Essay writing in Civil Services Exam is of 250 marks and has a lot of potential for qualifying the final exam. Despite its scoring potential in IAS Mains Exam, candidates leave Essay writing for last minute preparation. Since improvement in Essay Writing is gradual. There is no defined syllabus of it. It demands good understanding of subjects and ability to express in a certain way. We always try to focus on improving skills rather just delivering powerful lecture on particular topic. The analysis and proper understanding of dimensions in this regard remains the most significant area for marks improvement.

What is Dimension?

While talking about dimensions, in terms of physics and mathematics, it means the measurement of something on different parameters such as length, breadth or height, etc. Similarly, the dimensions of an essay are like branches of a tree. These are the ideas we get after brainstorming over a particular topic. We write down all the dimensions that come to our minds and choose only those which are relevant for the essay writing. The chosen dimensions are used further to set the context of the Essay Writing.

To understand it better, we may take an example:

The whole process leads to a set of ideas that may have come to your thought process. You must be aware of the fact that you will always be dealing with problems and solutions. Above all you are evaluating ideas and solutions as you write, and you must select ideas that are relevant, that are at the right level of generalization, and that are ranked logically for the topic that you are writing about. Candidates are assessed on the basis of their ability to present the solution to a problem. In fact, every topic is really a problem in itself. If it were not a problem, it would not be worth asking about.

Ways to select Dimensions

An essay is structured by giving dimensions and these dimensions are further used to set the context of essay writing. You may give any number of dimensions to an essay or chose any categorisation of thoughts based on your knowledge. Generally, dimensions of an essay writing follow a certain set of categorization which is subject to change according to the demand of the essay Writing.

Some of these categories are given below :

1. Past, present and future
2. Self, family, society, nation and world
3. Environment, economy, technology, polity, law, governance, education, profession, religion
4. Description/ explanation, supportive arguments, counter arguments (through negation), and synthesize your own way forward (chance to disagree).

We can understand the creation of dimensions by using the above given criteria by using implementing with the help of essays.

Selection of Dimensions by Examples

Example 1: Topic-Trust is the foundational principle that holds in all relationships.

Deciding the Dimensions

After writing the introduction write down all the possible dimensions of the essay. Then decide the set of category to write the dimensions based on your comfort and depth of the knowledge on those particular dimensions. For example, few students may have better knowledge and can do comparative analysis of the dimensions based on self, family, society, nation and world. On the other hand, some of you might chose the dimensions on Environment, economy, technology, polity, law, governance, education, profession and religion to set the context of essay.

Try to follow dimensions which give flow to the essay and avoid using mix of set of these categories as it may make essay look unstructured and out of context.

Copy of IAS Topper Khushboo Lathar (AIR 98, CSE 2018) is the perfect example of dimensions analysis in essay writing:

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For this essay, one set of dimensions are chosen to write it.

• Self
• Family
• Society
• Nation
• International

Example 2: Topic - Globalization

Similarly, if we are writing about Globalization we may choose any number of dimensions related to globalization.

Thus the dimensions in essay are the first and foremost requirement to give an influential touch to an essay in UPSC Mains Exam. For a better understanding regarding the dimensions of essay the following test copy of IAS topper Khushboo Lathar (AIR 98, CSE 2018) gives a glimpse of dimensions in essay:

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