How to Write an Essay about Yourself
Knowing how to write an essay about yourself is very important because it enables you to express yourself in creative and moving ways- owl.english.purdue.edu. An essay about yourself is an essay that gives readers a glimpse about you. It tells readers about your observations, personal experiences and views.
Writing a personal essay or essay about you can be challenging because looking at yourself from the outside perspective can be difficult. However, a personal essay should go past writing about you. Using various techniques, you should come up with a thought provoking and creative essay- ehow.com.
A guide on how to write an essay about yourself
Introduce yourself
There are many things that you can say when writing an essay about yourself. For instance, you can tell readers about your experiences, skills and talents in several paragraphs or just one paragraph. However, you should write your personal essay as if it will be read by strangers. Therefore, tell your readers who you are, your interests, talents, achievements and challenges that you have had to overcome in life.
After reading your introduction, readers should know your interests and talents. If you have many things to include in the essay, start by telling your readers the most interesting and vital things about you. If you had a prompt or question that led you into writing the essay, include things that enable you to answer the question.
Narrow down the topic
Pick a specific topic and use it to give readers more details about yourself. Do not use general topics in introducing yourself to readers. Choose only what seems unique and interesting to give readers the best description of your personality.
Provide good details
After narrowing down your topic, provide specific and good details. Give readers something unique that will make them remember you after reading the essay.
Example
Instead of saying “I am a fun of sports,” you should say, “While growing up, I spent time watching the Big Ten Football alongside my dad every Saturday. Afterwards, we would go to toss football around. Since then, I have always loved football.”
Develop an excellent story
In most cases, you will be required to write a personal essay while applying for college admission. An essay about you can also be a school assignment. A personal essay is different from a personal letter because a cover letter introduces you for an admission or employment while a personal essay explores a theme. While writing an essay about yourself, you should tell readers your story and cite real-life and specific details in highlighting an idea or theme in the essay. Common prompts or themes for personal essays include great successes, overcoming obstacles, times when you learnt something and particular failures.
Maintain a focus
Someone can tell whether you know how to write an essay about yourself depending on whether you maintain a focus in your essay or not. While writing a personal essay, you do not jump around between events or themes. You maintain a focus on a specific theme or event that makes a vital point. However, you can connect ideas depending on the prompt for personal essay writing assignment.
Choose complex topics
An essay about yourself should include your successes, triumphs, weaknesses and parts where you need improvement. Tell readers about your bad side such as when you did not attend class and the punishment that you received for that.
Have a limit
You can write about an event that you participated in for up to five pages. To make your essay precise and interesting, limit your writing so that you can include all important ideas or themes in your essay. For instance, when telling readers about a breakup, be direct and straight to the point.
Include vivid details
Your writing should arouse specific senses of the readers by using specific images and vivid details. Have a memory list for the things that you can recall. Use the introductory paragraph to set a tone for the essay. For instance, instead of providing a dull biography, express the importance of your story and themes that you will explore in the essay- wikihow.com.
Develop the style and voice for your essay
Word choice or diction is very important because this is what will give your essay its style and voice. Other aspects that you should consider include the tone and structure of your sentences. Make sure that the style and voice that you choose for your essay shows your background and personality. Remember that you are allowed to use first-person when writing an essay about yourself.
Treat your essay like a story
When writing an essay about yourself, you technically give a non-fiction account of your life. However, you should not turn your personal essay into a term paper or research paper. Nevertheless, although you are encouraged to tell the story from your viewpoint, you should employ literary techniques- ehow.com.
Match your writing style and purpose
A personal essay for university application requires an academic style. Such a personal essay is different from a personal essay for a blog. Therefore, know the purpose of your essay so that you can write it in a way that matches that particular purpose.
Be specific when describing your skills and talents
Skills and talents are what make you different from others. Therefore, be as specific as you can when describing them. For instance, instead of saying that “I am a passionate leader,” give an example of a specific time when you depicted amazing leadership abilities. Be focused on specific skills and talents depending on the purpose of your personal essay.
Describe your ambitions and goals
Tell the readers where you wish to be in the future and what you are doing about it. Whether you are writing an essay about yourself for an employer or admission board, tell them about your ambitions. Tell readers what you are striving to achieve and how the position that you are applying for will enable you to achieve it.
Write a proper ending for your personal essay
To some people, ending a personal essay is the most challenging bit. This is because when writing the story of another person, you can end it with their death. When telling a story about a problem like dyslexia, you can end it with scoring an A at school. For a personal essay, you can end it by mirroring your beginning. For instance, if you started the story with how you were bullied at school, you can end it by describing how you assisted another person that was facing the same problem of being bullied.
Additional tips on how to write an essay about yourself
- Combine the universal and personal
You are telling a story about yourself and your emotions. However, you should reveal and express the larger theme or meaning or deeper truth that goes past the details on the surface of your character- huffingtonpost.com.
- Read and use samples of personal essays as your writing guides
By reading personal essays of other writers, you will know what is common in other writers. Most writers are always reading. They are attentive to the style and craft of their favorite writers. They always internalize how other writers use words and how they beautify their works. By reading sample personal essays, you will know how to write an essay about yourself by choosing the best themes and perfecting your diction. You can find samples of personal essay online. Find a sample of a personal essay here.
- Revise and edit your essay
You can write a great essay about yourself but ruin it with simple mistakes. To make your personal essay great, you must revise and edit it. You can easily focus on sentence structure and spelling errors instead of making big changes in your essay. Revision entails looking at your essay again. You must ensure that the purpose and theme of your essay are clear. Rethink the conclusion of your essay and if necessary, alter its overall organization.
- Be creative
You are writing an essay about yourself but that does not imply that you should not be creative while writing it. The way you employ creativity while writing your essay can tell readers if you really know how to write an essay about yourself.
- Be organized
Ensure that your personal essay depicts a clear organization. Readers should be able to follow your ideas and tone from the introduction to the conclusion. Do not leave your readers guessing that your essay is about to end. Guide readers throughout so that they can follow you with ease.
Get help with an essay about yourself
If you have difficulties trying to write an essay about yourself, contact us for assistance. You can also visit the home page of our website for more information regarding our writing services. Alternatively, continue reading for more guidelines on how to write an essay about yourself on this blog.
Online Sources:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/04/
http://www.ehow.com/how_5124319_write-essay-yourself.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-About-Yourself
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jessica-smock/8-tips-for-dazzling-an-ed_b_5498918.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in
http://www.wikihow.com/Sample/Personal-Biography.