We all know that in the education field we often get, a need, to elaborate the sentences or the paragraphs. Sometimes, we do it purposefully and sometimes without our wills, because we are required to do it. But most of us fall in problems while doing this. Some of us take this as a joke and as a result lose marks voluntarily in the exams because we can't do it. We fail to complete the word requirements of the questions and since we are not capable to elaborate the things, we are simply lagging behind our competitors. This implies on many of us. So I would today discuss about the points which one should keep in mind so that the elaborating skills can be under his control. Mind my words, this is really a very big point in English because though one does not realize in the lower standards, but in bigger subjective exams, one really faces problems for not having this skill to elaborate 2 lines into 20. So without taking much time, let me just talk about it in some points below.
Knowing the concept - Many people think that elaborating the things when needed, is a easy meat for them. They are overconfident about this that it is a very easy task, but it is not at all that easy as we think. There are two types of questions, short answer types in which you need to write about 20-40 words and are quite often, they are easy to write. Another type of questions are long answer types, which require you to answer them in may be 40-100-1000-2000 words even, in big exams like B.SC papers etc. However, you may fail to succeed doing your job well. Many of us think that there is no problem and that the elaboration job is very easy and what we call it, "bas phekna hai aur kya". But it is not so. We need to know about the concept of the thing. If we write all rubbish in the exam papers, sometimes it is our fortune that we get lenient examiners and they overlook whatever we write, but sometimes strict reviewing can prove to be nightmare.
If we know the concept, we can easily talk about things in detail and simply make the answer longer if necessary. If we know the concept, we don't need to think about what to boast at the examiner, we just know it and all we have to do is to frame a nice pattern to answer the question and the good thing is that we are actually not just boasting, and we will be not be talking senseless things in the paper and whatever we will write will actually count because it will be somehow or the other related to the answer, keeping the interest level of the paper corrector maintained, so that he does not gets mad after us while evaluating.
Relating the Things - Elaboration is something which asks you the skill to relate one thing with the other. This is something which only a conceptual person can succeed in doing. One needs to know how to cite examples while writing in detail. Without much boasting with irrelevant statements, one needs to be practical in the answers by relating the things from one to another. Yes, it is something which is very useful when you do not have anything wasteful to write in the answer, you have written almost all the things you know, you don't have any more concept left with you, but still the word requirement has not been fulfilled. What benefits is that since you have lost hope because of lack of concept, and now you have nothing to write, you may think now, how to relate the things and then you would be able to get a certain subject with which you may relate the things. Now start comparing. Whatever you get, filter it out, sort it out and put the points in the answer.
Creative Writing - It is mostly useful while writing the exams for subjects like civics, and English. Especially in English, it is very difficult on how you can write five words into fifty. Of course, we are not going to repeat one word ten times. Sometimes, we need to think about good stuff in the answer. If we know how to relate things, then it is very easy to create the thoughts in one go. Creativity is something which every examiner or evaluator of papers like English wants to see in the answer. It is the only skill which can save you from drowning during the evaluation. However, while using this we need to keep in mind what we are going to talk about actually.
We cannot write about medicines while we are writing civics. We cannot write about mobile phones while writing a paper for geography, so easily. We need to write carefully because sometimes creative writing, when goes off the course can be devastating. Creative writing here means to just bring a new thing which can either be used as a direct concept in the answer or simply can be used to cite an example to clarify the topics in order to make the answers longer and brighter.
Sentence Formation - It is the most crucial part of the skills required to elaborate something. It can be a lifeline when one really does not have any more concepts in his mind to write in the examination paper. Let me show you what it is actually here. As we are talking on elaboration, so we are talking of the sentence formation here in connection to make the sentences longer than even. Let's take an example of a sentence. "I love to sing". Now just think carefully what you would do to elaborate this sentence.
Think of the ways in which you can elaborate this set of words. There are just four words and you may be able to make it more than four, but how? See, you can use conjunctions, idioms and what not to make it a bit longer without changing the subject actually. For example - "I like to spend my leisure time in singing and it is my passion too." Yes, it deviated a bit, but then you are not actually deviating from the main subject which is that you love to sing.
I love to sing.
I like to spend my leisure time in singing and it is my passion too.
