how to not use i in a personal essay

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How To Avoid Using “We,” “You,” And “I” in an Essay

• Posted on October 27, 2022 October 27, 2022

Maintaining a formal voice while writing academic essays and papers is essential to sound objective. 

One of the main rules of academic or formal writing is to avoid first-person pronouns like “we,” “you,” and “I.” These words pull focus away from the topic and shift it to the speaker – the opposite of your goal.

While it may seem difficult at first, some tricks can help you avoid personal language and keep a professional tone.

Let’s learn how to avoid using “we” in an essay.

What Is a Personal Pronoun?

Pronouns are words used to refer to a noun indirectly. Examples include “he,” “his,” “her,” and “hers.” Any time you refer to a noun – whether a person, object, or animal – without using its name, you use a pronoun.

Personal pronouns are a type of pronoun. A personal pronoun is a pronoun you use whenever you directly refer to the subject of the sentence. 

Take the following short paragraph as an example:

“Mr. Smith told the class yesterday to work on our essays. Mr. Smith also said that Mr. Smith lost Mr. Smith’s laptop in the lunchroom.”

The above sentence contains no pronouns at all. There are three places where you would insert a pronoun, but only two where you would put a personal pronoun. See the revised sentence below:

“Mr. Smith told the class yesterday to work on our essays. He also said that he lost his laptop in the lunchroom.”

“He” is a personal pronoun because we are talking directly about Mr. Smith. “His” is not a personal pronoun (it’s a possessive pronoun) because we are not speaking directly about Mr. Smith. Rather, we are talking about Mr. Smith’s laptop.

If later on you talk about Mr. Smith’s laptop, you may say:

“Mr. Smith found it in his car, not the lunchroom!” 

In this case, “it” is a personal pronoun because in this point of view we are making a reference to the laptop directly and not as something owned by Mr. Smith.

Why Avoid Personal Pronouns in Essay Writing

We’re teaching you how to avoid using “I” in writing, but why is this necessary? Academic writing aims to focus on a clear topic, sound objective, and paint the writer as a source of authority. Word choice can significantly impact your success in achieving these goals.

Writing that uses personal pronouns can unintentionally shift the reader’s focus onto the writer, pulling their focus away from the topic at hand.

Personal pronouns may also make your work seem less objective. 

One of the most challenging parts of essay writing is learning which words to avoid and how to avoid them. Fortunately, following a few simple tricks, you can master the English Language and write like a pro in no time.

Alternatives To Using Personal Pronouns

How to not use “I” in a paper? What are the alternatives? There are many ways to avoid the use of personal pronouns in academic writing. By shifting your word choice and sentence structure, you can keep the overall meaning of your sentences while re-shaping your tone.

Utilize Passive Voice

In conventional writing, students are taught to avoid the passive voice as much as possible, but it can be an excellent way to avoid first-person pronouns in academic writing.

You can use the passive voice to avoid using pronouns. Take this sentence, for example:

“ We used 150 ml of HCl for the experiment.”

Instead of using “we” and the active voice, you can use a passive voice without a pronoun. The sentence above becomes:

“150 ml of HCl were used for the experiment.” 

Using the passive voice removes your team from the experiment and makes your work sound more objective.

Take a Third-Person Perspective

Another answer to “how to avoid using ‘we’ in an essay?” is the use of a third-person perspective. Changing the perspective is a good way to take first-person pronouns out of a sentence. A third-person point of view will not use any first-person pronouns because the information is not given from the speaker’s perspective.

A third-person sentence is spoken entirely about the subject where the speaker is outside of the sentence.

Take a look at the sentence below:

“In this article you will learn about formal writing.”

The perspective in that sentence is second person, and it uses the personal pronoun “you.” You can change this sentence to sound more objective by using third-person pronouns:

“In this article the reader will learn about formal writing.”

The use of a third-person point of view makes the second sentence sound more academic and confident. Second-person pronouns, like those used in the first sentence, sound less formal and objective.

Be Specific With Word Choice

You can avoid first-personal pronouns by choosing your words carefully. Often, you may find that you are inserting unnecessary nouns into your work. 

Take the following sentence as an example:

“ My research shows the students did poorly on the test.”

In this case, the first-person pronoun ‘my’ can be entirely cut out from the sentence. It then becomes:

“Research shows the students did poorly on the test.”

The second sentence is more succinct and sounds more authoritative without changing the sentence structure.

