What Is A Personal Essay?

1|Page FORMS OF CREATIVE NON-FICTION
PERSONAL ESSAY
What Is a Personal Essay?
A personal essay is a piece of writing that serves to describe an important lesson
gathered from a writer’s life experiences. The essay often describes a significant event
from a first-person perspective, and can be done in various writing styles, like a formal
essay or as creative nonfiction. Personal essays usually have a conversational tone that
creates a connection with the reader. This type of essay can be inspiring and uplifting, or
it can serve as a warning to others to avoid the author’s mistakes.
o A personal essay is a short work of autobiographical nonfiction characterized by a
sense of intimacy and a conversational manner. Also called a personal statement.
o A type of creative nonfiction, the personal essay is ‘all over the map,’ according to
Annie Dillard. ‘There’s nothing you can’t do with it. No subject matter is forbidden,
no structure is prescribed. You get to make up your own form every time.’ —
Richard Norquist for ThoughtCo.
o Personal essays relate the author’s intimate thoughts and experiences to universal
truths. They aren’t simply a retelling of events, though—that falls more in the realm
of memoir or autobiography. They conclude with the author having learned,
changed, or grown in some way and often present some truth or insight that
challenges the reader to draw their own conclusions.
How to Structure a Personal Essay?
A good personal essay should contain an introductory paragraph, body
paragraphs, and a conclusion. The standard length is about five paragraphs, but personal
essays can be longer or shorter, as long as they contain all three basic sections:
o Introduction: The first sentences of your essay should include a hook that
captures the reader’s attention. Provide a personal statement that you plan on
proving in the body of your essay. Avoid common clichés like opening with a
famous quote (especially if this is a college essay), and try to form a unique
connection with your audience.
o Body: The body of your essay is the meat of your story that should include your
main points and personal evidence supporting the thesis statement of your
narrative essay. This is where you, as a writer, share how your personal
experiences shaped your point of view, and reflect on the knowledge gleaned.
o Conclusion: Your conclusion should restate your thesis and contain the moral of
your story or a revelation of a deeper truth. Review why this essay matters and
sum up the things you want the reader to take away from this particular piece.
Adapted and Modified

Retrieve July 1, 2020 from https://www.grammarly.com/blog/personal-essay/ and https://www.time4writing.com/articles-about-writing/writing-
resourcespersuasive-essay/
Tips for Writing a Personal Essay

While everyone’s writing process differs, there are a few general guidelines to keep
in mind when drafting your essay:
1. Find a compelling topic.
The best essay topics are often deeply relatable. Although the story itself is unique to the
author’s experience, there’s some universal truth that speaks to us from just below the
surface. Topics like facing a fear, falling in love, overcoming an obstacle, discovering
something new, or making a difficult choice tackle feelings and events that happen in
everyone’s life.
Here’s a tip: Need a little help? Here’s a list of personal essay topics that might spark an
idea.
2. Start with a strong hook.
As with any type of writing, it’s essential to draw the reader in from the very first paragraph,
or even the first sentence. Here are a few examples.
Aside from Peter, who supposedly guards the gates of heaven and is a pivotal figure in
any number of jokes, the only saint who’s ever remotely interested me is Francis of Assisi,
who was friends with the animals. —David Sedaris, “Untamed”
When I was young, my family didn’t go on outings to the circus or trips to Disneyland. We
couldn’t afford them. Instead, we stayed in our small rural West Texas town, and my
parents took us to cemeteries. —Jenny Lawson, “Amelia and Me”
I underwent, during the summer that I became fourteen, a prolonged religious crisis. —
James Baldwin, “Letter from a Region in My Mind”
Alone, we are doomed. By the same token, we’ve learned that people are impossible,
even the ones we love most—especially the ones we love most. —Anne Lamott,
“Blessings: After Catastrophe, A Community Unites”
Your hook and opening paragraph should establish the topic of your essay (or at least
allude to it) and set the scene and tone.
3. Create an outline.
All it takes to understand the importance of an outline is listening to someone who
struggled to tell a personal story. Often, the story will seem to have no real point. The
switchbacks where the teller says “But wait, I have to tell you about this part, first!” are
maddening and disruptive. An outline will help you organize your thoughts before
committing them to text.

