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How to Approach - Essay

Essay Paper in civil services examination carries 250 marks out of the 2025 mark scheme of the main
examination. Like the interview (that carries 275 marks), the success and rank of an aspirant is
determined significantly by this little but important segment. It is in fact easy, simple and beautiful
paper. But sadly many students find it difficult to score which ideally should not be the case. So what
does this indicate?

This simply indicates towards the need of a good strategy through experienced guidance and practice in
right direction. There are students who have scored 150 plus marks in Essay paper. We believe that if a
proper strategy for tackling the Essay paper is adopted and implemented thoughtfully, can reap a
decent 50-70% mark in the Essay.

Let us first answer the basic questions like, what is an essay? And how should one write it to obtain the
maximum marks?

Essay is an art of writing one’s thought in very coherent, logical, and lucid manner so as to make an
impact or place an individual opinion for due consideration in the ongoing debate. Essay writing reflects
a democratic way of making a point. Therefore essay is one of the most popular forms of literature for
placing one's view point in the public. There cannot be a definition to an essay as such; as it varies
according to the subject matter and an individual writer who is attempting the essay.

In order to obtain a high score in the essay paper of the UPSC, one needs to understand the
requirement of this exam along with the purpose of this exam. UPSC is looking for a mature decision
maker and good administrator who have leadership qualities in him/her. So you got to show all these
attributes not only in the essay writing but also in all of your write ups including your optional subjects
as well as the General Studies. Remember, your field of graduation is never a hindrance for you to
showcase the attributes desired by UPSC. Just that you have to learn to produce them as and when
needed. Further you need to have a comprehensive understanding of the nature of the current essay

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paper and equip yourself with the changing trend. In recent years there is conspicuous presence of
opinion based essay topics in question paper.

Opinions are something that one makes based on his/her belief system and understandings of the
world. So while giving the opinions one has to show maturity and objectivity having a democratic
outlook towards things. At the same time scientific attitude has to be displayed i. e. a logical
justification has to be provided each time and opinion is made.

This is where students generally lack and commit errors on a given topic, they never justify their
opinions. The first thing that one must realize is that your audience is least interested in your "opinion"
or anyone's opinion for that matter. This is a shock to some students who have been just trading
opinions on various topics. The confusion lies in the fact that some students are only attending to the
first part of a two –part process – they are forgetting or not sufficiently following the second part of the
process. The experienced readers are not interested in your opinions. They are rather interested in the
argument that you can give which explains why you hold that opinion. Giving an argument that supports
and defends your opinion is the second – part of the two – part process that we encounter in our
writings and discussions. Generally speaking, you should treat all opinion – statements as logical
conclusions, and the art of good reading and writing is to dig back to the premises, the assumptions,
and the evidence that led a person to draw that conclusion.

The smart reader wants to know why a person holds a particular opinion, but some students mistakenly
believe that simply stating the opinion is enough. It is not enough to write " I am against the death –
penalty. One can argue against the death – penalty on ethical grounds, social grounds, religious
grounds, epistemic grounds, economic grounds, and more.

A student must articulate the most compelling grounds for their opinion and present them in the most
persuasive and logical terms possible. Notice also that each and every "controversial" claim that is made
in the sequence of your argument will likely need additional argumentation and justification. For
example, it will not be helpful to claim that you believe capital punishment is wrong because the Bible
says so. It will then be immediately incumbent upon you to give some arguments for why your
interpretation of the Bible is the only correct one, and then you will also have to give some argument
for the existence of God, and quickly follow this with a strong argument for why God is communicating
through this scripture and not, say, the Bhagavad Gita, and so on. All this is a very tall order, especially
when we remember that the essay topic in this case is only the death penalty and one should stay
focused on the topic at hand.

When someone feels very strongly about some issue (say – the death penalty, animal right the
existence of Fate, etc.), they can become so close to their belief – so familiar and comfortable with it –
that this belief will seem utterly natural and uncontroversial to them. It will seem as obvious as to be
unworthy of any further explanation and justification. This is one of the most common reasons why

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students neglect to give arguments for their opinions/beliefs. Students believe that many of their claims
are so obvious that they don't need to "spell it out" which is WRONG!

