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UPSC Mains 2024 season has begun. One of the most popular questions in the aspirants’ minds for the mains preparation is: How to write essays for UPSC Civil Services Exams? We have an answer for you in the form of our new series.
In UPSC Essentials’ special series UPSC Essays Simplified, we take you through various steps of writing a good essay. While there is no set formula or fixed criteria prescribed, Manas Srivastava talks to Ravi Kapoor, our expert, in this new series who guides the aspirants with a simplified framework on how to write a good essay. Don’t miss ‘The Essay Exercise’ towards the end of the article.
Ravi Kapoor focuses on the following steps of pre-writing and writing stages which will help aspirants to write a ‘good essay’.
| PRE-WRITING STAGE (Steps 1-3) | Step 1: Understanding and Deconstructing the topic (Previous article: Click here) |
| Step 2: Ideation and Brainstorming (Previous article: Click here) | |
| Step 3: Structure and Flow (Previous article: Click here) | |
| WRITING STAGE (Steps 4-8) | Step 4: How to write an introduction? (Previous article: Click here) |
| Step 5: What goes in the body? (Today’s article) | |
| Step 6: How to conclude | |
| Step 7: Essay Extras | |
| Step 8: Types of content |
About our Expert: Ravi Kapoor Ex-IRS, has now ditched his coveted rank of deputy commissioner and has offered free quality mentorship to UPSC aspirants, drawing upon his ten years of experience to create customised and productive curriculum. Through a free mentorship programme, he integrates tailored educational materials, psychological principles, visual learning techniques, and a strong emphasis on mental well-being into his teaching skills granting aspirants a chance to learn from his expertise.
While rating your answer sheets, the examiner will pay special attention to the Body of your Essay and check if your arguments are presented in an organized or haphazard manner. Does the essay move from one argument to the next logically or erratically? Do you use hyperbole and emotional appeal or rely on authentic and credible data sources?
The body of your essay is the main part of the essay where all your points, arguments, and examples are presented. It typically consists of about 70% of your Essay. Consequently, most of your score will depend on the quality of this segment of your essay.
The traditional advice on building the body of the essay is to :
• Identify the problem as deduced from the topic of the essay
• Elaborate on the problem
• Suggest solutions to the problems
But this is primitive, over-simplistic and does not guarantee the unshakeable logical foundation in an Essay that you need to impress the UPSC examiner.
•The contents of the body of your Essay must try to convince the examiner of your opinions by arguing logically with supporting facts, examples and evidence. Do not make exaggerated claims or hyperbole which cannot be substantiated with credible data.
•Avoid using emotive language or appealing to the sympathy of the examiner. There is a difference between persuasive and argumentative essays. The UPSC asks you to write essays on topics which are analytical and argumentative which do not require arousing emotions in the reader.
•Using generalizations and stereotypes is not advisable because it goes against the canons of objective and rational thinking. Just because something is the case most of the time, does not mean it is the case all the time. Not to mention that many stereotypes are patently wrong.
•Remember that there are always two sides to a story, so a good essay must anticipate and address arguments on both sides in the body of the Essay.
•The body of the essay should put the structure of your Essay-answer on full display in such a manner that the examiner should find your essay-answer easy to read. Your arguments should be neatly arranged and factually compelling. Get the examiner to nod in acknowledgment while they read along.
•The body of the essay should reflect that you have considered all dimensions of the issue and arrived at a well-reasoned and balanced judgement in your conclusion.
•The content of the Body of your answer-essay should be about the Relationship between the core concepts (refer to step 1 on deconstruction) which you know, is the heart of the topic.
Let’s learn about L.E.D Technique and Bodybuilding technique.
The L.E.D Technique
Use LED and know that arguments are different from opinions or conflicts. Arguments in the Essay for the UPSC exam are not conflicts. Instead, they are pictures of reality which you paint with your words for your reader. They serve to impress, compel, reason, convince and illuminate your reader to see your point of view. Arguments are not about winning or losing. They are about learning something you didn’t know but probably should have known.
To do this well, you must give them reasons to believe you. Do that by substantiating every assertion or opinion in your Essay of the UPSC exam with an L.E.D (Logic, Examples, Data). Leave no statement unaccompanied by support from one or more of these. A statement without LED is nothing but an empty opinion. A statement with LED is a compelling argument
How to use the ‘Bodybuilding’ technique to build the body of your Essay?
Bodybuilding for Essays is the narrative which you use to state your stand on the Essay topic. It is a sequence of arguments, building on top of each other and leading up to your conclusion.
4-Blocks of Bodybuilding
The body of the Essay can be divided into 4 blocks or steps which are interconnected with each other via a narrative. A narrative is the arc of a story. In this case, the narrative is the flow of your arguments about a certain topic.