Consider your opening hook and the statement it makes, then map out the sequence of
events or main points that support it. Just like a good fictional story, your essay should
have rising action. Raise the stakes with each paragraph until you reach a climax or
turning point. Plan to add a conclusion that will evoke an emotional response in your
reader.
4. Start with your intro.
Include your hook, state your thesis, and form an emotional connection with the reader.
Set your audience up for what your piece will be about and give them something to look
forward to.
5. Fill your body paragraphs.
Use sensory details about the sequence of events surrounding your thesis to guide the
reader through your personal essay. Build up your personal story here to eventually lead
the reader to your main point.
6. Show, don’t tell.
Close your eyes. Think of the scene you’re about to write down. What were you
experiencing with your five senses? How did you feel?
Your challenge is to evoke those senses and feelings without flatly stating them. Don’t
say “I felt cold.” Say “I exhaled and my breath turned to vapor that hung in the air. I
shivered and pulled the blanket tight around my shoulders in a vain attempt to trap my
body heat.” Your description should help the reader experience the cold with you.
Stephen King describes it as making the reader “prickle with recognition.”
7. Narrow your focus.
Don’t try to write to a general topic. Your essay may well be about sexism, but you need
to illustrate it through the lens of a defining incident that’s deeply personal to you. What
did your experiences teach you about sexism? What does it mean to you as an individual?
8. Craft a thought-provoking conclusion.
Your essay should end with your own reflection and analysis. What did you learn? How
have the events and thoughts you described changed your life or your understanding of
life? It’s not enough to say “And that’s what happened.” You have to describe how
whatever happened shaped you.
Just as a good lead hooks reader and draws them along for the ride, a good conclusion
releases them from your essay’s thrall with a frisson of pleasure, agreement, passion or
some other sense of completion. Circling back to your lead in your conclusion is one way
to give readers that full-circle sense. Try to restate your thesis in a way that reflects the
journey the essay has taken. —Tom Bentley for Writer’s Digest

There is so much outside the false cloister of private experience; and when you write, you
do the work of connecting that terrible privacy to everything beyond it. —Leslie Jamison
for Publishers Weekly
9. Proofread your work.
Aside from checking spelling and grammar, make sure your intent is clear and your
narrative is easy to follow. No matter how good your writing skills are, it’s always helpful
to reread your own work and ensure you’ve solidified your story.
EXAMPLE ON THE NEXT PAGE …

"PORCELAIN GOD"
Bowing down to the porcelain god, I emptied the contents of my stomach. Foaming
at the mouth, I was ready to pass out. My body couldn’t stop shaking as I gasped for air, and
the room started spinning.
Ten minutes prior, I had been eating dinner with my family at a Chinese restaurant,
drinking chicken-feet soup. My mom had specifically asked the waitress if there were peanuts
in it, because when I was two, we found out that I am deathly allergic to them. When the
waitress replied no, I went for it. Suddenly I started scratching my neck, feeling the hives that
had started to form. I rushed to the restroom to throw up because my throat was itchy and I
felt a weight on my chest. I was experiencing anaphylactic shock, which prevented me from
taking anything but shallow breaths. I was fighting the one thing that is meant to protect me
and keep me alive – my own body.
At five years old, I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. All I knew was that I felt
sick, and I was waiting for my mom to give me something to make it better. I thought my
parents were superheroes; surely, they would be able to make well again. But I became scared
when I heard the fear in their voices as they rushed me to the ER.
After that incident, I began to fear. I became scared of death, eating, and even my own body.
As I grew older, I became paranoid about checking food labels and I avoided eating if I didn’t
know what was in the food. I knew what could happen if I ate one wrong thing, and I wasn’t
willing to risk it for a snack. Ultimately, that fear turned into resentment; I resented my body
for making me an outsider.
In the years that followed, this experience and my regular visits to my allergy specialist
inspired me to become an allergy specialist. Even though I was probably only ten at the time,
I wanted to find a way to help kids like me. I wanted to find a solution so that nobody would
have to feel the way I did; nobody deserved to feel that pain, fear, and resentment. As I
learned more about the medical world, I became more fascinated with the body’s immune
responses, specifically, how a body reacts to allergens. This past summer, I took a month-long
course on human immunology at Stanford University. I learned about the different
mechanisms and cells that our bodies use in order to fight off pathogens. My desire to major
in biology in college has been stimulated by my fascination with the human body, its
processes, and the desire to find a way to help people with allergies. I hope that one day I
can find a way to stop allergic reactions or at least lessen the symptoms, so that children and
adults don’t have to feel the same fear and bitterness that I felt.

PERSUASIVE ESSAY
What Is a Persuasive Essay?
A persuasive essay, also known as an argumentative essay, is a piece of
academic writing where you use logic and reason to show that your point of view is more
legitimate than any other. You must expose clear arguments and support them by
convincing facts and logical reasons.
The Five-Step Writing Process for Persuasive Essays

1. Prewriting for the Persuasive Essay
The prewriting phase of writing a persuasive essay is extremely important. During this
phase, students should plan every aspect of the essay:
o Choose a position. Students should think about the issue and pick the side they
wish to advocate.
o Understand the audience. In order to write an effective persuasive essay, the
writer must understand the reader’s perspective. Is the reader undecided or
inclined to favor one side or the other?
o Do the research. A persuasive essay depends upon solid, convincing evidence.
Don’t rely on a single source. Pull information from multiple websites and reference
materials. Speak with community experts and teachers. Read and take notes.
There is no substitute for knowledge of both sides of the issue.
o Identify the most convincing evidence, as well as the key points for the
opposing view.
Organizing the Persuasive Essay: Outline and Structure
Next, create an outline. Organize the evidence to build the strongest possible argument.
If the teacher has specified an essay structure, incorporate it into the outline. Typically,
the persuasive essay comprises five or six paragraphs:
Persuasive Essay Outline
A. Introductory Paragraph
✓ Grab the reader’s attention by using a “hook.”
✓ Give an overview of the argument.
✓ Close with a thesis statement that reveals the position to be argued.
B. Body Paragraphs
✓ Each body paragraph should focus on one piece of evidence.
✓ Within each paragraph, provide sufficient supporting detail.

