How to Write an Essay About Yourself with Ease

• Posted on • Updated
How to Write an Essay About Yourself with Ease
Table of Contents
  1. How to Write an Essay About Yourself with Ease
  2. Let's Define the Subject
  3. 2 Different Purposes of the Paper
  4. When Reflective
  5. When Application
  6. How to Start an Essay about Yourself?
  7. 9 Good Hooks for Intro
  8. Good Conclusion for the Paper
  9. How to Write about Yourself
  10. Tips on Personal Writing
  11. Things to Avoid
  12. 15 Outstanding Topic Ideas for Personal Essay
  13. A Stunning Essay about Yourself: Examples
  14. Need Help?

Most likely, you're reading these lines because of a strong will to know how to write an essay about yourself. The article explores the best ways to write a winning essay for school level and college/university level, also known as a personal statement.

At school, this activity shows the level of student's writing. In college, it predetermines a student's destiny: it depends on the quality of an essay about yourself. Our talented essay writers can help you with making your paper immaculate!

Let's Define the Subject

An essay about yourself is a common type of writing assignment among college students. Usually, it tells the audience who you are, describes some real-life situations composing a picture of oneself in a certain period.

Quite often, when writing an admission, college  or scholarship or career goals essay, a student needs to write about stories, experiences, or situations that changed their perception of life. One can unite these tasks in a group of papers named essays about yourself.

If you want to create a piece for scholarship, you might be interested in our guide on how to write a scholarship essay.

2 Different Purposes of the Paper

In the academic world, a 3 to 5 paragraph essay about yourself may refer to one of the options: reflective paper and application paper. The difference is not this vast, but it is worth mentioning.

When Reflective

A personal essay becomes a reflective one when teachers ask a high school student to write about their impressions on a specific book, movie, summer vacation, experience, etc., through the prism of an author's perception of these events. A reflective paper can sometimes be compared to writing a descriptive essay.

It is not the same as the reflective essay since this paper is entirely about its author.

When Application

An application paper implies way more responsibility. It could become a ticket to the target college or university. Also, it can be required as a paper while applying for a scholarship or as a cover letter.

In this case, the main idea is to prove a particular candidate is the best one to join the institution through stressing the skills, knowledge, experience, and potential contribution to the chosen field of study. Feel free to look through our college application essay examples to find more ideas for your writing.

No matter whether students want to apply to a community college, graduate school, or extracurricular programs, they should know how to start an essay about yourself. 
 

How to Start an Essay about Yourself?

While writing an essay of any type, remember that the introduction is the face of the text. The opening part should be powerful to make the audience read the text from A to Z. It is impossible to catch the reader's eye without learning how to start an essay. Mind several elements of the successful, killer introduction. Here's how to start an essay introduction:

  • An engaging opening sentence ‒ a hook. It should be captivating and stimulate the reader's appetite for reading.
  • An impressive episode from the candidate's life to illustrate the insight. But don't get far into the details.
  • Provide reliable sensory information to make your reader intrigued and more engaged.

The significant piece relates a personal story from the introduction to the body where the writer interprets what the experience has contributed to their life and how it influenced personality.

In most cases, the practice recommends completing the introduction at the end of writing. To come up with the brilliant opening paragraph, an author also should:

  • Decide on the story to tell in the entire paper
  • Decide on the main point to share (message to deliver)
  • Think about the traits that make this story unique.

Try working in reverse order. Think about the topic first, but add an introduction and catchy title once you are ready with the body and conclusion. It would be great if the topic somehow relates to the chosen field of study.

9 Good Hooks for Intro

We have recalled the importance of the opening line. Let's now check through some good hooks for essays:

  • An author may start with the thesis statement instead of placing it at the end of the opening paragraph;
  • If the story relates to the work of a favorite writer like Mark Twain, try to select a particular quote from one of his stories and use it to illustrate the paper;
  • A writer may quote distinguished people who shared some witty ideas (it could be a political figure, sportsman, or even a pop star);
  • Give background information in a literary way as famous world writers do;
  • If your story is not kind of dramatic, include an anecdote or joke to set the fine-tune;
  • Numbers & statistics work well if a writer plans to join a business or scientific program;
  • Unveiling a common misconception people may have is another way to attract attention;
  • A rhetorical question is a winning hook in most situations;
  • Try using literary devices such as metaphors and allegories to start an essay about oneself.

