How to Write Good Essays

1. How to Write Good Essays

2. Prepared by: D K Singhal

3. Oh! Essays…. • Essays are important to get good marks. • But, after you leave college…….? Prepared by: D K Singhal

4. You may be asked to write project reports, observation reports, audit reports etc. • A good essay writing capability will help you writing all these with ease, in a fairly readable and presentable manner. • No doubt, it also gives you an upper edge over your colleagues. Prepared by: D K Singhal

5. Why to Discuss it Here? • Why this separate class for the essays? • In school- • More focus on marks • Monotony • More number of students • Lack of knowledge of working culture in modern job scenario • Overloaded teachers Prepared by: D K Singhal

6. What is an essay? • An Essay is a group of paragraphs about a specific subject. • Like a paragraph, an essay generally makes and supports one main theme point. Prepared by: D K Singhal

7. Essay • An essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything Prepared by: D K Singhal

8. Is That You? Prepared by: D K Singhal

9. Why to Write an Essay? • You want to convince someone regarding your point of view regarding an issue. • You want to present multiple ideas/issues that wouldn’t fit into a single paragraph situation. • You want to sound intelligent and organized. • Finally, you want to get good marks in your school, college or university! Prepared by: D K Singhal

10. Types of Essays Argumentative Essay Cause And Effect Essay Classification Essay Comparison Essay Critical Essay Deductive Essay Descriptive Essay Definition Essay Discussion Essay Exploratory Essay Scholarship Essay Informal Essay Literature Essay Narrative Essay Personal Essay Persuasive Essay Research Essay Response Essay Prepared by: D K Singhal

11. That was the approach you are used to understand topics in school. • Don’t be afraid. I am not going to be so BORING. • So, shell we begin visualizing essays in a different perspective? • If yes, be prepared to answer a couple of questions. Prepared by: D K Singhal

12. Q. 1: Do you like Golgappe? Prepared by: D K Singhal

13. Do you like Golgappe? • Funny! • Isn’t it? • What is common between Golgappe and Essays? • Anyway, move on to the next question…… Prepared by: D K Singhal

14. Q. 2: • Well! If some of you don’t like Golgappe, replace this with Rasgulle, and answer this- • Can you eat five Golgappe (Rasgulle) at a time? • Yes / No. Prepared by: D K Singhal

15. Ans.: • I think you cannot eat five Golgappe (or Rasgulle) at one time. • You eat these only one by one. First, second, third…… and so and so forth. Prepared by: D K Singhal

16. Lesson: • That is the first aspect of writing an essay. • Never try to write the whole essay in one go; write it in step by step. • Break your essay in several parts. Prepared by: D K Singhal

17. Essay Breaking Examples- • Introduction • Body Text • About the topic • Its good points • Its disadvantages • Conclusion Prepared by: D K Singhal

18. Introduction • Does Introduction need any introduction? • Tell me if you are asked to write an essay on “My School”, what are going to be first two-three lines of it? Prepared by: D K Singhal

19. My school name is…..abcdef….? • This is a good school. • I read in …..abcdef…. School. • It is located at ….abc Road…… • Or would you like to consider something different? Prepared by: D K Singhal

20. My School • Basic education plays an important role in developing good citizens for country. • A good school is like a ‘processing plant’ where capabilities of a student are developed and improved continuously. • My school, “Name of Your School” is sincerely fulfilling its responsibilities towards its goal to a better nation. Prepared by: D K Singhal

21. Introduction • Never jump to main topic at once. • Start at some other point, and slowly and slowly come to the main subject. • Remember, from something else, you have to come to the point, and not follow the reverse path, like in next example. Prepared by: D K Singhal

22. My school name is …..abcdef….. • My school is very big. Airplane is also very big. Airplane flies in the air. We breathe in air. Air is very important for us to live. Studies are also very important. So we go to our school. I go by bus to my school. I like going to school and coming back from school. It is the time in between I don’t like much. • Out of 10, how many marks you’d give to this type of essay. Prepared by: D K Singhal

23. Another Example: What are the various sources and types of Air Pollution ? • As a result of removal of natural vegetation, industrialization and increase in the number of automobiles, the air over big cities is heavily contaminated with dust, smoke and poisonous gases like carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen. • The contamination of air with dust, smoke and harmful gases, which adversely affect human beings and other living organisms, is called air pollution. The substances whose presence in air produces air pollution are called air pollutants. • Some of the major air pollutants are carbon monoxide, excess carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, lower organic molecules, dust and smoke. Polluted air produces a large number of harmful effects on the living and non-living things. • So Boring……  Prepared by: D K Singhal

24. Remember- • A good introduction must be able to create readers interest in whatever you have written. • It is the introduction on which the reader usually decides whether to it read further or not. Prepared by: D K Singhal

25. What Not to write in Introduction • Don’t apologize- no starting like- “In my opinion” or “I may not be an expert, but….” • Don’t begin with dictionary definitions. • Don’t announce what you intend to do. “The purpose of this essay is to….” or “I am going to argue that….” should be avoided. Prepared by: D K Singhal

26. Body Text • Body text is the main part of essay. • Here you need to be very clear, specific, straightforward, and systematic. Prepared by: D K Singhal

27. Body Text: Outline • For more clear vision, let us divide body text also in several heads. This is called outlining or structuring. • A few examples show this- Prepared by: D K Singhal

