ESSAY STRATEGY by IAS TOPPER
Tanai Sultania, Rank 63
Essay marks 110 (2015) to 159 (2016)
Please follow the strategy which suits you. There can never be a single strategy to succeed in this exam.
I would like to thank Chandra Mohan Garg Sir(AIR 25 ,2015) for sharing his essay notes. I read them multiple times and he had mentioned quotes, movie names, important points which helped a lot. The essay on cyberspace was almost derived from his notes as he mentioned history, future of it and also movie names and quotations.I would suggest reading his strategy and essay notes as he has given comprehensive approach and details regarding it.
Analysed my mistakes and worked on them( Have mentioned my mistakes last year and what I did this year)
- Introduction and conclusion was not good.This time I prepared Quotations from famous personalities and used them in both parts. Also ensured that these 2 were not lengthy and directly explain or correlate to the exact topic.
- Paragraphs were not interconnected. There were sudden changes thus lacked flow.This time I focused on maintaining flow by ensuring that initial words of new para flow from last line of previous.If couldn’t connect, used the line-” Not only in economic but also in political” if was jumping from economic to political aspect.
This time ensured essay contained these dimensions: historical, economic, political, social, cultural, psychological, environmental, national, international, technological
- Last year essay did not have relevant examples. This time used lots of examples for every aspect. Eg: Engendering development
Alibaba having 40% female employees and being most successful company despite low growth, role of Indira Gandhi in 1972 Stockholm conference, panchayats 33% participation, Angela Merkel in greek crisis and migration crisis, Chipko movement and many others historical and current examples.
Specific changes this year:
- Ensured that at no point I deviated away from topic– thus mentioned the words of the topic or related words multiple times to connect every dimension/example.
- Used movie names to give examples– Eg: In cyberspace essay – Social network, Chicago girl, Disconnect, In real life. Gave 1 line summary of these movies to correlate to the topic.
- Used some indices, reports to establish credibility regarding the facts.
- Used questions to frame the essay– Eg: Engendering development- After introduction paragraph framed questions like- Is current development non inclusive? What are the causes? Is it just unidimensional or multidimensional involving economic ,political ,social ,cultural ,environmental ,psychological ? What are the solutions? This automatically frames the essay, ensures one doesn’t deviate and gives context to examiner also so that she/he can expect what will follow.
- Ensured gender neutrality in essay– use she/he, her/him.
Also read previous year topper essays available online to understand what fetches marks.
Though essay Is derived from GS content but it is not a GS answer thus need to practice essays before writing in exam thus I wrote 14-16 essays on varied topics to ensure proper flow and practice.
My essay outline:
Cyberspace and Internet: Blessing or curse to the human civilization in the long run?
“The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.”-Bill Gates
In Introduction part- defined Internet and cyberspace and reflected on how the above quote is true .
Stated that to understand whether cyberspace and internet are blessing or curse we need to reflect on history,present and future
Gave history and origin of internet from 1960s to 1990s ( US government efforts- ARPANET to Tim berners lee,WWW,HTML etc )and depicted that the invention was only for blessing and not curse
For present: used all the dimensions mentioned above and gave examples in each dimensions (Eg: economic- boom of e-commerce, political- twitter and Facebook used by government, election commission, social and cultural- kinship and marriage, religion through cyberspace , technological- telemedicine, tele-education bringing world closer and ensuring health and education and other dimensions) . In all these aspects gave 1-2 lines on future also as essay demanded “In the long run”.
After covering all aspects in blessing, reflected on curse part also- in all dimensions( Here had examples of movie names also which depicted the curse part). Also used recent examples of cyberattacks, wikileaks, banking data hacks, ransomware, cyber bullying,shaming,hacks, cyber harassment of women, trial by internet, fake messages and news) . Once again depicted how they could increase in long run.
In conclusion part:
We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain- Stephen Hawking
The laughing with tears emoji was named the word of the year by oxford dictionary 2015.This is how much cyberspace has penetrated our life.
Reflected on need for regulation and ethics in 2-3 line
Rabindranath Tagore’s where knowledge is free, where world has not been broken into fragments by narrow domestic walls is possible only if internet and cyberspace used judiciously and lead the human civilization as a blessing.
Test series:
Didn’t join any classes/coaching for essay. For test series , I joined VVR essay test series as it offered full length 8 essay tests, thus 16 essays can be practiced (didn’t attend discussion sessions so cant comment on it)
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