Helpful Tips on How to Write an Essay About Yourself

Writing an essay about yourself after always writing about books and historical events can be difficult for a lot of students. What is the structure of an essay about yourself? Can you use first person? What should you even write about?

What Are You Writing About?

Sure, you're writing about yourself, but what specifically? Your family, an important day in your life, a dream, etc? Like other essays, you need to have a theme in mind. Your essay will leave the reader not caring about what you had to say if you didn't say anything.

Keys to Writing a Strong Essay About Yourself

  • Think about who you're writing for. For a teacher, a college professor, yourself? No matter who it's really for, try to also write this for yourself but you should still consider who assigned you the essay and if they had any specific requirements.
  • Details, detail, details! You can't skimp on the details with any other essay, and you can't with one about yourself either. Details sell the story to the reader, it makes it more realistic and easier to connect to; details help make things in your essay stick out and make it memorable.
  • Be honest. When you write an essay about your life, don't be shy. Write with honesty and write from your heart. If someone is reading an essay you filled with lies about yourself, they'll be able to tell and the paper won't feel genuine.
  • Think about what you really want to say. Is there something you want the reader to see about your life and have them gain an understanding of who you are?
  • Reread your essay a few days after writing it so you can approach it with fresh eyes. Is the essay saying what you wanted it to say about you? Does it flow well? Ask yourself honest questions and go back in to proofread my paper online.
  • Get feedback from others. Ask a friend, relative, teacher, or someone in your high school or college writing studio to read through it. Ask them what they thought about it and what themes they see. What did the essay tell them about you? This is important because when writing a paper like this, especially for entrance into college, you are telling them about yourself and you don't want it to be negative or unclear.
  • Structure is still important. Have an intro, thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
  • And lastly, yes this is a story about you and you have more creative freedom with this, but you should still keep grammar and punctuation in mind. Also, if you write in a certain tense- such as past, future, or present tense- keep it consistent. Don't use multiple tenses and jumble them all around. This will make it confusing. Only do this if writing about the past then how it affected you and who you are now. Then you can write all in past tense up until you write about the present.

These tips will result in a strong essay about yourself if you follow them.