Personal Essay Examples

No one knows you better than yourself. While this may not be entirely true in some cases, it is always encouraging to think we know ourselves best. You must write about an abstract concept that you may have only learned from books with most essays. Ideally, this should be easy because all the content you need is in the primary source, but you have to admit something is exciting about writing about yourself. That is precisely what personal essays are about: a narration of you by you!

Now you must be wondering how do you write about yourself? What do you say? What do you leave out? In how to write a personal essay for college, you will need to reflect a lot inwards. It would be best if you were honest with yourself to the extent that you can freely write about your experiences.

Personal Essays Definition

One of the first steps to understanding a personal essay is having its definition at the tip of your fingers. The most flexible personal essay definition declares that they are essays that draw on a specific experience or event and tell from an individual's point of view. You will find yourself writing a personal essay for college in different circumstances. It could be for a narrative essay, for a college admission letter, and many other themes. As you write these papers, all you have to keep in mind is the academic requirement of the same. Make sure you address the questions that you are writing in response to.

Personal Essay Examples

1. Personal Profile

2. Difference Between Personal and Professional Ethics

3. Personal Insight Paper

How to Write a Personal Essay For College

Maybe you have gone through personal essay examples and still aren't too comfortable writing your own. Most college students confuse a personal essay with a personal statement. While a personal statement is short and in line with whatever application you are writing, a personal essay is more extended. It offers a learning point from an experience you had. Reading a good college personal essay example will have you on the right track with that in mind.

It would be best to keep in mind that it is your story, so you decide how it goes and what to focus on. Writing a personal essay will pick on a specific experience and then narrate it to the reader. After the narration, it is always helpful to offer a lesson you learned or how that personal experience has shaped your life. Here are a few essential basics that will help with the entire process:

1. Review the question carefully
2. Decide on a specific topic that aligns with the question
3. Write a draft with all the critical parts of the story
4. Think of something you got from the experience
5. Write your paper

Choose a Topic for an Essay

This part is the very beginning of your essay writing. Before you search the internet on how to start a personal essay, you will have to have a topic in mind. Though you will have multiple experiences answering the writing questions, you will only need to choose one. By choosing a topic that you are comfortable with and have a lot of information on, you increase your chances of writing a meaningful paper. The goal is to expertly write an appealing essay that ticks all of the college department's boxes. Therefore, dig deep and evaluate each experience against the question to land on the one best suits your question.

Think about Statement

Your thesis must be arguable; it must state a claim or refute a claim about your issue. A thesis must have some chance of being true in order to be debatable. It should not, however, be widely recognized as true; instead, it should be a statement that people can disagree with. It's important to remember that a thesis includes both an observation and an opinion:

observation + opinion (the "why") = thesis

Seeing if your thesis creates a powerful antithesis is an excellent approach to determine how strong it is.

Common thesis pitfalls:

• A thesis in the form of a fragment.
• A thesis that is overly broad.
• A thesis that is phrased as a question. (The thesis is usually derived from the solution to the question.)
• Extraneous information is included in a thesis.
• A thesis that begins with the words "I believe" or "In my opinion."
• A thesis that deals with a tired or cliched topic.
• A thesis that includes phrases that lead to erroneous generalizations (all, none, always, only, everyone, etc.)

Create an Essay Outline

Now that you have reviewed your personal essay ideas and decided on a topic, the next part is writing an outline. This part of the paper is not mandatory, but you should start with a personal essay outline to write efficiently. An outline will guide you through the rest of the paper and ensure you have sufficient information to draw on the whole time. Your outline will also help you to write per personal essay formats. This way, your entire paper will draw upon the college's requirements and the question while concentrating on your experience. You can note any additional information you would like to share with the reader and highlight it with the outline. This is where you offer a draft of your paper to make the actual writing a walk in the park.

Personal Essay Structure

According to several personal essay samples, a general structure should guide you in your writing. The typical personal essay structure is quite like many others: you will need an introduction, body, and conclusion. These three significant parts make up the paper you will be working on. Here's a brief bullet-point review of what to expect:

1. Introduction- make it exciting and enticing. Bring out all your writing skills in ensuring you offer the audience something that will leave them wanting more
2. Main body- ensure you develop all your ideas fully. Do not leave your ideas half-baked. In multiple paragraphs, discuss the event or experience in a way that shows an understanding of the content offered
3. Conclusion- offer a brief wrap-up of what you discussed and learned. You should provide an overview of the topic in a way that is reflective of everything you discussed and aimed to discuss

Write a Personal Essay Introduction

A personal essay introduction is where you need to refine your writing. As the appetizer to your paper, you need to ensure you capture the essence of your entire written work. What you need to decide is whether you want to start vaguely or more specifically. With a vague introduction, your statements should only roughly allude to the content. For instance, if you narrate a happy memory after passing exams, you could start by mentioning the value of happiness and how the same leads to a healthy life.