C. Opposing View Paragraph

✓ Describe and then refute the key points of the opposing view.
D. Concluding Paragraph
✓ Restate and reinforce the thesis and supporting evidence.
2. Drafting the Persuasive Essay

When writing the initial draft of a persuasive essay, consider the following suggestions:
o The introductory paragraph should have a strong “hook” that grabs the reader’s
attention. Open with an unusual fact or statistic, a question or quotation, or an
emphatic statement. For example: “Driving while talking on a cell phone, even
hands-free, is the equivalent of driving drunk.”
o The thesis statement should leave no doubts about the writer’s position.
o Each body paragraph should cover a separate point, and the sentences of each
paragraph should offer strong evidence in the form of facts, statistics, quotes from
experts, and real-life examples.
o Consider various ways to make the argument, including using an analogy, drawing
comparisons, or illustrating with hypothetical situation (e.g., what if, suppose
that…).
o Don’t assume the audience has in-depth knowledge of the issue. Define terms and
give background information.
o The concluding paragraph should summarize the most important evidence and
encourage the reader to adopt the position or take action. The closing sentence
can be a dramatic plea, a prediction that implies urgent action is needed, a
question that provokes readers to think seriously about the issue, or a
recommendation that gives readers specific ideas on what they can do.
3. Revising the Persuasive Essay
In the revision phase, students review, modify, and reorganize their work with the goal of
making it the best it can be. Keep these considerations in mind:
o Does the essay present a firm position on the issue, supported by relevant facts,
statistics, quotes, and examples?
o Does the essay open with an effective “hook” that intrigues readers and keeps
them reading?
o Does each paragraph offer compelling evidence focused on a single supporting
point?
o Is the opposing point of view presented and convincingly refuted?
o Is the sentence structure varied? Is the word choice precise? Do the transitions
between sentences and paragraphs help the reader’s understanding?
o Does the concluding paragraph convey the value of the writer’s position and urge
the reader to think and act?

If the essay is still missing the mark, take another look the thesis. Does it present the
strongest argument? Test it by writing a thesis statement for the opposing viewpoint. In
comparison, does the original thesis need strengthening? Once the thesis presents a
well-built argument with a clear adversarial viewpoint, the rest of the essay should fall into
place more easily.
4. Editing the Persuasive Essay
Next, proofread and correct errors in grammar and mechanics, and edit to improve style
and clarity. Having a friend read the essay helps writers edit with a fresh perspective.
5. Publishing the Persuasive Essay
Sharing a persuasive essay with the rest of the class or with family and friends can be
both exciting and intimidating. Learn from the experience and use the feedback to make
the next essay even better.
EXAMPLE ON THE NEXT PAGE …

Why Students Should Eat Breakfast Every Day

A lot of people, especially young people, go through the day without having
breakfast. Many people believe that it is not necessary, or they say that they don’t
have time for that, and begin their day with no meal. I believe that everyone should
eat breakfast before going to their activities. The purpose of this paper is to show the
importance of breakfast, especially for students.
The first reason why you should eat breakfast before going to school is for your
health. When you skip breakfast and go to school, you are looking for a disease
because it’s not healthy to have an empty stomach all day long. It’s very important to
have a meal and not let your stomach work empty. All you are going to get is gastritis
and a lot of problems with your health if you don’t eat breakfast.
Another reason for eating breakfast is because you need food for to do well in
your classes. Your body and your brain are not going to function as good as they
could because you have no energy and no strength. When you try to learn something
and have nothing in your stomach, you are going to have a lot of trouble succeeding.
A lot of people think that they should not eat because they are going to feel tired,
but that’s not true. Breakfast is not a very big meal, and on the contrary, you’re going
to feel tired if you don’t have breakfast because you have spent the entire previous
night without food.
The last reason to have breakfast every day is because you can avoid diseases
if you eat some breakfast in the morning. If you don’t eat, you are going to get sick,
and these diseases will have a stronger effect on you because you’re going to get sick
easier than people who have breakfast every day.
You have to realize that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and
you cannot skip it without consequences for your health, your school and your defense
mechanism. It is better to wake up earlier and have a good breakfast that run to
school to without eating anything. It is time for you to do something for your health,
and eating breakfast is the better way to start your day.


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1|Page FORMS OF CREATIVE NON-FICTION

Adapted and Modified

Tips for Writing a Personal Essay

Adapted and Modified

Adapted and Modified

EXAMPLE ON THE NEXT PAGE …

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The Five-Step Writing Process for Persuasive Essays

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C. Opposing View Paragraph

2. Drafting the Persuasive Essay

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EXAMPLE ON THE NEXT PAGE …

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Why Students Should Eat Breakfast Every Day

Adapted and Modified

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