Writing an essay about yourself appears to be an easy job. After all, you know the matter.
There is still a chance that talking about yourself will be mind-numbing. The trick to writing
a fine personal essay about yourself is to award the reader with something; a lesson, a bit of
useful information, even just with the pleasure of being capable to understand something about
someone. This "take away" is what will help you arrange and compose your essay in a way that
will make it exciting and meaningful for your reader.
Instructions
Outline
1. Agree on what you want a reader to pick up from reading this essay, such as a useful
life lesson or an interesting anecdote. Write down your intention at the top of the page. Keep it clear and simple.
2. Arrange the points you want to bring, ideas you want to comprise, quotations, anecdotes, facts and so on.
3. Put together the points and supporting material in a coherent order.
4. Look through what you have. If something doesn't correspond to the goal you wrote
at the top of the piece of paper, cross it out.
5. Write a thesis statement; state with one sentence the purpose of your essay as you
would explain it to the reader.
Write the Essay
1. Stick to your outline and compose the body of your essay. Start with the second
subsection if you are not sure how you want to present the essay.
2. Write a preface. Some tried-and-true introductions take in pithy anecdotes, a
description of a panorama, a concise proclamation or a common remark.
3. Write a closing part. Your essay might lend itself, of course, to "book-ending"
(referring to the introduction in the conclusion), but you don't need to change your
case. If you conclude your essay in a quite different place than where you started it,
an illustration or a reviewing statement or two might work best.
Finishing Touches
1. Skim over your essay again and make sure it enlightens the story you set out to
deliver and meets your expectations. If anything seems out of place or odd, delete or
modify it.
2. Read your essay out loud to see what your flow of language sounds like, and spot any
awkward-sounding parts.
3. Check your paper again for basic spelling, punctuation, expressions, capitalization
and any mechanics.
Tips & Warnings
- Prefer strong, action verbs instead of "to be" verbs. Try avoiding passive voice.
- Adjust sentence lengths and constructions. Keep paragraphs from being too lengthy.
- Three to five sentences is a proper guideline.
- It's typically fine to use the first person in a personal essay; still an instructor might ask you not to for a specific task.
- If achievable, ask someone else to look through the article and tell you if she understood the significance you intended to put into it. Feedback always helps.