 As you continue, you will need to narrow it down to something specific such as being a graduate. The specific approach will have you directly mention the content in the very first sentences. For example, you could state, In my entire life, I have never been as happy as the day I passed my final exams. In both cases, make sure you offer information that the reader will want to expound on by reading your written material.

Create a Personal Essay Body Paragraphs

This part is the bulk of your paper. If you have come across any personal essay template, you know that the body is where your ideas need to be developed. The brief introduction to your experience offered in the introduction needs to be written down in more than one paragraph. With this form of paper, you will need to offer a step-by-step narration of the event. Each of the paragraphs handles a specific aspect of the experience. Since it is in your point of view, feel free to structure it according to how you experienced the event. However, the paragraph leading to the conclusion should be more reflective and not offer any new ideas. This way, the reader can be able to comprehend the experience and what it means to you.

Write a Conclusion

Most people, regardless of their writing experience, are already tired from writing the paper. However, you should note that the conclusion is as important as the introduction. On how to end a personal essay, you need to offer a review of the experience and reinforce the significance of the experience. The personal essay conclusion is what will show the reader how relevant the event was to the question. It also wraps the entire essay in a way that is mindful of all the key points and your learning lesson.

Personal Essay Topics

Personal Essays About Yourself

1. Medical School Personal Essays: You Advertise Yourself!
2. Where do you want to travel to as a kid? As a teenager? As an adult?
3. What one thing do you want to change about your school?
4. Which country do you want to visit and why?
5. What is your favorite thing about school?
6. What is your favorite color and why?
7. What is your favorite cartoon?
8. What would you like to invent and why?
9. What is the story behind your name?
10. What do you want to be when you grow up and why?

Personal Essays About Anxiety

1. Affectability of positive and negative written personal accounts
2. Music: the Medicine of the Mind
3. Compare & Contrast – a Daughter Leaving Home
4. Grapvine Communication
5. Bower’s Network Theory and its Link in Depression and Anxiety
6. The Difference Between Social Anxiety And Shyness
7. Relationship Between Anxiety, Depression And Insomnia
8. The Generalized Anxiety Disorder
9. How The Emotions Of Regret And Disappointment Can Be Beneficial For A Person
10. Social Status Anxiety

Personal Essay Topics About Life

1. Life Skills for Personality Development
2. Lifespan Development and Personality
3. Personal Ethics In Everyday Life
4. Personal Recounts- a Day in the Life of Superman
5. How Personal Branding Helped Give My Life Direction
6. How you coped during a difficult time in your life
7. A major change that has occurred in your life
8. How your life would differ if you lived a century ago
9. The role money plays in your life
10. A person that you cannot imagine your life without

Personal Essay Topics About Struggles

1. My Struggles in The High School
2. Do not Let Your Struggles Overcome You
3. My Struggles in The Middle School
4. How Struggle Helps to Achieve Progress
5. My Personal Strengths and Weaknesses
6. The Victorian Women: Their Struggles and Role in Society
7. Struggle Kids and War Veterans
8. Issues Surrounding Black American Women Today
9. The Value of Struggle
10. Our Toughest Struggles in Life Can Be with Ourselves

Guidelines for Writing Personal Essays

Even with a few essays under your belt, feeling anxious about writing a personal essay is normal. There is always the question of how personal you should get. Indeed, the paper is personal but institutional guidelines also guide it. Therefore, it is ideal to ensure you follow a few guidelines to make your paper as perfect as it can be. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Read a couple of examples- you can never be too prepared for your essay. The more examples you read, the easier it will be to write your own.
2. Have your resources in hand- before you embark on your writing, make sure you have all the tools close by. It is never disadvantageous to be prepared. That way, when it comes to writing, you will not waste time looking around.
3. Choose a specific experience- make sure that the experience you choose aligns with the topic in question. With that in mind, you can be able to tailor your ideas to what is needed.
4. Write your paper- once you start writing, do not forget any of the critical parts. Make sure you have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
5. Do not forget to add a moral lesson- the central importance of a personal essay is to showcase the learning point.  Therefore, sprinkle what you learned near the end to show that you understood the assignment.

Personal Essay Ideas

Now that you know how to write, it is only fair we offer a couple of ideas that you can use. These ideas are just brief examples, and you can build on them to make them your own. Feel free to delve into your past and present to come up with unique ideas. Remember, personal essays are all about you and your experiences. The following are some personal essay ideas:

1. How you decided on a major at college
2. How you came to develop your view on racism
3. A past mistake you learned from
4. A relationship or an acquaintance worth noting
5. How you developed skills in your profession

Helpful videos about How to Write an Personal Essay

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