, was that awkward for you to read or just completly wrong to use?

[it's environment suffers as a result of the exploitation.]
how can two verbs are in one sentence?

[this is done at the cost of the environment]
I don't understand this sentence T.T

Notoman) First, I gotta say you surprised me with such detail explanation. Anybody would believe if you say you're an official english teature, and your nitpicking is always welcome,bytheway.

[urbanisation is proceeding so rapidly that it is generating largely unpredicted problems ]
my original sentence just finish like this, but my english teacher doesn't like this and said if I want to use this sentence, I have to insert 'one hundred years ago', so I just put that at last of the sentence;;

-second paragraph of yours-
[I did want to point out that environment is almost always singular in English]
In this sentence, you put in 'did' even though there is an another verb. Is additional 'did' implies explanation why you mentioned the sentences which Liebe already mentioned? I learned it is only used as emphasis purposes.

I'm still not sure why I was wrong to use 'new area'in the second of HarryK box.
In urbanisation, government clears out nasty suburb, then there's big empty space as you referred, and I explained 'new area' with where the factories will built on?

Like you mentioned I'm having a problem with discerning nuances in vocab, and my concept of each vocab is very vague, so I was starting to see english-english dictionary,not korean-english dic, but thanks for the advice^^.

I well listened your adj lecture, thank you.

-seventh paragraph of yours- at the last sentence,, [increase the government's wealth through taxes collected] can you just shorten like this? I mean,,
I know the meaning is [increase the government's wealth through taxes which is collected by nation] , but I don't understand how it works, I mean,, is that enough? just past tense of verb you wanna explain? or collected is necessary in this sentence;can't be ommited? is this rule can be applied in every sentence?

I really don't like bothering someone with such a miscellaneous question like this allthemore I preffer study alone, but I sometimes can't find answer easily even in broadness of internet. and you should know I really appreciate the help even it is from the online.(I was pondering if the online is correct or just online is correct)

[The only thing I would do is omit~~ ]
[The only thing I'm doing is omit~~ ]
[The only thing I will do is omit~~ ]

can you tell me the differences? I can't discern the nuances.Can I use
the lest two sentences instead of what you used in the 8th paragraph of yours?

-in the last second of HarryK box-
Should it be it seems(not it seemed) in academic essay-not especially IELTS writing?

-last paragraph of yours-
[We would also say to be critical of instead of to be critic on]
I really can't understand the structure as well as meaning.

You've been really helpful, and I think you deserve english teacher in your community and peaple will love it. It is natural that you can't explain grammatically some expressions you just use.When it comes to that case, the most helpful solution would be getting as many examples as possible in the learners view, I think.

Althogh there's numorous quetions left, I gotta get going as the time is 3am here;It took a lot for me to review all of your replies;;

Thanks again for everything / God bless you.

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I didnt' see you posting , Sean. thanks for the reply(that means I was reviewing this for over 4hours ;;)

Notoman))My native language is Korean(not Norh korea - peaple always asking me that,,). I never wrote essay in english before I came here thanks to the Korean enducation, maybe that's why my reading score is 7.5 ,but writing score is 4 .

listening score is 7, speaking score is 4.

I'm always afraid to use article because everytime I use, I'm not sure if i'm using it in a right way.

I really wanna broad english one by one but my english mid-test is on this thursday(writing essay-topic is related to environment), and I don't have time for that T.T .

thanks for your additional explinations! I really gotta go sleep ^^

cheers.

Your problem here is that it sounds as if urbanization is generating problems 100 years ago (problems that were not predicted). In other words, the "one hundred years ago" sounds as if it is modifying "generating" rather than "unpredicted." This is confusing, since it means urbanization, which is happening now, is causing problems in the past through some odd form of time travel. The perfect tense makes more sense, because it is used for things that finished at some unspecified time, and, at some unspecified time in the past, we began to able to predict the problems, because they had clearly started happening already. So, they could not have been predicted back then, but now we can predict them just fine.

First of all, don't worry about a late response--we understand time differences and being busy. Liebe is a little closer to your timezone in the United Arab Emirates. You do not come across as rude. To the contrary, you are polite and gracious with criticism.


