HOW TO WRITE AN ESSAY
HOW TO WRITE AN ESSAY
It is customary to begin an essay book by collecting all the definitions of the Essay given in the past and the present and by tracing its derivation from the French word assai which means an attempt. Again, very detailed explanations of the different kinds of essays- descriptive, narrative, reflective, and argumentative- are given with a bewildering complexity. We regard all that as unnecessary. A student may know a dozen definitions of the essay, or he may know half a dozen types of the essay, but all this will not help him in writing a dozen interesting lines on a subject given in a Question Paper. We live in a practical age. The purpose of this essay is to give practical guidance for the writing of an essay.
No student is expected to write poetry or drama, but the trouble is that every student is expected to turn an essayist in the examination hall and produce essays like Montaigne, Addison, or Hazlitt.
Selection of the Subject:
To begin with, select a subject for the essay out of the many given in the Question Paper. Select the subject that you think would suit you most. You have read an essay on that subject, or on a similar subject. But once you have selected the subject, go ahead with it; no turning back, no regrets, no lurking thought that if you had chosen the other subject, you would have fared better. Double-mindedness is a hindrance to thinking. You have crossed the Rubicon; you have taken an irrevocable step and you must march straight to your goal.
It is also necessary to read carefully every word of the subject. There was an essay on My Favorite Pet. Quite a number of candidates wrote an essay on My Favorite Poet, and filled page after page with the crammed stuff about a poet. They must have come out bubbling with self-satisfaction, which the examiner could not share. Similarly, an essay was once set on a Sonnet. Some candidates wrote beautiful essays on Sunset. One paper asked for a descriptive essay- Describe a Football Match in Which You Took Part. Hardly ten percent attached any importance to the words in which you took part. The candidate was expected to describe a match in which he had been one of the players. Similarly, the subject set up for the essay once was: “The Responsibility of Scientists for the Destruction Wrought by Modern Warfare.” The students who had read from home an essay on the Evil Effects of War or Horrors of War recognized their favorite word War in the Question paper and reproduced their stuff with gusto. Any examiner will tell you that a large number of students go wrong in an essay every year because in a hurry they do not exactly understand the wording of the subject of the essay. They give not what the examiner wants but what they have brought ready from home. “Let me prove my Binomial Theorem first”- that is their mentality.
| Hence Rule 1 is: Understand your subject carefully. If you are not sure about the exact meaning of a subject, leave it out. Keep this rule in mind. It is so easy to practice it. Its observance has saved hundreds from disappointment. It is particularly necessary in the case of higher competitive examinations where long-winded subjects are set and exact meaning is likely to be hidden behind a crowd of words. |
Think Over It:
When you have selected your subject, think a little over it. There is the rub; not every student has the capacity to think. For instance, if the subject set is “Honesty is the Best Policy”, most of the students will have no ideas on it. If they start with a definition of honesty and another definition of policy, they will be in hot water. Definitions are very difficult to give; and then they are so dull, so uninteresting. Also, they are of no use. If there is an essay on World War II, most people do not know in what year it started, what were its causes, and which nations were in and which out of the War. They vaguely remember that Hitler was the chief villain of the peace. But their vague, inexact knowledge will hardly fill a paragraph, and not make a full-length essay. People think that an essay is the art of saying a great deal of interesting things almost on nothing. An essayist is a magician who should be able to produce a rabbit out of his hat, as it were (e.g., The Child is Father of the Man).
You would have noticed that if you are called upon to write the story of the Bible which you know so well, your pen never stops. You hurriedly pour your heart into the essay. But on a subject like Prohibition or Discipline, you can hardly write five lines with that speed. In one case, you know what you have to write; in the other case, you are depending on chance inspiration, which generally does not come.
Nor are dull, commonplace ideas good enough for a brilliant student or in a higher examination. If you are writing a description of the football match and reproduce the commonplace thoughts and details, that a grade 10 student would give, you won’t get much credit. You are expected to give original ideas, brilliantly put them, and couched in a pleasing style.
How to Collect Ideas?
This is all very well, but how to do it? How to fill a vacant brain with brilliant, solid ideas? What is the remedy?
If I am not born rich, I must borrow money from a rich man, and doing business with that borrowed money, I will have enough money of my own. If I am not a born writer (very few of us are), I have to borrow ideas from great writers and essayists, and trading with these borrowed ideas, I shall have enough thoughts of my own. When I read one idea from a writer, it suggests two ideas of my own to me. Out of nothing, only nothing will come. Before a child can walk by himself, he learns to walk with the help of his parents, or by catching the support of the bed or the chair. The best among us have to take help from writers of old to discover our own treasure of ideas. Shelley is the most brilliant poet in English. Yet, at times, he studied for sixteen hours a day (it sounds hardly believable). The study of other people’s ideas brought his own brilliant thoughts to the surface. A wide reading is essential for having brilliant ideas for one’s essay. John Gunther calls Nehru one of the half a dozen best writers of English. Study the works of Nehru- his Autobiography, Glimpses of World History, or Letters from Father to Daughter. You can get any such selection- Speeches and Writings of Nehru. Do make a point of reading such books. It will give you refreshing dynamic ideas. It will invisibly improve your English. But more than that, it will develop your personality and make a ‘little’ great man of you. Remember, Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room cabin in an American Jungle. He spent his childhood in dire poverty. But he always read all books on the life of Washington, the first president of America. And the result of this constant reading was that this obscure, poor boy from a Jungle home, later rose to be the President of America. We strongly advise our young men to read the biographies of great men. Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography is named My Experiments with Truth. The study of such an inspiring book will bring new earth and new heaven into the life of the young Leader. He will understand how men, who were mediocre in college, rose to be the greatest men in the world, what were the steps by which they climbed, what were the ideals that they kept before them, and how they developed their personality and greatness. By keeping company with the gamblers, we turn gamblers ourselves; by always coming into contact with the biographies of Henry Ward Beecher, Hazlitt, Gandhi, Nehru, Addison, Bacon, Hitler, Stalin, Martin Luther, etc., we borrow a little of their greatness. We develop a rich, charming personality, and that personality of ours is reflected in our essays and other writings. A fool or a duffer cannot write a good essay; a weakling can’t be a champion in wrestling. The one must develop his body, the other must develop his personality and mind, to make his mark.
