english personal essay tips

english personal essay tips

Effective Strategies for Writing a Personal Essay in English

1. Introduction to Personal Essays

…Well, let’s move on. We all know what a personal essay is… But what is a personal essay in the English class, in our case? That’s right. The teacher’s answer would be one specific plan of an essay following a specific style and one kind of approach for organizing and developing a composition. Today we will go through the features, the form, and the organization of personal essays, and discuss some effective strategies in writing one in the English class. Personal essays, you might have known, sound familiar to some of the writings in the high school English classes. In the American education system, they are called autobiographical essays.

Welcome back to Last Time Writing with me, Alice. Today, we are looking at an important form of writing called the personal essay. You may be asking yourself, what is a personal essay? You already know what an essay is, so a personal essay is an essay on your personality, your personal experiences, your opinions, and so on. While I go through the features of personal essays, think about whether you have ever written personal essays before.

2. Choosing a Compelling Topic

Focus on a universal experience. We have all felt happy, sad, or heartbroken, and the reader can emotionally connect with our students while reading their personal essays. There may be something that our students desperately want to tell their readers, something about their sense of self. Whether it is a car accident, or a divorce, or making the varsity basketball team, our students’ lives contain educative experiences. These experiences are universal, but yet can also be profoundly personal, so long as there is passion and emotion behind them. These are the saves and the goals and the missed opportunities, these are the events that we want others to know about and share with us. Any number of important experiences can serve as a topic for a personal essay, so long as they are followed by a deep-thinking reflection that examines where the student stumbled, how hard it was to get back up, and what he or she learned in the process.

First, you need to choose a good personal topic that is compelling and will be thought-provoking for your reader. Many students concentrate on writing about important and life-changing events—perhaps they want to share stories about their struggles, their successes, or their setbacks. Although the events in the student’s life are important, the reader will not care unless the events matter to the student. Our ability to effectively communicate with our readers is often based on the emotions that we put into our work, not necessarily the events themselves.

3. Crafting a Strong Thesis Statement

An opinion makes the writer credible. Do not just say “Guitar playing requires a lot of skill” and leave it there. The average reader does not have to know how you developed the idea in a personal essay. Use a strategy that weaves commentary and fact together to clarify the point. The details offer the external support to the thesis; they provide evidence that shows music is a tool for healing while it is suggested via commentary. The part of a large project seems to be an important topic, but is addressed in only one sentence in an assignment. It is easy to breeze through the emotional components of a draft to be certain you have as many flashbacks as you thought you did, or to highlight the correct theme. In a personal essay, all of the information is factual.

A strong thesis statement presents the main point of your essay. A standard place for your thesis is at the end of the introduction paragraph, but this can change depending on your teacher’s preferences. Crafting an original thesis statement is important, however, because it is where you capture the interest of your reader. Including words like “because” and language which is firm and definitive is crucial. This is because your idea will change greatly throughout the writing process, and you do not want to misrepresent your commitment to the argument. Where other papers might try to complete research or use an essay to bring everything together, a personal essay offers the reader a glimpse of the author’s life. In a personal essay, there should be no thesis that is determined to be the absolute end-all statement for the writer. An opinion will be deemed credible if the essay is defined by it and has significant detail to challenge its true validity.

4. Structuring Your Essay for Impact

Note for consideration What role do chapter 4’s recommendations play in the construction of your essay?

Transitions How are these considerations important for writing personal essays?

Processes and strategies What takes place in each paragraph of a compelling narrative?

Opening and closing What are the elements that would be interesting and important for your audience’s new reading of the experience?

The essay’s structure What role does each paragraph play in the construction of an essay?

Experience and conclusions How would different experiences lead to different conclusions about the topic?

Focusing the topic How would you revise this question in light of your audience’s interests?

The topic What is the relationship between the topic and the reader?

The structure of the personal essay The assignment Consider the expectations of the essay assignment for this course.

5. Polishing Your Essay: Editing and Proofreading Techniques

Only revising an essay can refine and tighten your message to your readers. As you say the words of your essay aloud, look for vague sentences, such as those with many abuses that conceal their lack of precision. Be sure to read grammar rules and vocabulary to boost your ability to revise clear, concise, efficient sentences that convey the personal thoughts, feelings, and emotions you experienced at the time of the essay’s occurrence. At the same time, don’t confuse your final product’s looseness with your need to relax and embrace the freedom to express your unique voice. Doing so will help you to emphasize the point while ensuring that your final product shines. Have confidence in yourself and your writing by embracing written authenticity, inquiring about your reader, and promoting your reader’s action with your words.

As you wander through your essay while self-editing and rewriting, learn how to retire gracefully and say goodbye to mental baggage for good. Cut out anything unnecessary. Editing and rewriting your personal essay make you feel better, lighter, and relaxed. You rid yourself of the product’s less appealing attributes. Eventually, your eyes unclouded, and the editor in you emerges to protect and improve the text. As you cross the finish line with your personal essay, you have no remaining psychological or textual baggage. You may feel drained but usually reinvigorated.

You need to use spelling and grammar checkers, but you can’t rely on them wholly. Complement these tools with your own judgment and proofreading skills. Print a hard copy of your essay and go over it on paper with a fine-tooth comb. Use a highlighter or pencil to mark areas of improvement or corrections throughout your essay. When you read it once, you absorb the essay’s meaning and memorize all the major points. Upon subsequent reviews, your proofreading efforts will display any typos and awkward phrases that help catch your attention as you search, review, and correct individual differences. Lastly, be open to comments, ideas, and criticism from others. A good writer seeks input either to encourage and support private thought or to date his essay. Any of these support suggestions can give you a realistic and invigorating boost that helps you out.

Add realistic narration by including descriptions and lively quotes that substantiate the meaning and moral of your essay. While you are personal in your writing, you should not be too subjective in your choice of words that lead to bias. Bias results when you write something so personal that you inject yourself into your writing. During your final review of your personal essay, you need to be vigilant and gracefully void of such affectation. Passive voice, unnecessary phrases, and verbiage detract from the quality of your essay. When you edit, take out words, phrases, and sentences that don’t add to the meaning you intended to impart.

You’ve spent a lot of time creating a compelling personal essay written in the first-person point of view. A personal essay is personal, but it needs to be polished before you can submit it. You have much to gain when you refine your personal essay by taking the time to add and delete personal experiences. Use each sentence to incorporate information that makes your essay more vivid, exciting, and educational for your reader.