An essay is a short piece of writing that sheds light on any topic. M. H. Abrams, the American literary critic, notes that the essay is "a small composition in prose that inspires us to discuss a case, express a viewpoint, or accept a thesis on a subject."
Broadly speaking, there are two types of essays - formal and informal. In the UPSC Civil Services Examination (CSE), we are concerned with formal essays. A formal essay is relatively impersonal, the authors write it as an authority and such essay writers are less emotional. Formal essays may also have factual elements, such as quoted figures of government reports, etc. It is never in the form of dialogue, never using first-person references and rarely has intimacy with the audience. In short, a formal essay has some degree of seriousness attached to it. Practice Makes Perfect. A person needs the practice to get good marks in the essay. But, before we go to the practice part, we must do some basic homework first. We will begin to look at what a well-structured essay is, how it can be planned, what elements can be added to make the essay more scoring, and most importantly, all of these set deadlines. How to do within
Ideally, one can start any argument in descriptive paragraphs that describe the topic in some detail and then proceed to a supporting paragraph that has some positive facts/thoughts on the topic. Although important paragraphs look best when they are placed last, there are no such rules, and for some topics, this can be used as the opening paragraph for the topic. Perhaps the most important part of the essay is the introduction. First impressions are very important, and a well thought out introduction will definitely have a positive impact on the examiner. We will discuss how to write a proper introduction later in this strategy. Similarly, the conclusion is that one can get extra points if done properly. This too will be discussed later. Studying for the essay is an important step. Brainstorming helps you get all the ideas in one place for quick reference. There are no hard and fast rules, but usually one can start with a given topic and immediately start listing the things that come to mind. One can ideally dedicate an entire page to this exercise