How To Write A Legal Essay ?

‘Write an essay’ is  a routine question in LLB examinations and in the Civil Judge entrance examination.

Before to understand the essentials of writing an essay, we should first understand the meaning of the word ‘Essay’.

The word “Essay" derives from the French word “Essayer”, meaning "to try" or "to attempt". An essay is essentially an attempt to explain  the writer’s prospective on any given subject. It is an attempt to show what a writer think about the given subject. A skillfully written essay shows the analytical power, linguistic ability and power of expression of the writer.

Following are the steps for writing any essay:

1)      Context : First, the writer has to identify the given topic for the essay. What is the context, who will read the essay (audience)  and what is expected from a writer in the essay. It is necessary to find out the desired length of an essay. Should it be five paragraph or ten paragraph of may be twenty pages. At the first sight, the context of the topic should be identified and  understood.

2)      Essay –Plan :  Draw the plan : It is to plan that what is required to write to meet the objective of the topic. For this, writer must have  good information about the topic, must have read the discussion, relevant provision, judgments, article on the given topic so that a short essay can be written.

3)      Introduction : When writer commence writing an essay, he has to first give a introductory note on the giving topic. The introductory note can be initiated by the opening sentences like ‘Atrocity on women is the course on humanity’, ‘Reservation is an essential  for our society’. Introductory paragraph should be informative, catchy and attractive so that the reader get hooked by the paragraph and start reading the essay.

4)      Body content : After the introduction of the topic, one should come directly on the subject matter discussion and information sharing. Identify atleast three specific points which the writer would elaborate in the essay. Explain the identified points in considerable length. Support the explanation with few vital and convincing facts.  Body content must be full of facts which a reader should know. These facts should be relevant to the topic. The body content can have details like “After the amendment in the Indian Penal Code, the cases of dowry death started following in the police station and the society has started  abstaining from the family of accused of dowry matters.” “ Media has initiated a public trial and the politician were pronounced convicted in the eyes of public”. Body of content can be of two or three paragraph or even more. Length depends on the knowledge of the writer , requirement of the topic and the defined word count.

5)      Conclusion of the essay : The last paragraph should always be a concluding paragraph. By this paragraph, writer concludes his writing . It is paragraph where writer gives his thoughts on the topic, his personal view points, suggestion and a message to the reader. This paragraph shows the inner capacity of the  writer about the level of understanding and maturity with the writers.

6)      Language  of an essay :  The essay should be language of good quality. One should choose the word carefully. The sentence  may be short and easily understandable. Grammar should be correct. Avoid any ambiguous  words.  Abbreviation  should be strictly avoided. 

7)      Revise : Before finalizing the agreement one should revise the essay. The fair criticism to essay would be great help for improve in quality. Repetitive words should be picked out of the essay. If required, paragraphs should be rearranged.  It should be kept in mind at the time of revising the essay that it should meet the objective of writing it and justify  the ultimate purpose of writing the essay on the given topic.

8)       Check the Flow : Check the flow and rhythm of the sentences in the essay. One sentence should follow the other or should be in line with the same. The sentences should be sequentially arranged and give a flow to the reader. Any surprise or interruption to the flow  should be avoided. Sentence should be arranged in brick by brick manner.  The arrangement of sentence should give a feeling of comfort and easy flowing to the reader.

Regards

Ambrish

http://www.advocatelive.com