Useful Tips on Personal Essay Writing

In order to understand what personal essay is, it is important to take a look at personal essay definition. The personal essay is a short piece of writing, which is characterized by a conversational manner of presentation and sharing some personal experience. Intimacy, in this case, means that the story outlined in the paper is personal for a writer.

The following tips will help you understand the essence of this paper type better and provide you with necessary knowledge on how to write a personal narrative essay.

• Start with a proper topic

The best way to choose good personal essay topics is to think about something personal. However, considering the main idea of the paper, the writer should not forget that personal paper is not only about sharing the personal experience. The paper should also serve a specific aim. This aim is to reveal some universal truth through a personal narration. As a result, the topic of the paper may be love, friendship, facing difficult situations and overcoming the fear of something, etc.

• Think about a hook

Talking about love is not new. There are many stories related to this topic. Consequently, if you still want to share some experience in this area, you should make sure that you use a strong hook to grab reader's attention.

Outline

In order to make your story interesting and logical, you should pay attention to its structure. It is not always easy if you try to write your essay right ahead without proper preparation. Parts of the paper, such as: "I forgot to mention that..." can confuse the reader. So, it is strongly recommended to prepare a paper outline before writing. It will help you organize your thoughts better and make your narration flow smoothly.

• Stay focused

If you choose a general topic for your essay, be ready to get a general paper, which gives no useful information. For example, if you want to write about the role of friendship in people's lives, describe this question through the lens of your personal experience. Why is friendship important for you? Did you have negative moments with friends? How did you manage to overcome them? Etc.

• Make your story emotional

Your task as a writer is not only to tell about something but also make a reader to feel what you felt in a specific situation. If you manage to evoke emotions of readers, your aim is reached.

• Make a strong conclusion

Considering the nature of narrative essay, it will not be enough only to summarize the information you have provided in the paper. Remember, that the aim of this paper type is not only to tell something but to make readers think and feel. As a result, your conclusion should provoke thoughts in readers, as well as provide your own analysis and reflection on what had happened.

Personal Essay Writing

To write a high-quality essay, the writer should understand its structure first. How do you know that you wrote a good personal essay? If you manage to inspire your readers, make them reflect on some topics or leave them full of questions, you have done your task perfectly. On the contrary, if they forget about your paper right after reading it, it means that you were not good enough to make them interested.

The following steps will help you write a highquality paper.

Step 1: Starting your essay:

• If you cannot boast of having a life full of exciting events and moments, it is not a reason to be upset. The most important thing is to use a correct approach towards writing. You can choose any moment of your life and present it from the point of view of a general truth about something. For example, you can tell about a quarrel with your siblings or parents and discuss the situation from the point of view of family relations and values. In this case, regular quarrel can become your way to understanding what family is and how important it is to build strong relations with it.
• Create an outline of your essay. Simple essays usually have similar structures. They include Introduction, Main Body, and Conclusion.

At the same time, Introduction should contain a strong hook and present a general idea, which will later lead to a general truth.

The main Body contains supporting evidence for your thesis and reflections on the experience you had.

Strong conclusion of your topic should contain moral and your own reflection on the importance of your experience. Besides, you can put an open-ended question, in conclusion, to provoke readers' interest and making them look for the answer themselves.

Step 2: Essay writing:

As it was already mentioned above, the good personal essay should explore some conflict in your life. It is not only about telling something but about some important emotional background and something deeper than just falling in love, or arguing with someone. The conflict may be caused by different situations. For example, you may have experienced problems with not accepting you as a gay by your family members, etc.

If the story you tell is close to the reader, you will be able to reach the desired result. In case you find it difficult to understand how the writing process should be done, you can always look for personal essay examples online. They can help you in coping with your assignment.

Step 3: Completing your paper:

The most common, though, the most effective recommendations for completing your paper include:

• - Proofreading your essay;
• - Reading the content of the paper loud;
• - Ask a friend or some third party-person read your essay and share their thoughts about it.

These simple steps will help you avoid minor grammar, spelling or punctuation mistakes, as well as improve some weak or irrelevant parts. In such way, you will be able to come up with a high-quality personal paper.

Simple tips described above will help you improve your writing and reach the desired result while writing the personal essay. Follow them and you will definitely succeed!