Good Conclusion for the Paper

Whether you're writing an essay about yourself for a school task or to apply for a scholarship, your conclusion should impress any reader to make them think of your thoughts even after reading. Start with summarizing the main ideas. Remind the target reader about the main events. It means a writer should list the main 2-4 points (arguments) of the body section.

Then, reflect on a thesis statement. Provide the readers with your thoughts on the paper's main ideas and end up with one more powerful hook to make the reader remember your words and think about the described events.

How to Write about Yourself

People often get confused when asked to talk about themselves. That should not be the case for personal essay writing, also referred to as an essay about yourself. There are several steps you should follow to create an impeccable paper.

  • Get to know yourself. Write down all the critical moments of your life.
  • Consider the audience you will present your essay to.
  • Choose the period or event you would like to focus on.
  • Formulate the main idea of your essay in the thesis statement.
  • Avoid fake stories, be yourself.
  • Be humble and avoid bragging.
  • Write down a short outline with one main idea per paragraph.
  • Draft your essay.
  • Proofread your essay for any type of mistakes.
Make sure you stay within a proper word limit. We've got a blog post on how long should a college essay be. There, we also included standard lengths for other types of essays about yourself.

Tips on Personal Writing

Writing an essay about yourself would be much easier if you stick to the following guidelines and use these tips.

First, write in simple language. Do not try to apply all the vocabulary words ‒ avoid tautology. It's obvious, but there's no need to insert words or idioms the meaning of which you do not understand.

Make sure the story fits the prompt. If the teacher or specific educational institution offers a prompt, recall a personal story with something to do with the proposed essay topics. Avoid the narratives without any lesson learned.

Check if the story has a qualitative plot. To do that, create a checklist made of:

  • The story's start & end.
  • People who take part in the plot development.
  • Subjects and objects that had an impact on the story's conclusion.
  • Particular details a writer remembers about the described episode.
  • Revise the paper. Reread the final text several times to detect and fix grammar, spelling, & punctuation mistakes and replace plagiarized text if found.

Things to Avoid

Some things help make your essay better and the ones that only harm your text. Check the list of mistakes that might worsen your paper:

  • Do not miss essential essay components: intro, main body, and conclusion.
  • Fake stories will only spell backward.
  • Do not retell your whole autobiography.
  • Cliche stories are a terrible option.
  • Avoid too many unnecessary details that are not related to your story.
  • Do not boast too much, and try staying humble.
  • By any means, avoid using curse words. No comments.
  • High-flown vocabulary you have never used before is a bad idea. The essay should be easy to read.
  • Describe how you felt about those situations rather than just describing events: how they changed your personality and helped you improve and become the person you are today.

15 Outstanding Topic Ideas for Personal Essay

  1. Personal fears & their roots
  2. My best friend
  3. Describing favorite meals
  4. Discussing the home pet
  5. Explaining the reasons to love Christmas
  6. The best color of the personal root
  7. The craziest life in a life
  8. Project a treehouse of your dream
  9. Most preferred outfit and what it stresses
  10. The most curious thing about the writer
  11. Interpreting your name
  12. Discussing favorite book or movie
  13. Describing the dream place to attend on holidays
  14. Explaining the career of your dream
  15. A something you would like to invent

A Stunning Essay about Yourself: Examples

The last thing in this guide to make it complete is an essay about yourself example.

Essay about yourself sample
We alao have samples of National Honor Society essay and University of Michigan supplemental essays among other insightful and free examples we have to offer.

Need Help?

After reading plenty of tips and several examples on how to write an essay about yourself, an author may better understand how to prepare a solid essay about yourself. What if you have any doubts? Send us your draft for editing, or order an admission paper from scratch!