You should also make sure to watch out for the improper use of adverbs and nouns. Being careful with your word choice regarding nouns, adverbs, verbs, and adjectives can help mitigate your use of personal pronouns. 

“They bravely started the French revolution in 1789.” 

While this sentence might be fine in a story about the revolution, an essay or academic piece should only focus on the facts. The world ‘bravely’ is a good indicator that you are inserting unnecessary personal pronouns into your work.

We can revise this sentence into:

“The French revolution started in 1789.” 

Avoid adverbs (adjectives that describe verbs), and you will find that you avoid personal pronouns by default.

Closing Thoughts

In academic writing, It is crucial to sound objective and focus on the topic. Using personal pronouns pulls the focus away from the subject and makes writing sound subjective.

Hopefully, this article has helped you learn how to avoid using “we” in an essay.

When working on any formal writing assignment, avoid personal pronouns and informal language as much as possible.

While getting the hang of academic writing, you will likely make some mistakes, so revising is vital. Always double-check for personal pronouns, plagiarism , spelling mistakes, and correctly cited pieces. 

 You can prevent and correct mistakes using a plagiarism checker at any time, completely for free.

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KathySteinemann.com: Free Resources for Writers

Word lists, cheat sheets, and sometimes irreverent reviews of writing rules. kathy steinemann is the author of the writer's lexicon series..

30+ Ways to Avoid Repetition of “I” in First-Person Writing

First-person narrative engages readers, who experience the world from your narrator’s perspective — including intimate thoughts and feelings. However, it’s easy to overplay constructions such as I did this and I thought that and I wanted something else.

Many people claim the I, I, I approach is permissible because I is an invisible word like said .

Don’t believe them.

Prose or poetry with an overabundance of the same words or structures will seem off. Readers might not be able to tell you what’s wrong, but they know they’re unsettled by something .

Consider the Following Two Story Snippets

I answered the irresistible beckoning of the backyard. I watched brightly colored birds there frolicking in the breeze as they fluttered toward the creek. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of the sun . I smelled the fragrance of the clover underneath my feet, a fragrance so sweet I could almost taste it. I heard fledgling robins twittering in a nearby tree.

I thought to myself , This is the life. I knew I never wanted to leave this place.

I decided to phone the real estate agent and tell her to take the FOR SALE sign off my lawn. She acted as though she had expected my call.

I told her in a firm voice that my mind was made up, and yes, I understood she would still receive her full commission.

I realized I didn’t care about the money.

The backyard beckoned with its irresistible sights and sounds. Frolicking in the breeze, brightly colored birds fluttered toward the creek. The sun warmed my closed eyelids, and my nostrils were flooded by the sweet fragrance of clover underneath my feet, a fragrance so sweet it almost sugared the taste buds. In a nearby tree, fledgling robins twittered.

This is the life. Who in their right mind would ever leave this place?

The real estate agent acted as though she had expected my call when asked to take the FOR SALE sign off the lawn.

My voice was firm. “Yes, my mind is made up. … Understood. … You’ll still receive your full commission.”

Hah! Who cares about the money?

Beware Verbosity

Rewrites could result in bloat, and the wrong words could make you seem pretentious or long-winded.

The second snippet reduces, rather than increases, word count.

The first example would be even shorter with the removal of to myself. Who else would you think to? Your editor? Your cat? Or maybe your dictation software?

Did You Notice the Changes?

Almost every sentence in the first example begins with I.

In the rewrite, note the removal of several filtering phrases:

I watched I … felt I smelled I could … taste I heard I thought I knew I decided I told I understood I realized

Whenever you filter thoughts and senses through your narrator’s eyes, you distance readers from your story — like a selfie of a selfie. Use the direct approach instead.

Passive voice appeared once to vary sentence structure. “I smelled the fragrance of the clover underneath my feet ” became “my nostrils were flooded by the sweet fragrance of clover underneath my feet.”

A so-called rule of writing is not to use passive voice. However, you’ll find times such as this when it’s warranted.

The phrase could also have been written as “my nostrils flooded with the sweet fragrance of clover underneath my feet.”

Reread the examples. Compare again. You’ll notice subtle changes that make the text flow smoother.

