WRITING EFFECTIVE ESSAYS IN CSE - Vision IAS

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WRITING EFFECTIVE ESSAYS IN CSE

- TEAM VISION IAS

Essay writing happens to be of two types. One for academic purpose, which takes time as well as comprehensive research work and other one for assessment in competitive examinations. Greater degree of control could be exercised over the content in former case but in later one, it could well be just a little more than a response elicited out of provided stimulus. Responding under the pressure of scoring rank defining 200 marks within time frame of three hours, little scope is there but to express one's unique style of perceiving the world. It's one of the most potent tool devised by UPSC elimination process to weed out candidates of non-desired profile. Essay writing takes out the real you. Little could be done but to keep oneself prepared beforehand. Just like personality assessment in interview, essay-writing skills need multiple refining stages.

To start with one's basic orientation for essay, few question; can you read and digest a series of articles assigned to you? Next, can you extract the essence out of each article and summarize it in no more than a few sentences? Okay, you can read, you can summarize, but can you pull together the threads that connect each of the articles together and create a new idea? Can you offer thoughts and insights on the ideas in these articles? We want to know.

So, you have been given an essay to write. We design essay questions in order to challenge you in many ways that we believe you will be challenged while you are in the process of IAS preparation and beyond it. But, where do you begin and how do you know when you're done?

Task 1: Review and review again the essay question :

Sometimes you develop the questions yourself ? issues of national and international importance. Most of the time, however, you will be handed topics that were designed by experienced professors/professional appointed by UPSC and you will need to respond. Examine the topic. Think about the issue. Brainstorm possible responses and otherwise get into that sparks some creative insights.

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Some essay topics are really broad, in a sense, abstract natured. Broad issues can be helpful but sometimes they can make you want to tear your hair out because you are not sure what the professor expects. Try to think of these types of topics as an opportunity because they may signal that the door is wide open and you can pick and choose what you really want to say. Usually what broad essay topics really mean is that the professor is not exactly clear about what s/he wants in terms of an answer. Or, it means that the case can be approached from a number of different angles. Regardless, when UPSC offers you a broad issue, rejoice! You have lots of room to imprint a desired profile, considering this paper a sort of projective test, especially designed for personality assessment. Lots could be written that would reflect your pragmatic approach, critical thinking, informed analysis and accommodating nature that's essential for dealing with this collectivistic national culture.

Some essay questions are very specific. Here the professor knows what s/he wants and s/he wants to know that you know what s/he wants. Here you need to focus your attention on the articles and other resources relating to that specific issue. You need to recall the notes, work to distill the information. Most of all, you need to figure out what is asked and how best to respond so that all questions are addressed.

Once you figure out what type of question you have, I recommend that you focus on a few key elements:

Task 2: After you have reviewed the question ask yourself the following :

Do you understand the question that is being asked? Do you know what issues you need to address? Do you find yourself in a position to sketch a rough framework for essay, touching every

possible relevant topic, giving it a comprehensive outlook? Can you tell from this crafted outline, which ideas are yours and which ideas are the authors'

ideas? If yes, try to adopt a balancing ground with a bit of critical approach, yet complementing each other. A sort of collective solution. Are you comfortable with the language competency needed to execute planned outlook.

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Task 3: Write a first, messy draft :

Depending upon the level of comfort with your writing speed, you may choose to invest at least 10 minutes to maximum 1 hour in framing introduction, successive paragraphs and conclusion.

Don't try to control your first responses to the question too much, just write what comes to mind while you have the question in your mind.

What questions do you have for the authors of the various articles you are responding to? What inconsistencies do you find in their views/articles? What problems do you see? What

holes can you identify? What is your main message ? what you really want to say about the topic you have been

asked? Draw a big circle around this idea. What claims or assertions can you make that might support your main message? If you don't

have any, you need to check to see if your main message is robust enough. What evidence and examples do you find that support your claims? If you don't have any,

time to move to the best available other essay topic.

Task 4: Focus on your introduction:

Once you have your first draft written, it is time to edit - to scrutinize what the creator in you thinks is important.

Does your introduction provide some context or background for the issue and then relate your main message? If not, why not?

Is your objective clear? Do you need to explain what you are trying to show? Does your last sentence draw the reader into the rest of your paragraph? Does your introduction relate to the essay question? If you have a specific essay question,

your intro must relate directly to the question. If you have a broad essay question, your response must touch on the issues discussed in the question, but usually cannot attend to all the details of the question.

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Task 5: Focus on your supporting paragraphs:

Do you develop your main idea in your subsequent paragraphs using assertions and supporting evidence to make your point? If not, start finding evidence and examples to support your points.

Do you include lots of "shoulds" in your writing? If so, this type of writing can point to assertions without evidence and examples to back up claims. Try to rewrite most of the "shoulds" out of the response. Try replacing "shoulds" with "coulds" to see what happens. Usually you have to offer more evidence and examples to shore up your ideas.

Task 6: Focus on your conclusion:

First, do you have a conclusion? Does your conclusion restate your first paragraph? If so, delete your conclusion and start

again, this is high school writing. Does your conclusion synthesize the many ideas discussed in the essay in order to offer your

reader more insight on the problem? If not, why not? If not, what does your conclusion need in order to further the main idea that you are discussing? This could be hard, but try to push yourself. Did you pull the strings of the analysis together for the reader? Did you show how the chunks of analysis work together?

Do's and Don'ts for Essay Paper

It's better to start essay with Brief introduction preferably with a small relevant anecdote/story/incident, which creates some genuine interest in the examiner's mind.

Starting essay with definitions of the terms in the essay topic is not very pragmatic, because most of the times we cannot define the terms precisely. Moreover, in recent times essay topics are highly subjective in nature requiring our personal opinions and views. Therefore starting essay with objective definitions of terms will put constraints

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on our creative ability of writing and there may be some problem in flow of essay and smooth transition from one idea to other etc.

Starting with a popular quotation is a nice option. But, one should know numerous quotations for this, because writing relevant quotation is very important. How good may be the quotation, if it's not 100% relevant to the topic, it becomes a liability rather than asset, because we have to substantiate that in our essay in line with given topic. Add quotes of various scholars wherever required, try to link it with recent happenings, events etc. An enriched essay with many examples and quotes has a lot of potential to fetch good marks.

The best option to start with is writing about most relevant recent news item or a small anecdote, which is 100% relevant to the given topic. For this we need not prepare specially.

Don't trouble the examiner with lengthy introduction, because they have little patience to go through supposedly irrelevant matter prior to the arrival of actual topic.

It's better to indicate the salient points of your essay in bulleted form to give the examiner an idea of what u have written in your entire essay without going through it. It will also be helpful in making sure that examiner does not miss any major topic you have covered due to a casual glance at the papers. But, ensure that this will come in second or third page of essay. Somehow, include it in the regular flow of the essay rather than making it appearing like an index.

Write as many examples and case studies as possible for logically substantiating your arguments.

Write simple sentences to minimize grammatical errors and interpretation problems.

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