Integrated Language Use and Discourse: Combining Claims Accurately
What is tested
Integrated Language Use and Discourse asks you to combine information from more than one sentence or source, recognize how ideas are connected, and express the result accurately. It tests summary, paraphrase, reference tracking, and the use of discourse markers.
Core rules
- Identify each source's claim and scope before combining them.
- Preserve logical relations: contrast, cause, concession, and sequence must survive your paraphrase.
- Use markers precisely: 'although' concedes, 'therefore' concludes, 'meanwhile' compares time.
- Summarize at the level of claims, not by stringing together quoted phrases.
- Check that pronouns and definite phrases point to something already established.
Worked example
Source A: 'Remote work reduces commuting time.' Source B: 'Remote work can weaken informal mentoring.' Integrated sentence: 'Although remote work reduces commuting time, it can weaken informal mentoring.' Reasoning: The two claims point in different directions, so a concession structure is accurate. 'Although' makes the first claim background and foregrounds the drawback. 'And' would wrongly suggest that both claims support the same conclusion; 'therefore' would wrongly make mentoring a consequence of reduced commuting.
Traps
- Treating two sources as agreeing when one qualifies the other.
- Copying source wording instead of paraphrasing the claim.
- Dropping hedges such as 'can' or 'may', which changes strength.
- Using 'this' without a clear referent.
- Producing a summary that lists details but loses the argument.