ACING THE ESSAY

Paper I of the DJS exam can be divided into two parts- General Knowledge carrying a maximum of 100 marks and Language and Translation consisting of 150 marks. Essay writing happens to be one of the most important topics you shall need to focus on in your preparation for the exam as it carries a considerable number of marks in Paper I. You will be required to write 1 essay carrying a game-changing 50 marks and 2 short notes carrying 25 marks each. Essay writing is a very subjective component of the exam and hence, could play an important part in helping you clear the Mains Exam or holding you back. If the basics of writing a good essay are understood, writing a good essay will just require some practice.

Lets us start with the basics and the components that you are going to be marked on:

1.      Structure- it should be coherent and consistent. The best way to achieve this is to write the major point that you wish to include in the essay on the side of your paper using a pencil. It helps you avoid missing important points and also making your paper untidy due to unnecessary cuttings.

2.    Content- content is definitely the key to any essay and thus, when you are to choose a topic you will be writing on, you need to carefully weigh the content your mind has on that particular topic. Newspaper reading is a very helpful medium to form good content.

3.    Language- contrary to popular perception, using flowery language does not better your chances of writing a good essay. One should use simple language to assert their point strongly and make sure the delivery of his view point is correct.

4.    Be solution oriented- the fact is that everyone knows the problems but giving a solution or rather, giving a practical solution can display great understanding of the topic. Always write a paragraph providing solutions only and how a problem may be tackled with.

5.     Statistics- the best way for your essay to shine among many others is to include a few statistics that you can prepare before hand. Make sure you have the latest statistics from an authentic source and it would be better if you could remember the source and pen it down.

6.    Balance- balancing an essay is of utmost importance as an essay is differentiated from an opinioned answer or a debate. The whole idea behind including essay writing is to test a candidate’s skill on being able to think from different perspectives and not solely voicing his opinion vehemently. The concluding paragraph should bring out all the sides discussed by you and then perhaps a reason as to why you think one may work better than the others.

7.     Word limit- this one is most often talked about and is one where people face varied problems. As the essay is required to be around 1000 words, make sure you keep it in between 950-1100 words. In order to achieve this, you will have to analyse your handwriting, the number of words you can fit in one line and the number of lines per page. Once you have that information handy, make a rough sketch in your mind about how many pages will keep you in the safe zone and accordingly assign an approximate number of lines to each paragraph while making the rough structure.

Well, now that you know what constitutes a good essay, let me share with you a few tricks that can make your essay stand out. This is the most important part of this article, so make sure you got this covered-

1.      Start your essay with a quote that relates to the topic- you may think that it is a difficult task to memorize quotes related to every topic. That’s where you are wrong. You need to strategize. There are a few scenarios for essays that are most likely to feature in a judicial services paper.  You must have quotes memorized relating to women empowerment, environment and pollution, democracy, literacy & education, judicial environment, justice, morality, terrorism and technology. Something in and around these topics is most likely to make its way to the final topics. Certain current topics of utmost importance for example, privacy, personal laws etc. too may be prepared.

You need to understand that the quotes you memorize must be the most basic ones dealing with the topic so that you can use them wherever required. I ll share a few examples with you and you can add to the list on your own:

a.      “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all”- Aristotle

b.   “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are”- Benjamin Franklin

c.       “I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which women have achieved”- B.R. Ambedkar

d.   “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed” – Mahatma Gandhi

These are just a few examples. Try to memorize one quote per day and you ll be surprised with the mass you shall possess by the Mains.

2.    Include latest Statistics- always remember that for your law papers, you shall be required to memorized a great deal of names and section etc. and your mind shall be burdened already. So for essay, memorize statistics that are most common and arise from an authentic source  so that it can be made use of even if the topic remotely relates to the statistics u have prepared. For eg- literacy rate of women in India, pendency of cases, number of cases of IT registered, statistics on environmental degradation etc. Make sure they are the latest statistics before your exam.

3.    Case Laws- considering the essay is for a judicial services exam, you can also learn and include certain common case laws. For eg- the M.C. Mehta ones, Keshavnanda Bharti, Vishakha judgment etc. These cases can be used in any topic relating to environment, democracy, women empowerment respectively. That’s the trick. Memorize a few things but let them be general so that they can be used widely.

4.    Don’t take sides- always remember never to make an essay a debate. Don’t over-criticize one side. Give a very balanced view.

5.     Structure your essay well- in any general essay, the structure should be as below:

---------Introduction with any definition if required

---------Historical background, if any

---------Current scenario

---------The problem-criticism

---------Solution

---------Conclusion

Make sure that the bifurcation is well noticeable. Do not merge paragraphs.

6.    Conclusion- the concluding paragraph must sum up the entire essay and must reflect your own point of view in a single line. Also, any practical solution suggested by you must be highlighted and the concluding line must always be positive.

Now that you know all these basics and tricks of the essay writing, all you need is a little practice so that they become inherent in your writing style and I am confident that your essay will be outstanding. Happy writing! J