Essay : A missed Opportunity

Essay is a paper where one enjoys maximum freedom of expressing opinions.  I have scored 125 marks in essay, way more than what I expected, hence I am writing my thoughts on how to attempt essay in this post.

We generally start the essay prepration after prelims but this decision must be taken according to one's capacity. One has to write two essays, one is genrally GS related and the other philosophical. You will get 3 hours to write two essays, hence divide your time like 25 minutes for brainsorming(rough outline of essay, given below) and 1 hour to write each essay.

Essay's structure

(For ex. topic is- "Discrimination against women in India")

1) Start by an introduction from any of the following:-

     Anecdote- A real short story (Malala

     Fictional story

     Incident from history (Struggle of Savitri Bai Phule)

     Poem

Introduction must not  exceed 2 pages or 200 words, be to the point such that you establish a link with the essay topic. As they say Your first impression is your last impression, hence introduction will decide your ability to grab examiners attention for the remaining essay.

2) The next part usually is dedicated to "what to expect from the essay" For exampe this para while start like "In this essay lets understand origin of discrimination, biological, political,social, economical, religous, etc causes for discrimination. Further lets discuss various solutions to end this discrimination and initiatives across the world to do the same."                                                                                                                                                    This part is totally optional, but if you are an amateur at essay writing then please mention this para as it becomes easy for examiner to understand the flow.

3) Now under some suitable headings , expand the essay , for example first header would be ORIGIN OF DISCRIMINATION and subsequently explain your thoughts with some relatable examples and move to the next header.

4) At the end put a well thought conclusion, that summarises the essence of your essay, this can be a follow up of anecdote you wrote initially or some poem, lyrics of song that presents a positive way forward. 

Key points of a good essay:-

1)Maintain the flow, use connecting phrases to prevent abrupt change of paragraphs.

2)Do not run after flowery language, just be grammatically correct and sensible.

3)One page must contain minimum two paragraphs and maximum three.

4)Try to be as tidy as possible in your handwriting as well as your presentation.

5)Never miss the central theme of essay, it must be reflected in each para.

6)Do not over underline , according to me underlining maximum 20 words/phrases in entire essay is enough.

 GS related essays👼

These are fairly easy to write, given you already have content from GS subjects. Best way to prepare is analyse PYQ and segment the essay topics into divisions like Women, Education, Hunger, Health, AI, Governance, etc. 

Prepare some generic intro for each of these segments that can be utlised according to essay topics with slight twist and tadka. Add quotes, examples, data, facts, current affairs, committee recommendations, etc. Further you can also prepare multiple angles of such segment like Women in AI, AI and its threats, AI and India, AI vs Human, etc. It all comes through brainstorming. 

Philospohical essay.😈

Lets first understand what is philosophy? According to google it is set of ideas that try to explain the meaning of life. You see this simple defination clearly tells the demand of any philosophical essay i.e. SHOW YOUR UNDERSTANDING about the topic. 

The reason I am emphasising so much on understanding is because we fill our philosophical essays with mindless examples and often ignore the theory.

For instance in mains 2023 I wrote the essay on topic "Thinking is like a game, it does not begin unless there is an opposite team"

I broke down this essay into:-

*Intro- Socrates and his emphasis on dialectics(discussion/debates)

*2nd para- what points will I cover in the essay

*Key headers for upcoming paras- What is Thinking? Why cant the act thinking begin by its own? Role of opposite team? Thinking unlike a game will always have winner from both sides. Thinking and its impact on philosophy. Role of thinking in Governance(Ruling party vs Opposition). Instances where thinking began without an opposing team.Way forward( Need for thinking/discussion for betterment of society) Conclusion (How dialecics of Socrates led to establishment of western philosophy and why it must be encouraged)

Obviously some of these sub points were supported by examples, but as I said initially philosophy has always been about explanation and opinions, hence this must be reflected in your essay as well.

We often take the middle path when it comes to presenting our opinion, but in my real paper, I gave some staunch opinions but ensured they were backed by a logical justification.

Philosophical essays will require way more practice than GS related as they require decoding, and only an open minded person can do so. 

Lastly the best way to practice essays is to use topper copies, select the topic, write your essay and compare it with toppers' essay, I am sure you will 0learn a lot this way.