UPSC _ IAS Preparation_ Improving Essay Writing _ Khelo India

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6/23/2014 UPSC / IAS Preparation: Improving Essay Writing | Khelo India

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Improving Essay WritingPosted on June 23, 2014by THESUPERMANRETURNS 5 Comments

Improving Essay Writing

I thought I had written a very good ess ay last year. Yet, when the marks came,

I found out I had got only 80 / 200. Essay,together with GS, had pulled my

rank down. So I sat down with my father, spoke to a couple of friends, took

everybodys feedback and concluded thatthere were 3-4 things I needed to

work upon. I tried to improve upon them this year, and thankfully it worked and

I got 135 / 250 this time. So in this article,I would jus t try to list those les sons

learnt so that others may take some cues.

Click herefor my last years ess ay.

Click here for this years ess ay.

Lesson #1: An essay should be for a general person and not a subject

expert

Last year I wrote on the PPP topic which was from my subject area

(Economics). So while writing the essay, I put in many higher economics

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concepts like lemons problem , information asymm etry, agent principle

problem. I thought this would give my essay a killer punch. But this didnt and

couldnt have worked as the persons checking the essay are not economis ts

they may have other background. So I should have written an ess ay without

the use of any technical concepts and phrases, in simple simple language

only. This is what I did this time.

Lesson #2: Points should be covered in sufficient depth

While practicing last year, I used to write in detail about whatever points I was

writing. It used to take around 1900 2000 words . I used to send my mock

ess ays to my friends for feedback, and a friend wrongly advised me (and I

believed him) that I should cut down the length to around 1200 words . I did

that in the exam but the result was that I couldnt cover any of my points in the

needed detail. If you look at my past years essay, you would find I began a

point, wrote one s entence about it and then imm ediately concluded it. Now I

am not saying that 1200 words essays are not good, but just that one should

write as much as the proper coverage of points in the essay demands. It may

be 1200 or 2000 or 2500, but coverage should be proper. This year I worked

on it and covered my points in somewhat greater detail.

Lesson #3: Wide range of points should be covered

Last year, I later realized, I had covered only a narrow range of points and that

too from a limited economis ts perspective. I had neglected the social,

political, cultural aspects of the problem and as s uch my essay was not

comprehens ive. So this year I worked on it and tried to cover S&T issues from

as wide angle as possible and as many relevant points as I could think.

Lesson #4: Continuity in Essay: Essay Structure

Almost everybody advises us to have continuity between various parts of the

ess ay and make them coherent. Now this is an art and many people are able

to accomplish this. But I am not as gi fted with arts, so I tried to create at least

an appearance of continuity this time. I chose a central theme of my essay

(that S&T are very important, without them nothing will happen, but they are

not the panacea and we need proper policies and administrative framework

to reap maximum benefits) and reinforced this theme from the introduction to

throughout the essay. For any point I took, be it agriculture or energy or

medicine or indus try, I kept on reinforcing this point again and again. This

gives an im press ion and also actually lends s ome continuity to the ess ay.

Second thing I did was to divide my essay into various s ections with headings

(in bold) for each section and then in the introduction part itself, I mentioned

that the essay is divided into following sections and these are the sections to

come. All this lends a basic structure to the essay and this bas ic structure,

together with the central theme, provides that needed continuity to the essay


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5 thoughts on UPSC / IAS Preparation: Improving

Essay Writing

at least in the minds of the examiners .

Miscellaneous

Other things have to be there like a s trong opening, use of examples from

daily life to drive home a point, good handwriting etc.

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Coachings The Good and The Bad

PRIYAsays:

Ju n e 2 3 , 2 0 1 4 a t 1 0 :3 7 a m

thanks Sir for motivating us and thanks a lot for sharing your experince.

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Leave a Reply

Reply

ABHINAV PALsays:

Ju n e 2 3 , 2 01 4 a t 1 0:38 am

Hi gaurav thanx for this wonderful articlei am a fellow upsc

aspirantit will be really helpful if u could tell me the books

and s trategy used by you for economics optional thanks in advance

Reply

MANOJ SHUKLAsays:

Ju n e 2 3 , 2 0 1 4 a t 1 0 : 5 1 a m

Very Informative!! It gives an idea what upsc is looking for! The

mos t interesting part of this article was ..then in theintroduction part itself, I mentioned that the essay is divided into following

sections and these are the sections to come. Have never thought of writing

essays in such a manner.

Reply

SANGsays:

Ju n e 2 3 , 2 0 1 4 a t 1 1 :1 5 a m

Hi Gaurav.. Thank you for this article. I am looking for

improving my writing skills to increase my marks next. Thisand other articles are very helpful. I could identify som e of the mistakes I did

this time. Thaks a lot!!!

Reply

ABHISHEK SHARMAsay s:

Ju n e 2 3 , 2 01 4 a t 1 :33 p m

Your blog is proving to be a life saver for us aspirants.Your

take on caochings is exactly how you feel.The mis takes of dis-

continuity in essays has been woth me also and I am working on it.I read your

article about GS also.

Could you please tell me about how important you feel the NCERT books are

for prelims as well as m ains?

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