An escape sequence is a series of characters used in programming and text processing to represent special characters that cannot be easily typed or displayed. For example, in many programming languages, the backslash ` \ ` is used to indicate that the following character should be treated differently. Common escape sequences include ` \n ` for a new line and ` \t ` for a tab. Escape sequences are essential for formatting strings and controlling how text is displayed. They allow programmers to include characters like quotes or backslashes in strings without causing errors. Understanding escape sequences is crucial for effective coding and text manipulation in languages such as ` Python `, ` Java `, and ` C `.