HINTS ON ESSAY-WRITING

 HINTS ON ESSAY-WRITING

1-General Preparation
One of the chief difficulties young people feel in essay-writing is lack of mater. bey
do not easily Then anything to say about a subject. This is natural, because their
experience and general reading are limited. But it may be remedied by reading, and Dy training the power of observation.

a) Reading:

Bacon said, "Reading market a full man"; that is a person who reads mucn and
widely stores his mind with a large variety of facts, thoughts, illustrations and general
information. IT you want to write good essays you must acquire a love of reading- not
simply reading stories for amusement, but reading good books of history, travel, biography
and science. Fill your. mind with fine thoughts and accurate information. By doing.so you
Will become "a full man", and *a full man" can always find plenty to say on most subjects.

b) Observation:
But all knowledge does.not come from books. We may learn much from the life
around us-what we see and hear and Curves nor ourselves. Keep eyes and ears open,
and learn from your own experience. Practise writing short descriptions of what you see in


everyday life--the people you Moet, bits of scenery that strike you, bullrings titre
Scenes, tares and flowers, hills and valleys, they habits of animals and Birds

T rearing hoer people's description of such things, but see true TO yuppie,

is S uprising want a lot may be learnt from personal observation.
c) Conversation:
woks are written by men and women: and If we can lean from the oo u
we can learn also from the words they say. Listen to people's conversa y
alk to you about the things they know, and discuss subjectis that intereGst you your

friends. In this way, also you may learn much.

A Writer reads, observes, and gets people to talk; and in those ways he 15 aways
enriching his mind with ideas and knowiedge.

2-Special Preparation.

NoWWe come to the spociai preparation needed for writing an essay on sorme
particliar subject, and the first thing we must do is to detine tne subje
a) Deining the subject;
sVery important that you should have a clear and accurate conoepTIon o1 the

subject of the ossay betore you altempt 0 wrnte on t-what exactiy it is and (equally

e about them; but some wan Sinple that you can scarcely make a
ne uses of Computers". The subiect is not how omnuters nrk iori th
computors. Yet some students, carelgssly reading the suojet, ugrt a

important) what it is not. Some suojes them exactly. For example.

omputorS. Yet some studonts, carolassiy reading the euhia ih y
irge part of their ossay with such lopics. I
irreievant matter. You have to come to the point
Sueet in this case is the uses of computars in oili ire sUbject.
apuecrat, etc. It is, therefore, very necessarv that vou che SIn aircrat,
your own mind, or you may waste much timme and papor in writing on more or lss
irrelevant matters.
b) Collecting Materials:
) Readlng up the Subject-when you nave got a cloar idea of your subjct, the

d ueine ne suoject dlearly in

next step will be to tink or"wnat you can say about it. Sorne subjects are so

simple that a lite renecion srioUD Suppiy you win sutticient material for a short
essay: but for others, special inrormaion Wl De needed for which you may have
to do some special reading. For nstance, T you nave to write about some
historical subjects. 0r give a dEspuon SOe Country you have seen, you
will have to get hold of sorne b00K and read thc subject up. But in any case, you
have to collect materiars Tor your essaY Delore you can write it. In Scnools,
olass-discUssions on the subjOct, under he guidance of the teacher, are very
helpful in this stage o special proparation. In any case, do not attempt to write
the ess.ay berore yo0 nave vso ne king over that you can say on
the subject. The cominon iauDE OE Deginning to write down the first thing that
comes into ones neau, wuout og wat s to come next, is fatal to good

essay-vwriung.
(ii) Collection As you Suyt, deas, facts, and illustrations will

pass througn your mna. But t you don't catch them as
forget them just wnen you want them, So, as vou catrh hi Come, you.may
hem just when you Want tneni. S0, as you catch Dirds and put them ina


cage, catch and cage these tlecting thoughts by jotting them dOWn o
paper just as they come into your head, without troubling youio
about their order or suitability. You can examine tho biros u

of

leisure later. (10 save time afterwards, and for convenience
number tnese noteS as you jot thom down.)

