Current Affairs Secondary School Level

Essay writing is an important skill which has to be learnt and practiced. Essay writing involves presenting an argument and communicating. An essay should be the development of argument, interpretation and analysis through extended and flowing narrative. To do this you need to work at the level of the sentence, of course, but also, very importantly, you need to work at the level of the paragraph. The paragraph is a coherent passage of logically connected sentences usually concentrating on no more than one or two ideas relevant to your argument. Do not use very short and unconnected staccato sentences. It takes experience and practice to develop a sense of when a new paragraph is needed and when it has been finished. Several stages are involved in essay preparation,     choosing which points are to be considered, deciding how you will deal with them, and the actual writing. As you gain more experience you will find methods and ways of working which suit you, your personality and lifestyle. Generally, however, the process will involve the following. You should examine carefully the statements made in the essay question, making sure you understand each word and what is being asked, as misreading and misunderstanding at this stage can be fatal.   Essay questions can be very general, very specific and sometimes deliberately provocative, and an understanding of them is essential. Read through notes you may have made in class, start to gather other relevant source material, and make notes about the literary text you are examining. It can be useful to try to think of a title for your essay. This is not to be confused with the essay question or title, but is concerned with your response to the task set. What title would best give the reader an overview of your approach and analysis, and highlight the main points you examine and the conclusions you reach. You should not assume that an essay has to include and cover all the possible points an interpretation may offer up. A short, well organised and structured essay focusing on some of the main points is far better than an over-long and unwieldy attempt to say a little about everything. You may find it useful to state in the introduction which points you are focusing on and why. Keep your reader informed of the development of your argument. Let her or him know which direction is being taken and the reasons why. Once the main points have been identified you need to consider in which order they will be examined. Students often do not make the most of the good ideas they have because they get lost if the argument does not develop coherently. Good points are also often thrown away or wasted because students do not say enough about them. Make sure the relevance of each point to the main argument is clearly stated and demonstrated. You should dwell and linger on the points: often this requires no more than two or three extra sentences, more...

1. Have a clear idea of the subject of the essay before you attempt to write on it. Let there be no misunderstanding with regard to the meaning of the topic. 2. Put down on a rough piece of paper all the points that flash through your mind relating to the topic. 3. Now arrange the points in the best possible order such that your essay will grasp the attention of the reader. 4. Your best thoughts and sentences should be reserved for the first and last paragraphs. The introduction should be attractive and brief. It must necessarily serve to arouse the interest of the reader. The introduction may consist of an explanation or a statement of the subject and the way in which you are going to treat it, or an appropriate quotation, proverb, a very brief story, an incident or a general remark, but whatever may be the introduction it must lead to the subject. The conclusion like the introduction should be effective and interesting an expression of yourself. A poor and dull ending can spoil the whole effect of the essay. The conclusion may consist of an intelligent and eye-catching summing-up of the argument of the essay with the final conclusion drawn from the subject-matter, a suitable quotation, or a sentence that strikingly expresses the main point you wish to make. 5. Stick strictly to the topic without straying away from it. Do not write anything which is not related to the main theme of the essay. 6. Do not repeat the same idea, not even in the concluding paragraph. Repetition of thoughts, sentiments, expressions and even key words should be avoided. 7. Avoid numerals and short forms such as don't, can't etc. Do not break words at the end of a line to continue in the next. Avoid abbreviations. 8. Do not change the sequence of tenses. If you write in the past tense you must write the essay throughout in the past tense only. 9. Be direct and simple. Write simple short sentences avoiding the temptation to use big words to impress the examiners. 10. As far as possible write from your own knowledge, experience and try to express your own ideas and feelings and not those of others. Essays are generally categorised as: (a) Descriptive (b) Narrative (c) Reflective and (d) Argumentative. For convenience sake the former two will be dealt in Section-A and the latter two will be taken up in Section-B.

My aim in life is to join the Army. I always feel excited when I see an army officer smartly dressed and walking proudly, his head held high. His shining eyes, his smart, manly and confident manner show that we are in safe hands. No enemy is capable of hurting us. I have known army life well. My brother is a senior army officer. I have often visited him. I have seen the peace time activities of these people. Of their war-time exploits I have heard from him and his fellow officers. It is really a very exciting life. What is more, it is a very clean life. Today, when no department is free from corruption, the Army is one profession where a man can remain honest. The Army makes a man hardy, resourceful and confident. Right from his earliest life at the N.D.A. he is trained hard and effectively. On the one hand he is made a competent war-machine and on the other, he is trained to be self-dependent. He can face any situation confidently. Sense of patriotism is instilled in him. He is ready to do anything for his country. There is never a dull moment in army life. An officer is sometimes in the deep jungles of Assam, sometimes on the heights and snows of Laddakh or Siachin. Sometimes he finds himself in the sand-dunes of Rajasthan and sometimes defending the vast sea-coast. In times of internal trouble and natural calamities, he is always called upon to rescue the people, whether it is the riots or strikes or floods or drought. His decorations and medals tell the story of his brave adventures which keep our country safe. The career of an army officer is tough, exacting and yet glamorous. It is my intense desire to be an army officer.