Now you can see that fifteen words have replaced just four words and this is an elaboration.
Going to the Roots - It is actually a part of the sub-heading about concept but I thought that keeping it under special category might be a little bit better because I wanted to discuss it in a bit different manner. It is very nice to have all the above mentioned skills, but this one may be referred as the product of all the above skills. Here I have to tell you that if you have the concept, you can easily trace the things to lengthen the things. Trace it from where it begins, try to go to the innermost side of things and begin from there. This can be useful while writing pieces such as articles or paragraphs or even lengthy answers. When we start from the root, we can proceed about the last thing, covering each and every topic in a nicer way and thereby elaborating the things efficiently.
Sample Usage
Now let me take an example. It is a very nice example which I am going to cite how one can simply elaborate from a small paragraph to long type answer using the above skills, from case 1 to case 2.
Case 1 - With the activities like concreting the land and digging deep tube wells, the water table level is going down creating water scarcity in many parts. But by collecting the water and letting it seep into the ground we can fix the problem. This technique is called rainwater harvesting.
Case 2 - Introduction - Today, a major concern of the environment is the depleting of the watertable. Watertable means the water that is present under the surface of the earth, trapped below different layers or so on. This watertable is very necessary to be as usual as it was dacades ago. The depletion in the level of watertable is a big concern for today's environmentalists. They are planning more and more to secure the water level of the watertable. There are many causes of the depletion of the watertable. One such cause is the deep boring, which is mainly done for fitting handpumps in houses. The biggest drawback of the handpump system is that it takes water from the underground. That is, it directly depletes the level of the watertable. This causes the water from that watertable to exhaust and after several years, the water is exhausted from that watertable.
There is another very big cause for depletion of the water level of the watertable. Today, there are so many constructions going all over the world. For example, we cannot see a barren land in US cities. It is not only in the USA or China that we cannot see plain and unconcreted land in the cities but also in many cities of India too. In the process of construction, we often concrete the ground too, so that it looks beautiful and we also do this due to some other reasons too like safety. Due to so much of concretion, plain land (barren land having topsoil) cannot be seen because we have concreted so much of the plain barren land. Due to this, the water that used to seep down to the ground before the land was concreted, now uses to stay and accumulate on the concreted lands. The water is, therefore, not allowed to be seeped down to the ground and add to the watertable. And not only this, this accumulation of water on the roads, streets, pits and other places like these also gets a dwelling place for many fatal germs and we keep on thinking how we got struck by malaria and typhoid.
So on the whole we can say that on one hand, we are just leaking the ground also and not allowing the water to seep down also. So the level of watertable is depleting day by day. It is depleting with double speed. If this continues to be ongoing, that day is not so far that we will have to think about how to obtain freshwater because the watertable which contained freshwater for us has now been depleted and it is very much possible that many fertile lands which were full of greenery might become deserts in a decade or a couple of years or so.
Description - But there is one way out through which one can restore the water level. Of course, it is not sensible to say that if one person does this, the full watertable on the earth will be restored. But yes, if every person does his/her bits, then it is possible that we can take this topic of concern under control and thus eradicate this problem. The way through which we can restore the water level is known as rainwater harvesting. Now let me explain what we do in it. In rainwater harvesting, first we make a level of land in such a way that whenever it rains, the whole rainwater shall collect into a central point (a central place over that area). The most interesting thing about this is that we can also do this on a concreted land. First all the rainwater should be collected in a central point. That water shall be stored in a tank and there shall be a big dig dug into the ground. It may not be so broad (not so much in diameter) but it may be a narrow one. That rainwater stored in that tank shall be allowed to seep down slowly to the ground. In places where there is too much rain, it is possible that big tanks shall be installed and more than one even.
So whenever it rains, the whole rainwater is seeped down to the ground. Even if the whole rainwater does not seep, but still most of the quantity will be seeped as all of them are allowed to be collected in a central point. It is also possible that we can use the method of pipelines, to conduct the collecting process of rainwater harvesting over a very big area of land. In this process, we can easily restore the level of groundwater, that is watertable is restored.
I hope this was a very nice piece of information because we cannot stop concreting land, so why not get things done out of methods such as these. I hope this healthy piece of information could influence the ISCers here, and I hope they will think about practising this in their own houses.
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