28. Outline: My School My school • Strength (no. of students) • Canteen….. ……. …….!!!! • No. of Teachers • No. of Classrooms, laboratories etc. • Recreational facilities • Other achievements • etc. etc. • You may decide to write 1-2 or 3 lines on every point. Prepared by: D K Singhal

29. Did you notice something? • In outline or structure, you must have noticed that the canteen is coming between students and teachers. • Does it look nice? • No. But after writing outlines, you can change the sequence of the outline points. Prepared by: D K Singhal

30. My school • Strength (no. of students) • Canteen….. ……. …….!!!! • No. of Teachers • No. of Classrooms, laboratories etc. • Recreational facilities • Other achievements • etc. etc. • You may decide to write 1-2-3 or more lines on every point. Prepared by: D K Singhal

31. Before going further, take a break for a couple of minutes and think if you would like to give good marks to a student in essay where canteen comes in between students and teachers? Prepared by: D K Singhal

32. Well, while many of you are smiling, why there are some faced who are looking sad? • Remembering Golgappas! Prepared by: D K Singhal

33. Body Text • Flow (Readability) • Flow is another important requirement in any essay. While you read, you must be able to relate each and every sentence with the earlier one. • Read what you have written several times. If you find it seems a little difficult, fragment some long sentences or consider changing some words with their synonyms. Prepared by: D K Singhal

34. In most of the lower classes, poor flow is the general observation. • After you write an essay, try to read by heart several times to find out any flow problem. • Examples…. Prepared by: D K Singhal

35. Example: If I were the principal of my school • As the session begins, I would see to it that all the difficult subjects are not taught one after the other. Science should be followed by English and not by Maths. Sometimes the principals of schools have a poor knowledge of what students like and they thrust a lot down their throats without caring that they are not always receptive. • I would encourage a lot of sports and extra curricular activities like drama, music, painting, creative writing, clay modeling, photography, horse riding, swimming, dancing, etc. This would keep the students interested in coming to school and they would enjoy their long hours of stay in school. When there are so many interesting activities for the students, they remain happy and their mind is able to absorb the lessons from the most difficult subjects with greater case. Prepared by: D K Singhal

36. Example: If I were the principal of my school • As the session begins, I would see to it that all the difficult subjects are not taught one after the other. Science should be followed by English and not by Maths. Sometimes the principals of schools have a poor knowledge of what students like and they thrust a lot down their throats without caring that they are not always receptive. • The above underlined matter gives a poor readability (Poor Flow!). Prepared by: D K Singhal

37. Grammar • Grammar is extremely important. • Grammar should not be confined to a single sentence but to entire essay. • How is it possible? Prepared by: D K Singhal

38. Grammar (Examples) • Today my parents were at hospital in Delhi. They will visit my Uncle Raju because he had an operation. My Uncle is feeling well now and he will be home soon. • Last Sunday, I was on the beach in Goa. I sunbathed and went swimming because it was sunny and hot. The beach was crowded and I had a great time. Prepared by: D K Singhal

39. Grammar (Examples) • Today my parents were at hospital in Delhi. They will visit my Uncle Raju because he had an operation. My Uncle is feeling well now and he will be home soon. • Last Sunday, I was on the beach in Goa. I sunbathed and went swimming because it was sunny and hot. The beach was crowded and I had a great time. Prepared by: D K Singhal

40. So far you have used grammar mainly to sentences. • A sentence may be grammatically correct, but if its tense is not the same as per the theme, it becomes incorrect. • Always pay attention to tenses in sentences. Prepared by: D K Singhal

41. Sample: Poor Use of Tenses • I go to the store and I bought milk.  • I will eat fish for dinner and drank milk with my dinner.  Prepared by: D K Singhal

42. Sample: Poor Use of Tenses • I go to the store and I bought milk.  • Go is a present tense verb. Bought is a past tense verb. Bought should be buy milk since these two events both occur at the same time.  • I will eat fish for dinner and drank milk with my dinner.  • Will eat is a future tense verb but drank is a past tense verb. Since the dinner is going to happen in the future, it is not possible that the milk was drunk already.  Prepared by: D K Singhal

43. Punctuation: Do I need to say more? Prepared by: D K Singhal

44. Spellings • Spellings should be always correct. If you are in doubt, make a practice to refer to dictionary regularly. This will help you a lot in later stage. • Sometimes, wrong spellings may make a sentence absurd. Be careful. Prepared by: D K Singhal

45. Poor Use of Spellings Prepared by: D K Singhal

46. Poor Spellings! Prepared by: D K Singhal

47. Conclusions • Conclusion is for giving a final impression of your topic, essay and your views. In conclusion, you may- • Give a recommendation what the reader should do after reading essay. • Give a prediction about what will follow. • End with a relevant quote. Prepared by: D K Singhal

48. Finally… Prepared by: D K Singhal

49. To write good essays, you must have…. Prepared by: D K Singhal

50. General Tricks • Do not write in 1st person. (Avoid ”I”) • Move from weakest point to strongest. • Do not start a body / concluding paragraph with a quotation. • Always stick to tense. • If you have time, put it aside for some time, and revise. • Read your essay aloud, as you are making a speech. You will be able to find out some of the errors. Prepared by: D K Singhal