Whatever you choose to write for an essay, you usually follow the same basic structure: Introduction Body Conclusion Begin an essay with an introduction which is the first paragraph. This paragraph begins with a specific sentence called the 'essay statement'. What you intend to convey in your composition is contained in this statement. It introduces the main idea of what your entire composition will be discussing. Ensure your thesis statement is a specific statement and is focused on a single idea rather than several. The opening paragraph should be designed to capture the interest of your reader. It focuses on your assertion, on what you are going to write about. The body is a group of paragraphs that develop on the main idea as introduced in the main statement. The main idea must now be elaborated with each developmental paragraph discussing a supporting point for the main idea. Each paragraph argues, describes, explains, discusses, defines, clarifies, illustrates or whatever on the thesis statement. Each body paragraph has the same basic structure. It has a topic sentence followed by four or five supporting sentences. One idea is discussed in each paragraph. Introduce supporting details, facts, examples, quotations for each of these ideas. A concluding sentence summarizing or restating the idea ends each paragraph. The conclusion is a summary paragraph. You complete the composition by summarizing, reviewing or restating the main idea in different words or briefly stating your opinion, feelings or suggesting a solution. Ensure the concluding paragraph is not too long; three or four sentences will be enough. Your essay should leave the reader satisfied. 

Today, with television broadcasting stars sporting the stereotype wafer-thin body type, we have a generation of people wanting to be fashionably thin. With more and more people eating fast food, (which contains high amounts of fat and salt) as it is an easy, less time-consuming option, we have a whole lot of overweight people in danger of having serious medical conditions. People choose a particular diet either in the hope of changing their appearance or in the hope of gaining health benefits. Athletes have to have a diet that nourishes their body to be able to support their strenuous physical activities and maintain their physical condition. People with medical conditions need to have a diet that is need specific. A diet that promotes wholesome food and incorporates carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals in the right proportion is a good diet. Being obsessed with dieting to the extent that you begin to restrict your food intake to a bare minimal, or not eating for a couple of days in a row or worse still, eating and then making yourself vomit after each meal is no way to diet at all. Using pills that suppress your hunger are not natural and may have side effects. Dieting without proper exercise is a mere exercise in futility. So the right diet should always be supplemented by exercise for it to give you the desired results.

Outline: Meaning of unemployment. Classifying unemployment  into voluntary and involuntary types. Factors responsible for promoting unemployment among the people. Measures reducing unemployment Unemployment can be defined as the willingness of the people to do work. Unfortunately, there is no work for them to do. In other words, it can be explained as a state of no jobs for men fit and willing to work. India has faced gigantic problems caused due to unemployment. The rate of unemployment is much higher in urban regions as compared to rural. There is greater unemployment in agricultural sector than in industrial and other major segments. Usually, unemployment can be classified into two types. They are voluntary unemployment and involuntary unemployment. In the first type of unemployment a person is without job or work due to his own wish. This leads to social problem, which in turn gives rise to social disorganization. It also threatens the smooth working of the society. Due to rapid social change new values come up and some of the older values are declined. At the same time, people are not in a position to discard the older values completely and accept the new altogether. Thus, conflict between the old and the new is the predictable result, which leads to the social disorganization. In economic terminology, this situation is regarded as voluntary unemployment. On the other hand, in involuntary unemployment, the person is unemployed and has nothing to say in the matter. It means that a person is unable to get a remunerative work and is entirely without any wages, although he is very curiously capable of working. In today's time, the problem of unemployment has become a burning issue of our nation. Some of the main causes of this problem are individual's age and vocational disabilities. External factors like technology and economy also contribute. There is enormous increase in the population. Every year India adds to her population afresh. Business field is subject to fluctuations. Technological expansion contributes to economic development. But unplanned and uncontrolled growth of technology is causing chaos on job opportunities. Mechanization and computerization has led to technological unemployment. Strikes and lockouts have become attached aspect of the industrial world today. Since workers do not get any salary or wages during the strike period, they suffer financial hardships. They become permanently or temporarily unemployed. Our education does not prepare the minds of young generation to be self- employed. On the contrary it makes them dependent on government vacancies, that are hard to come. The measures for reducing unemployment may lay greater emphasis on creation of opportunities for self-employment. We must try to control the population growth by propagating family planning programmes.

The name "essay" goes back to 1588 when the writer Michel de Montaigne published his book "Essays". Since then the word essay has been widely used to describe a short work that reveals the writer's point of view on some particular subject. This word has come from French and has the same origin as the French verb "essayer" (to attempt). It was a unique piece of literature in the 16th century, and it has not lost its unique nature. Really, we have been reading novels and are attracted by short stories; we are thrilled by the plot of drama, however these types of literature masterpieces create their own characters and have their own, frequently fictional plots. Unlike the written works mentioned above the writer of an essay communicates directly with the reader and thus the author gives his own opinion on the event, story, subject and even life in general. It might describe, it may generalize, and it can teach or entertain but the opinion of the writer should be clearly and plainly stated. You may choose whatever topic you want, but we advise to choose some topic you are really interested in, especially if you have got such an opportunity. Certainly, Montaigne was not the first essayist, some ancient Greek writers such as Plutarch and Roman philosophers, such as Since also composed and wrote essays; yet Montaigne was the one who invented and popularized the term. Since Montaigne, a lot of famous English writers have been using this type of written work to express their own opinion on some subjects or the events. Abraham Cowley, Joseph Addison and Francis Bacon to name but a few. In the 19th century several other prominent writers such as Virginia Wolf and J.B. Prietly followed the suit. Their essays have already become classical masterpieces and have been able to excite, enlighten and entertain several generations of grateful readers. The impact of their essays extends far beyond the year and even century when they were produced.