ference

(ii) Selccon en you thnink you have collected onough material tor your
or yo O any more points, read over the notes you have jotted dowi
tO seEe pots most suitablo for your purpose. Examine at your leisure the
birds in e cage, to see what they are worth. You may find. that some points are
not very eevant or wont fit in; cross them out. You may find that some a
mere repetons or others, and others may be simply illustrations to bo Drou
under main heads. his process of selection will probably suggest to you in a

generai way the line ot thought you may follow in the essay.

c) Logical Arrangement:

Now you shoud be ready to decide on the ine of thought of the essay i.a. e
logical ordor in which you can arrange tho points you have selected. The necessiy O n
aranging your thoughts according to sonme ordlinary plan cannot bo too strongy inste
upon. without it, the essay will probably be badly arranged, rambling; Gisproportioned,

and full of repetitions and irrelevancies. .

9 making the outiine Bearing your subject definitely in your mina and WIth your
purpose clearly berore you, SKetch out a bare oLtahe or the main heads, under
which you will arfange your various materials in a natural, logical and convincing
order- frormi a briet Introduction to an etfective ConclusiOn.

(0) FUling in the Outline -- Having tnius mappod Out tho main points with which you
are going to deal, arrange ue TuEda youav u berc under its propor
main head, rejectirng al nose o euly va o your suDject or which simply
repeat other thoughts, and ta Kirng car uat c auy DelOngs to the division in
wnich you place it.
YOu will now have a tull outine, wic 15 to be a guide to you
essay. But this is not ine essay. Doe ouy wE-aiculaled skeleton. You mu1Gt
now clothe the skeleton with Tiesn, an (most dificult of all) br
orcath of life, before you can cal your PrOOueon an essay.

EXAMPLE|
material and drawing up an outline, let us work

O lustrate this mcthod of collecting miatenel nd drawing up an outline.
ener a simple example for an essay OGayne Elephant.
The subject is so simple, that wo delining it. What is
wanted is ovidently a Descrip

Essay, and all we iave 0 do is O think ot all we can

ephan.

*ay about te et 1o work a mind, a we will put them down and numoer
OHi thev come into ke this, and we wil pur tnem down and number

The Elephant

.Largest of all animals.
2. Used in tiger-hunting.
3Revengefu-story of tailor and elephant.
4.ts trunk and large ears.

5. Found in India and Africa-to kinds.

6. 1ts skill in piling logs.

ts great strength.
8. In India, used in state processions.

9 How caught and tamed.
10. Mad elephants

11. Elephant grass.

12. Its tusks- hunted for ivory.
13. Howdah and mahout.

14. Story of blind men and elephant.

15. In old times used in war.

16. Its intelligence.

17. Feeds on leave and grass.
18. Decoy elephants, and Keddahs.
19. Can draw heavy loads.
Here is plenty of material; but it is in no order, and it will want a lot of sifting before it
can be used. We must examine all these details to see which are suitaDie and arrange
them.

A litte scrutiny will show that they may be arranged in groups under diferent

heading gs.
Nos. 1,2, 4, 7, 12 and 16 are parts of description of an elephant.
Nos. 2, 6, 8 (with 13), 12, 15 and 19 refer to different ways in which elephants are of use to man.
Nos. 7 and 16 give reasons why the elephant is useful to man.
Nos. 9, 12 and 18 refer to the hunting of the elephant.
Nos. 5 and 17 mention the habitat and food of the elephant.
We have now classified all the points except Nos. 3, 10, 11 and 14. As to No. 11, it is
of no use to us, as the grass referred to gets its name simply from its great size. No.: 14
would be too long: and besides the story is not so much about the elephant as an
illustration of the tact that truth is many sided. No. 10 might be brought in incidentally, and
perhaps taken along win No. 3, Du we may nave more than enough material without
them. Already something like an Outline is emerging from the disorderly mass of material.
We see how we may group the different items under such heads as Description, Habitual,
Uses, Hunting, etc. Very soon Some such provisional bare outline as this may suggest

itself:-