The most important aspect of an essay is subject matter. You should devote a significant amount of
time in brainstorming ideas for the subject matter before you actually start writing the essay. To begin,
you should look deep into your background, interests, information and aptitudes. Yes friends! Your
previously learned skills would be a good asset as they shall reflect your individuality and originality. You
got to learn to access them and use them in right perspectives.

Take the help of your educational backgrounds in deciding the topic – suppose if you are a science
student you may choose a topic where there are possibilities of applying your years long learned skills
and some of those important facts that you can substantiate your answer with and make it more
informative. And if you are a law graduate or student of sociology/political
science/geography/philosophy etc. then you can choose your topic accordingly. As then you have the X
factor, an edge over many other students. Moreover, this will represent your individuality and
originality which is widely appreciated.

As discussed earlier essay writing is an art and we can divide the art of writing essay in following tasks:

Task 1: Review and review again the essay question:

Sometimes you develop the question yourself–issues of national and international importance. Most of
the time, however, you will be handed topic that were designed by experienced professor/professional
appointed by UPSC and you will need to respond. Examine the topic. Think about the issue. Brainstorm
possible responses and develop creative insight. Some essay topics are really broad, in sense, abstract
natured. Broad issues can be helpful but something they can make you want to tear your hair out
because you are not sure what the UPSC 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 case can be approached from a number
of different angles. Therefore when UPSC offers you a broad issue, rejoice! You have lots of room to
imprint yourself that would reflect your pragmatic approach, critical thinking, information analysis and
accommodating nature that’s essential for dealing with this collectivistic national culture.

Some essay questions are very specific. Here needs to focus your attention on the article and other
resources relating to that specific issue. You need to recall the notes and 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.

Task2: After you have reviewed the question ask yourself the following:

 Do you understand the question that is being asked?

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  Do you know what issues you need to address?
 Do you find yourself in a positive to sketch a rough framework for essay, touching every possible
relevant topic, giving it a comprehensive outlook?
 Can you tell form this crafted outline, which ideas are yours and which ideas are the author’s
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 to execute planned outlook.

Task3: Write a first, messy draft:

 Depending upon the level of comfort with your writing speed, you may choose to invest at least
15 minutes to maximum 1 hour in framing introduction, successive paragraphs and conclusion.
 Don’t try control your first responses to question too much, just 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 you introduction provide some context or background for the issue and then relate your
main message?
 Is your objective clear? Do you need to explain what you are trying to show?
 Does your introduction draw the reader into the rest of your paragraph?
 Does your introduction relate to the essay question? If you have a broad 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 questions.

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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 on your 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 of
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.

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  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.
 Write as many examples and case studies as possible for logically substantiating your arguments.
 Write as many examples and case studies as possible for logically substantiating your arguments.
 Write simple sentences to minimize grammatical errors and interpretation problems.
 Conclusion is also very important. Have a fair idea about how do you want to conclude during
the brainstorming session itself. If we have clear introduction and conclusion in our minds, it's
easier to streamline the thought between these two objectives.
 While forming your essay structure itself, it's better to write about introduction and conclusion
in their full length. At this stage you will have enough time to refine it. It really works especially
with conclusion, as just before closure of the prescribed time, your conclusion may not be a best
piece of writing.
 By concentration on content and smooth transition between various ideas with interesting
introduction and conclusion, one can cross the language barrier. Stick to simple meaningful
sentences logically linked in the main flow of the essay, you need not worry about flowery
language at all.
 If you have done all of these things, you are probably done writing and if time permits, you need
to turn to highlight key assumptions, analysis and conclusion by simply underlining it.
 Essay writing can be challenging, there is no doubt. But, try to think of it as a way you can teach
yourself about the issues and ideas that are important to you. Who knows, maybe one of these
ideas will turn into your rank deciding shot!

Thus, Essay requires the student to exhibit not only the art of writing but also the art of thinking.

Our Essay Enrichment Programme is modeled to cater the needs and requirements of the students
coming from all walks of life. It is intended to harness and harmonize those vital components of the
essay so as to optimize the examination scores of the Civil Service Aspirants.

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