I have an essay prompt that includes "insights" in the context "develop new insights into my community"
This isn't actually correct for me to write in my essay is it?
I mean insight can be used as a plural without any modification…
To gain insight on something doesn't really suggest quantity does it? Simply the state of enlightenment. You'd need to use "a lot of insight" or some such thing if you wanted to modify it yes?
Best Answer
It's similar to the difference between perspective and perspectives. If you say someone has perspective, that's saying that he generally is able to look at things from a good point of view. However, if you talk about someone who shares a lot of perspectives, then you're talking about multiple specific points of view.
Likewise, someone who has insight has the general ability to understand the nature of things. Take this example sentence from Merriam-Webster:
This sentence is saying that the leader has an impressive ability to understand things; this is a general insight. M-W also gives an example sentence with insights:
Here each insight is a fresh understanding of something specific, so you can have more than one of them, just like you can see something from more than one specific perspective.
Going back to your sentence, it seems insights would be more appropriate because you are presumably developing more than one specific insight into your community. Note that your sentence and Merriam-Webster's second example sentence use the phrasing "insights into."