Many of us dread writing essays. As with any kind of literature, if your writing is perfect, your thoughts coherent, you can write an interesting essay, even if your topic is about the grazing patterns of dairy cows.
If you have a four to five essays to write in your exam, it would be best to finish up the short and one-word answer questions first. This would leave you with ample time to tackle all the essays.
Unlike a regular essay assignment, in the essay examinations you cannot mull over, edit endlessly or doodle out your thoughts. You will have to write the introduction, body and the conclusion within the stipulated timeframe. Your scores will depend on the language used, arguments put forth and lastly the way you have structured your essay.
Making a quick outline, will help you to mention all the points that you want to put forward. Pay extra attention to the introduction and conclusion of the essay, since this would compel the examiner to read through the essay carefully. A weak introduction will only render the essay boring hence the examiner may not take the trouble to read it thoroughly even if you have written the body of the essay rather well. Adding subtitles adds a nice touch to your essays and it is also easier for the examiner to read through the entire essay.
Always make time to read through what you have written. This is an oft-repeated statement made by almost everybody but the funny thing is that it still holds good. Whether we are typing away in the computer or writing away to glory, we do misspell words, omit words and sometimes sentences as well. You will not have time for an elaborate editing session but you can give the essay a quick once-over before moving on to the next question.
Most of us have a dreadful memory for dates, names and places especially while writing an essay on history. Writing a wrong date is worse than not writing it at all. So here is a small tip to avoid this pitfall. For example, you can write – “Toward the end of the 19th century” instead of mentioning the year 1897 or was it 1898! You will sound a bit vague but it is better to be vague than woefully wrong!
Some write elaborate sentences, repeating the same point in a twisted manner. Do not pad your essays with unnecessary points elaborated to no end. Instead, just write down the points that you do know and make it interesting with a good introduction and conclusion.
Another thing to avoid would be the “kitchen sink” approach. We dump almost everything in our kitchen, right from pots, pans, spoons, glasses, plates etc in the sink to wash. And it is up to the maidservant to sort out each piece of cutlery, wash and place it in its appropriate place. Some do take the same approach to essays that they write. Do not dump everything that you know about a subject in the essay. Pause and check whether what you write is relevant to the question or not. Your examiner will not mark out the relevant parts of your essay and award you marks. He might just mark you zero. So beware.