Tips To Improve Writing Style For UPSC Exams | The Ultimate Guide to Improve Writing Style for UPSC Exams

According to the latest pattern of UPSC, the examination has six papers – one is the Essay-based, four are  General Studies, and last is the Optional paper (which depends upon the subject you choose). 

All six papers together carry 1750 marks, and 275 marks are allotted to the Personality Test making it a total of 2025 marks. 

While a candidate needs to master in different genres of skills to get through and secure a good rank in the examinations, improving writing skills can drastically change the fortunes of a candidate enabling him/her to get good marks in the exam.

While answering any question, a student needs to explain the concept straightforwardly and simply. UPSC doesn’t expect a candidate to acquire extraordinary writing skills in English/Hindi. However, one’s writing style, choice of words, accuracy and the grasp over grammar can help a candidate acquire a better hand over the competitors.

Are you assessing your writing skills? Thinking of ways to enhance them. Don’t worry, you have got us. 

So, let’s get started.

Ways To Improve Your Writing

1. Cognitive Skills 

The process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through experience thought and sense is termed as ‘Cognitive Skills’. Cognitive skills are a vital part of one’s writing to enhance the tone and sensitivity towards a particular topic. Further, to form a better connect while explaining any idea or theme clearly; citing examples or instances from real-life can do a great deal in getting good marks and creating an impression on the examiner.

Access the knowledge through a variety of sources like newspapers, books, magazines, and journals.

 2. Read more to write better

‘To be a good writer, one needs to be a good reader.’ Going by this, it is important that one reads newspapers and current affairs magazines regularly to learn about the style of writing. Further, everyday reading also helps in learning about the important national and international events ensuring that one doesn’t miss out on any significant news story and can, therefore, imbibe those while delivering answers. 

3. Improve your vocabulary 

The thinking process depends on one’s vocabulary or word power. Better the word power, better the thoughts. And one writes or pens down what one thinks. So, if one knows more words then one would be able to explain their thoughts more aptly and think better and faster.

4. Understand the Question

Read the question properly before you attempt it to know exactly what is being asked. Sometimes, a question is strategically asked in a certain manner to confuse candidates. 

5. Embedding keywords

It is advised to use keywords related to the question/main idea or theme. This gives more weight to the answer and increases the ease of reading, making it sound better. 

6.  Structure of an insightful answer

The outline refers to the basic structure of the written piece (answers). Write an introduction, description, and conclusion while writing. Try to make some good points and write quotes in your answer. For these, certainly, show your erudition.

7.  Accessorize the Answer

Use tables, charts, diagrams and facts to show information in a more readable format. But avoid making the answer cluttered. 

8. Eliminate Unnecessary Words

While writing answers in the UPSC mains, restrict the use of unnecessary technical words. Don’t write to fill up the word count. Remember that quality is better than quantity.

9. Take Care of Grammar

Always make sure that your answers are free from grammatical and spelling errors.

10. Practice More & More

‘Practice makes a man perfect’. Nothing can be made perfect or improved without practice. Practice writing answers for the UPSC exam.

11. Solve Previous Year Questions

Take up a question bank and start answering every question. Stick to the word limit. For model answers, instead of looking at a guide refer to NCERT textbooks. The explanation of concepts is simple and clear in those books.

“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.” 

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