| Remember Rule 2: After dinner or whenever you have leisure make a habit of reading some great or brilliant book for half an hour or even 20 minutes every day. Then notice the great change in your mental outlook, your personality, and your capacity for writing essays. Half an hour- that is not much. We waste hours and hours in idle gossip or social media or in talking ill of others. Here is a golden rule; half an hour every day for making a golden life, a great future, a brilliant examination result, and praise and honor and fame. Start this habit from today. Don’t wait till you can get a good book. Borrow from a friend, from a library, search online, or even read one of your old books, but read you must; O yes, must. |
Interest:
A good essay makes the reader hurry on with his reading. The interest never flags. The reader feels refreshed, as if he is having a walk through a breezy rose garden. A bad essay is dull. It can’t grip the reader’s attention. It appears as if the writer is forcibly stretching the limit of the essay. He has nothing more to say. Remember interesting thoughts and phrases. Bernard Shaw’s writings won phenomenal popularity, as Shaw seemed to be standing on his head in his works. He says unexpected things. He talks in paradoxes. Consider such ideas as:
“Patriotism is the last resort of a scoundrel.”- Dr. Johnson
“Honesty is the worst policy.”
A hungry man does not need bread. He needs Shakespeare. Don’t you notice that in every society there is some brilliant conversationalist? He tells new things- charming things. Frowns change into smiles. Such a man talks and talks. He never utters dull words. Everyone welcomes his company. Well, try to be such a conversationalist in your essay. Other people are dull and boring. When they enter a company, people seek excuses to leave the company. Such men would make bad essayists. They tire out other people’s patience. They talk of old things in a bad way.
| Hence Rule 3: Make your essay very interesting. Do you know that some of these charming talkers have secret notebooks? Before going into society, they select the jokes that they will make that day, the stories that they will relate and the funny incidents that they will describe. You can follow their example. Keep a notebook; secretly of course. In it, you can write down beautiful thoughts and phrases that you read in your books, papers, and journals. Revise those occasionally. Revise them when near the examination. It will repay your labor. |
Make a plan for your essay:
You must make a plan for your essay. After matter, manner is most important. Don’t just start off writing an essay. Write down the points on the rough side of the paper. No one starts building a house or a palace, before first making a plan. Before you put the first brick, you know where you are going to put the last brick. The whole picture is before you. So it is with the writing of the essay. Write down all your points on the subject, and arrange them. Then start writing. Of course, include at suitable places any bright ideas that strike you as you go along.
| So remember Rule 4: Make a plan for your essay before you start writing. Otherwise, your essay, however brilliant, will be a jumble and a confusion, with different parts thrown about in chaos. |
Sincerity and Frankness:
A. C. Benson says that a charming personality is at the root of all good essays and other works of art. Nehru’s writings are better than mine because his personality is much greater than mine. No student can manufacture a charming personality overnight, though we have given above hints on how to develop one’s personality so as to become a good writer, but our personality being what it is, what are we to do? A. C. Benson’s reply is Sincerity. Be sincere, be frank in your essay. What comes from your heart will always have some value. Suppose you have to write an essay on “Honesty”. If you feel that honesty is at a discount and dishonest men are progressing by leaps and bounds, say so. Don’t be afraid of stating your views. Or, you have to write an essay on Prohibition. You may be a champion of drink. Or you may regard it as silly to compel people not to drink wine when this experiment would cost the country over a hundred crores of dollars. Speak out your mind. In an essay on “Basic Education” or Community Projects”, if you honestly feel against this system don’t be afraid of stating your personal opinion. A personal touch is a great point in an essay. Don’t try to echo the opinion of others. Originality is not a sin. It is a great virtue. Greatness lies not in mediocrity, but in rarity.
| Hence Rule 5 is: Give a personal touch. Sincerity and originality are great virtues. |
Write in concrete terms:
Your essay will be more interesting if you talk in pictures. Abstractions don’t appeal to us. Suppose you are writing the description of a corrupt officer. If you say that the man was given to corruption and bribery and that these shady practices brought him unpopularity, your description will not be telling. If, however, you use concrete images, you may say something like this- “From morning till night, people with tins of ghee and baskets of fruit marched to his house. They made an almost unbroken line. He went about in a car, though his salary could hardly pay for the petrol and the chauffeur. Public meetings were held and resolutions were passed,” etc. This will better stick in our memory. Don’t the advertisements, the cartoons, and the pictures appeal to our eye?
| Hence Rule 6 is: Always write an essay in concrete terms. |
Style and revision:
You must write in good English. This will come by wide reading. The daily course of reading for thirty minutes a day suggested above will work wonders. Without knowing it or feeling it, your style will improve. Read first, read last, read all along. You will combine pleasure with profit.
The revision will remove all mistakes which you can correct. If still some mistake remains, it is not your fault. Little slips of pen are responsible for great deductions of marks.
| Hence Rule 7 is: Improve your style with reading. Always revise your essay. |