1. Choose one topic from the list of personal essay topics
2. Write an essay of approximately 1000 to 1200 words (about four double-spaced typed pages) on your chosen topic.
3. Begin your research. You might start with a general Google search and then a Google Scholar search.
4. Find two to four reputable secondary sources and review them carefully.
5. Based on the research you found as well as your own brainstorming, develop a straightforward thesis that is sufficiently limited in scope (meaning something you can do justice to in a short essay).
6. Create an outline.
7. Begin the first draft of your essay.
8. Make use of at least two (and no more than four) secondary sources within your essay by adding quotations and paraphrases. Then, every time you paraphrase or quote, follow these four steps:
- Introduce each source
- Present the research
- Credit the source parenthetically
- Discuss
In other words, include quotation (and paraphrase) sandwiches in your essay. Don't just drop in quotations or paraphrases from sources into your essay. (Some experts call these hit and run quotations).
9. Create a Works Cited or References page, and make sure to take this seriously. Do not guess, and do not use a software program. Doing this correctly is not difficult, but it does require you to pay very close attention to detail.
A. Personal Essay Topics
No matter which topic you choose, be certain that you consider your audience before you begin writing. There is little worse for readers than slogging through a personal essay that has no apparent purpose or relevance. Readers should be motivated in some capacity by your personal essay. In other words, we all have stories, but if we share them, we have to have a reason (as far as readers are concerned) for doing so. We tell personal stories so others can be encouraged, motivated, comforted, informed, and the like. So, ask yourself the all-important "so what" and "who cares" questions, and answer honestly. Ask yourself what, beyond sharing your own story, you want readers to know or feel or learn when they read your essay.
1. Write a personal narrative essay. Be sure to focus on a single, well defined incident with an explicit beginning, middle, and end from which you learned something about yourself, another person, or life itself. "My life with my alcoholic father," for example, is too big a subject for a short narrative essay, but "The time my father hit rock bottom" is very likely to be sufficiently limited. Good subjects for personal narrative essays include the following: a move, a birth (if it's exceptional in some way) or a death, a birthday or an anniversary, the loss of a prized possession, a moment of triumph or defeat. Your thesis should make a point about what this experience taught you. You may state this thesis explicitly or you may prefer to imply it.
2. Write a personal descriptive essay about a person, place, or thing. Be sure to establish a clear dominant impression that conveys the point you want to make about your subject. All the details in your description should fit with this dominant impression. Try to include a broad range of sensory impressions: not just how your subject looks but also how it sounds, feels, smells, moves.
It's often easier to establish this dominant impression through contrast: the changes in a place or a person or the difference between what you thought something would be and what it actually was. (Locate the essay "Two Ways of Viewing the River" by Mark Twain for a good example.) It's also often easier to write an effective description of a person by describing a room or a location that you associate with him or her. (See if you can locate the short story "The Boat" by Alistair MacLeod for a good example.)