How do I write an effective essay for the UPSC Mains?

How do I write an effective essay for the UPSC Mains?

Information Source - (Ravi Kapoor, IRS)

To write brilliantly effective essays for the UPSC Mains exam, you must give the UPSC exactly what they want in your Essay.

Here’s exactly what the UPSC wants and how to write the most brutally effective Essay on Exam-day, taken as an excerpt from my book- The Ultimate Cheatbook of Essay and Answer-writing in which this I reverse-engineer and deconstruct Essay and answer-writing such that you never falter even on your worst exam days and write brilliant essays on virtually any topic under the sun.

Imagine a scenario where, while visiting a strange country far away, you are wrongly accused of a crime and are thrown in jail.

The laws of that country allow you to defend yourself, but only through a written letter, of about 1000 words. The judge will not hear you in person.

The only way to get out of jail is to impress the judge with the force of your arguments through your letter. Your letter is your one and only chance to make all your arguments and to reply to the arguments of the opposition who wants to punish you.

What kind of letter will you write? Will you try to anticipate the arguments of the opposition beforehand and make your case point by point? Will you talk about anything else in your letter other than your defense? I hope not.

The point is that, this is essentially what you must do in the Essay exam with the topics you have chosen. Think of the UPSC as the judge you must plead to.

Lucky for you, what the UPSC wants is not a secret. The UPSC in the annual notification is very clear about what it expects from you in the Essay paper.

Here is the excerpt from the UPSC notification of 2020.

In this one small passage alone, the Union Public Service Commission tells you everything you need to know about the Essay Paper.

The Commission is telling you in direct and simple words that you need to do the following things to get an exceptional score in the Essay paper-

I. keep closely to the topic

II. arranging your ideas in an orderly fashion

III. write concisely

IV. use effective and exact expression

V. multiple topics

Here’s how to deliver on these parameters with brutal effectiveness on Exam-day as detailed in chapter 4 of the Ultimate Cheatbook of Essay and Answer-writing

I. The UPSC wants you to Keep closely to the topic

Back in prison, the judge does not listen to emotional appeal and has given you the chance to explain your arguments in 1000 words. So, you must not waste your precious words on something which is not related to the topic.

It is easy to stray away from the topic if a flow develops while writing. The best way to avoid this is to have the points and arguments in a pre-decided structure before you begin writing.

You could also lose your chain of thought and end up writing too much about something unimportant and too little about something quite important.

You may overshoot the word limit or find yourself woefully short of a respectable word count.

Keeping closely to the topic also means that your arguments should be directed straight at the topic. In other words, you should not digress away from the topic. Nonetheless, all this is easier said than done.

Consider an example from a previous year paper of the UPSC in which the Essay topic was- ‘technology cannot replace manpower’.

Here, keeping closely to the topic does not mean that you should not spend 500 words on technology OR 500 words on manpower. Nor does it mean that you spend half the words on technology, half the words on manpower, and end by concluding something about technology and manpower.

This essay topic is not exclusively about technology or manpower. It is about the relationship between these two things and the tension in that relationship.

If you focus on this relationship and think about what it means, you will realize that the topic poses some interesting questions -

• Can technology replace manpower?
• And if so, should it replace manpower?
• If not, then why not?

Bottom line: The only way to keep closely to the topic in an Essay is to understand the topic deeply.

Once you learned the techniques in this book, your writing quality will remain consistently top-notch during all the answer-writing for the Mains Exam.

II. The UPSC wants you to Arrange your ideas in an orderly fashion

This point is all about the examiner finding your essay easy to read. It should be as the essay is flowing or progressing from one part to the next in some logical sequence.

This is done by inculcating two crucial elements in an essay - structure and flow.

What is the structure of an essay?

Imagine that you are marooned on an island and must build a hut.

How would you begin? Probably by finding some sturdy pieces of wood and giving it a solid foundation. Then on top of this skeleton, you might add leaves and other lighter material to serve as a roof.

The skeleton of the hut is like the structure of an Essay.

The structure of the Essay is divided into 3 main parts – Introduction, Body, and conclusion.

