Essay strategy and notes : Saikaran Nandala AIR 27

Essay strategy:

Scores:

2022: 106

2023: 115

Essay for me is the weak link, I have never written an essay in my life before this Upsc. So it's challenging to get into the groove and write a 10-12 page long essay. But, the upsc essays are different from the academic ones which can be tackled with having a good general understanding of the topics and being able to generate ideas.

UPSC gave instructions as follows:

“Candidates are expected to keep closely to the subject of the essay to arrange their ideas in an orderly fashion, and to write concisely. Credit will be given for effective and exact expression.”

1. Keep closer to the subject: its about interpretation of the essay, we shouldn't deviate much from the core topic.

2. Arrange ideas in an orderly fashion: it's about the brainstorming part, generate as many macro-dimensions as possible and arrange them in an organic way in the brainstorming part itself.

3. Concise, effective and exact expression: it is about the presentation part of the essay, be as concise as possible, try to incorporate that flare in your writing to stand out ( this part is the weakest in my essay writing)

When to start essay writing:

Preferably after GS preparation done to a large extent and try to write before Prelims exam itself, so that you will be ready and confident between prelims and Mains.

How to start:

Try some previous year essay topics and try to brainstorm on the above lines. Take some toppers copies and observe how they are writing, what are the ideas they are generating, how organic essays are, how to write intro, body and conclusions.

Practice enough essays:

I wrote 4 essays for 2023 Mains but I brainstormed around 8-10 more topics to enrich my interpretation and ideas generating part.

Time management:

In the exam hall,

1. I used to allot around 10-15 mins to choose the essays.

2. 20-25 mins for brainstorming.

3. 1hr for writing part.

It's very important to choose the correct topic, if interpretation goes wrong then the entire essay deviates from its subject matter. So spend enough time on this.

Next, the brainstorming part is where you generate ideas and arrange them in an organic way .