Thanks. I really don't feel qualified, but I am trying. Instead of just changing things, I would like to let you know WHY I would make those changes (I do the same thing with native speakers). I don't always know why we do things the way we do though.


It makes a difference in English WHERE you put certain words. "Problems one hundred years ago" makes it sound like the problems were one hundred years ago and not now. What you are trying to say is that we have new problems. Your first sentence makes that point. I am not sure why your English teacher wanted you to add "one hundred years ago." If you want to keep that phrase, you need to rewrite the sentence so that it says that we have new problems that we did not have one hundred years ago.


The word did was a quirk in my sentence. It is not needed. "Did" is considered a helping/auxiliary verb here and the sentence can be rewritten without it. I could have said, "I want to point out" or "Let me point out." I could have even started the sentence with the word environment, but the first part of the sentence added a little bit of politeness.


"New area" isn't necessarily wrong, but it is a little vague. It is like saying "the space," but not telling your reader what space you are talking about. Space and area are similar words in English. I didn't have a clear picture of what area you were talking about. I was thinking that urbanization would mean building factories and such on land that had been open or rural.


Yes! This sentence can be shortened. I put the word collected in there because the word taxes is usually something people here think about paying out. It is not needed though. Can this rule be applied to every English sentence? No. No. No. The one thing in English that is always the same is that there will be exceptions.


In this sentence, you would just say online. You are talking about online in a very general sense. You would need the if you were talking about the Internet in this sentence (because there is only one Internet). Not the easiest concept to use here though! I think I have I have an explanation on when to use articles. I wanted to make a flowchart in Photoshop, but then I realized I would not have a way of posting a picture here. It seems to me that articles are the area where most English learners make mistakes. If you were able to conquer the article, you would eliminate many mistakes.

Here are a couple of Internet sites that explain article use:
esl.about.com/library/beginner/blathe.htm
unenlightenedenglish.com/?p=330

The websites are a little complex, but the second one has a flowchart like I had in mind.


I will try! I don't know if I can do this though. Sean! Simone! I am in over my head here!

The only thing I would do is omit . . . would (and could, should, might, may, will, must, can) is in a special class of verbs called "modal verbs." They can also be used as imperative verbs to command someone to do something (You must see that movie!). A modal verb is another helping verb. We sometimes use them to be polite . . . would you open the door for me? That sounds better in English than . . . Open the door for me! The tricky thing is that some of the modal verbs (could, should, would) have to have another verbs with it. Then there are other modal verbs (do or have, for example) that can work alone or with another verb. A similar sentence structure could be, "The only thing I would eat is my mom's apple pie." Here's a website that explains it better: learnenglish.de/grammar/verbmodal.htm

The only thing I'm doing is omitting . . . doing is the gerund form so it uses another gerund in this case. This is saying that you are doing something right now. Let me use another example. The only thing I am doing is eating.

The only thing I will do is omit . . . This is talking about something you will do in the future. You aren't doing it right now and you aren't being polite about it (but you aren't being rude either), you are simply stating what you plan to do. I will eat the sandwich.


This was my sleep-deprived brain not writing very well! Seems is present tense--we are currently destroying the environment. Seemed is past tense. We might have destroyed the environment in the past, but we are behaving better now.


There are several words in English that are closely related:
Critic . . . noun, a person who being critical
Critical . . . adjective, describes finding fault or judging
Critique . . . noun, the writing or evaluation. This would sometimes be in the form of an essay or newspaper article. Critique can also be used as a verb, but it is less common.

Criticism . . . another noun. Judgment, comment, evaluation.
Critically . . . adverb
Criticize . . .verb, the action

In your sentence you need to say more about who should be a critic or who should be critical:

a citizen needs to be a critic of their government's decisions
people need to be critical of their government's decisions
people should criticize their government's decisions.

I hope that I didn't confuse you more (or make you stay up way too late again).

Thank you Notoman, Sean, it definitely quenched my curiousity^^

I'll practice hard, and thanks for the website !!

cheers.