The 4 blocks correspond to the 4-type of argument blocks to make in the body of your essay-answer. These are:
Stringing these 4 blocks together will get you the body of your Essay.
Why are these particular blocks chosen and why in this sequence?
• 4-step Bodybuilding is building the body of your essay-answer to fetch maximum marks.
• The progression of the narrative, from negative to positive in the Essay is not a fixed rule. You can choose to do it another way. However, I have noticed that using this narrational sequence produces a powerful impact on the examiner.
• The above-mentioned factor is merely a simplification to help you easily remember the type and sequence of the narrative to be used. You will see how 4 step Bodybuilding can be tailored for use in virtually any essay topic with great efficacy.
• Each of the 4 blocks will force you to think about a different dimension of the Essay topic which will ensure that your essay contains a broad and mature perspective.
• This method uses the points and ideas that you have already generated using Structured Brainstorming.
• It will ensure structure and flow as you move from one block to the next making it an easy read for the examiner.
• It will force you to remain logically consistent because these blocks are themselves logically inter-connected. All you have to do is to fill in the relevant information about the Essay topic, using the ideas and points from structured brainstorming.
To recap the various methods and steps you have learned so far, go through the following list of steps in a solved example.
Solved Example: “Technology cannot replace manpower”
Step 1: Deconstruct the Essay topic. You know that Thing 1 is Technology and Thing 2 is Manpower. (CLICK HERE)
Step 2: Do Structured Brainstorming and List 15 words which come to your mind when you think about Technology AND Manpower. Use 12 Question Clues. (CLICK HERE)
Step 3: Do Rough work, and decide on the Structure and Flow of your essay. (CLICK HERE)
Step 4: Create an impactful introduction using 4Q2 technique. (CLICK HERE)
Step 5: Initiate 4 Step Bodybuilding:
Sub-step 1: Bad Things
Sub-step 2: Good Things
Sub-step 3: Indian Things
Sub-step 4: Should Things
| BODY-BUILDING SEGMENT | EXAMPLE: ‘TECHNOLOGY CANNOT REPLACE MANPOWER’ | EXERCISE: ‘NOT ALL WHO WANDER ARE LOST’ |
| Bad Things | BT1: Technology is rapidly changing the realm of the workforce. With rising automation, many traditional jobs have become obsolete such as the role of typewriters which has become extinct with the advent of Personal computers.
BT2: If technology replaces manpower, it will take the human touch away from many interactions. Social interaction between people over small things becomes rare. For example, people now order their food from an application on their phones instead of interacting with a person. BT 3: Social media ends up making people more asocial than ever before. |
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| Good Things | GT1: Technology replacing manpower has the advantage of reducing human-error which can prevent loss of life and wide-scale damage.
An example is the Chernobyl incident where a nuclear reactor had a meltdown due to avoidable human error, killing hundreds of people in its wake. Human error resulting in catastrophes can be avoided by using technology to replace humans in some areas. Hundreds of lives are lost in road accidents every year which may be prevented with autonomous vehicles. While a human being may get tired and make errors, generally a machine is more reliable and consistent. GT2: The advent of technology has improved the standards of life for human beings everywhere. From medical services to super-fast satellite communication, technology has had a positive impact on virtually all areas of human life. An example is the digitization of government services which has reduced manpower but has led to a decrease in corruption, higher efficiency, and more transparency. GT3: There are some areas where machines are far superior to human beings because of their vast computation powers. An example is Google’s search engine which goes through millions of websites to pick and display the best choices for our searches. It would take a human year to do the same if not lifetimes. The smartphones we carry are miniature computers with more processing power than what NASA had while sending a man to the moon in the 1960s. |
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| Indian Things | The relationship between technology, automation and manpower is critical for India for various reasons-
· The Indian youth is in search of meaningful employment · Rising economic disparity is a concern and automation way vests the powers over many in the hands of a few. The issue is compounded with the accompanying technological divide between the haves and have-nots. · At the same time, India must capitalize on the rising trend towards AI and automation and develop into a global technological superpower. |
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| Should Things | AI and automation are not matters of debate. It is a reality which we must come to terms with, for better or for worse.
Given the double-edged sword that is AI, governments must play a careful balancing role between technological advancement and employment. Intelligent policy making and effective implementation are pivotal in making the transition a smooth one. It’s the need of the hour to impart the masses with enough know-how to operate a computer and engage with the internet in meaningful ways. A good example of a successful transition is the tech boom of the 90s which led to the rise of Indian MNCs like Infosys and Wipro. If this can be replicated, we might be able to have our cake and eat it too. |
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