1. Introduction: This is where you introduce the topic and let the examiner know that you have understood the crux of the matter.

2. Body: This is the part of the essay that contains all your main arguments and examples. There are always two sides to an argument and the body of the essay should ideally cover both.

3. Conclusion: This is where you emphasize your side of the argument for the last time.

What is flow in an essay?

Flow means that your essay should connect from one part to the next, in a logical and uninterrupted manner.

While moving from the introduction to the main body of the essay or from the body to the conclusion, it should seem like your essay is inter-connected. Similarly, when you make your arguments, the points should not start abruptly but have some connection with the preceding points.

One point should connect or transition to the next one in an unbroken chain of reasoning. Ideally, your essay should sound like one long, well-thought-out argument, filled with relevant examples and data.

Consider the example of ‘technology cannot replace manpower’

Structure consists of the main blocks of the Essay and how they are all placed in sequence. Flow refers to the continuous narrative of the arguments as the Essay progresses uninterrupted towards the conclusion.

There is a more detailed preview of the book available here, if it interests you.

III. The UPSC wants you to write concisely

Writing concisely means not using unnecessary words and sentences and avoiding repetition as much as possible.

You should be able to convey the meaning of your argument in a few carefully chosen words. This implies that you must not ‘spread out’ your essay by repeating the same points or by extending a single point by using different words to fill the space in order to meet a respectable word limit.

How many points do you need for one essay to achieve the criterion of conciseness? If the Essay is 1000 words long, and the introduction and conclusion take up 30% of the words, which is 300 words, then you are left with 700 words for the body of the Essay to make your main arguments.

Suppose that the average length of a sentence is about 10-15 words, then a paragraph of 4 to 5 lines is roughly 50 words.

Assuming that one paragraph is needed to explain one point, you will need approximately 14 paragraphs or 14 points to cover the roughly 700 words to qualify as having ‘written concisely’. The Ultimate Cheatbook contains dozens of such practical insights which have a single purpose-to be effective in maximizing score by being actionable on Exam-day when you are inside the examination hall and pen is put to paper, it is these tricks which you will remember and use.

IV. The UPSC wants you to use Effective and Exact Expression

Below is a paragraph from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous essays on Self-reliance, where he wrote in 1841-

“These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in a conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most requests is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.’’

This is an example of how not to write in the UPSC exam. The passage is wordy, consists of many sub-points, metaphors and analogies which makes it quite difficult to read.

Can it be simplified and made more concise? What was Emerson trying to say? Simply put-

“That society forces its members into conformity, and we should try to maintain our independent thinking despite this pressure.”

This is to show that effective and exact expression means choosing simple over complicated language. Remember that Simplicity is Key, and it will fetch you marks in the Exam.

V. The UPSC wants you to choose from MULTIPLE TOPICS

You will probably be required to write more than one essay in three hours. The previous year’s Question papers of the UPSC have seen a trend of including two essays of 1000-1200 words each.

Each topic must be chosen from a set of 4 choices. So, you must choose 2 topics from 8 choices.

You might think that having many choices of topics is beneficial, but don’t be so sure. There is a hidden exam-trap. But more frighteningly, how will you decide which topic to choose?

Multiple choices are not good news for you because you will have to spend time and mind choosing before you even begin thinking about what you are going to write about.

The decision to choose one over the others will not be easy since there probably won’t be one clear winner and you might be confused about which topic to pick.

Basically, the more choices you have, the harder it is to choose because of something called the decision paradox. How will you decide which topic will be the most scoring one for you?

In some cases, it can lead to decision paralysis which is the last thing you want while writing the UPSC exam. However, once the right choice is made, half the battle is won.

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But apart from the book, I hope that the insights proved to be helpful to you were able to peek inside the mind of the UPSC examiner. I can tell you from having cleared the exam thrice and years of writing and exam-hacking that the UPSC keeps very true it’s prescribed format and syllabus. You can use this fundamental truth to understand the entire exam, not just the Essay paper.

Tc, stay healthy and all the best,

Information Source - (Ravi Kapoor, IRS)

Becoming IAS - Super-simplified.