A Partial List of Filter Words

Watch for these or their equivalents. They all have the potential to weaken your writing:

A to W assume, be able to, believe, can, decide, experience, feel (or feel like) , hear, know, look, note, notice, realize, remember, see, seem, sound (or sound like), taste, think, touch, watch, wonder

Change the Focus

Just because you’re writing in first person doesn’t mean you, the storyteller, should be the most important character in the piece.

If you concentrate on the activities of other characters, readers will feel as though they are you. They still know you’re the narrator, but you become invisible.

Try These I Alternatives

I agree: We are in agreement

I am convinced that: In my opinion

I am sure that: Correct me if my opinion is wrong

I believe: The experts say (or, in Dothraki , “It is known”)

I decided: It was my intention

I disagree: You are wrong

I dislike that: That’s not for me

I don’t know: That’s an excellent question

I feel: In light of the evidence

I have experience in: My experience includes

I interpret the results: The results indicate

I like: It’s one of my favorites

I was nearly hit by a car: A car nearly hit me

I’ll show you: The report will show you

I’m hungry: My stomach is growling

Beware the Me-My Snare

In an attempt to remove instances of I, you might introduce excessive repetition of me and my .

For instance, “I felt an irresistible urge to buy the shoes” could become “An irresistible urge to buy the shoes came over me .”

“I saw three chickadees sitting on the fence” could end up as “Three chickadees sitting on the fence came into my view.”

As shown by the strikeout, you can often omit my .

Rely on Your Ears

They’re excellent critics.

Read your text out loud or harness your computer’s text-to-speech capabilities and listen to your writing . Repetitions that hide from notice during a silent read often become obvious and irritating when processed by the ears .

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28 thoughts on “ 30+ Ways to Avoid Repetition of “I” in First-Person Writing ”

how can we replace i in this sentence i had a dream to spend a beautiful day at an island

Sleep, peaceful sleep, filled the night, interrupted only by the dream of an idyllic day on a tiny island.

Hello Kathy,

Me again. Since reading your article, I have made a greater conscious effort in avoiding the use of “I” in my first-person stories. However, in doing so, I’m noticing I am starting to use “-ing” words to begin sentences more often, and I understand that’s something to use sparingly in fiction writing.

I may be over-analysing my works (that’s a bad habit of mine), but if using “I” in a sentence, whether it’s beginning a sentence or in the middle of it, creates a clearer structured sentence when compared to using a “-ing” word, would you say it’s okay to use “I”, or to try and figure out another way of structuring the sentence to avoid either?

On a side note, sometimes when I do avoid both, the sentence gets written in passive voice, as that seems to be the only way to structure it, while keeping it clear and precise. For example, a sentence within a story of mine read: “Rather than wasting time on breakfast, I can use it for more important things, such as training.” After re-editing it, it became: “Rather than wasting time on breakfast, it can be used for more important things, such as training.”

I’m really just trying to determine out of “I”, “-ing”, or passive voice, which is the best to use. Apologies if this is unclear. Sometimes that’s my thought process for you. There’s logic in there, but you’ve gotta dig past all the dribble to find it.

Kind regards, Footrot Flats

Phrases such as the following can help eliminate some instances of “I”:

– experience has shown – statistics indicate – events suggest – circumstances often require

Regarding your sentence: “Rather than wasting time on breakfast, it can be used for more important things, such as training.”

Try something like: “[Whatever ‘it’ is] can focus on activities, such as training, which are more important than breakfast.”

Remember: The goal is not to eliminate words but to eliminate their overuse.

Thank you for the response, Kathy!

I’ll keep those phrases in mind and see if they can be used anywhere that fits. Thank you for the suggestion as well.

I understand it’s okay to use “I”, just not too often, which is what I’m trying to do, but also figuring out how often “I” is fine to use. Finding that ‘Goldilocks Zone’ is my next challenge. If it’s used once every few paragraphs, it doesn’t stick out at me, but if I see two (or more) I’s in the same field of view, that’s when I tend to change it.

I may or may not pop up again sometime in the future. If I don’t, your article and advise has helped me immensely, so thank you for the time and effort you have put in. It’s much appreciated.

All the best, and stay safe too! Footrot Flats

When writing stories, I’ve always tried avoiding the usage of I’s (same goes for adverbs). 95% of the time, there’s an alternative way of describing a scene, whether it’s action, thoughts or dialogue, but something, every now and then, there just doesn’t seem to be a way to avoid using I (or an adverb).

Like adverbs, would you say it’s okay to use ‘I’ sparingly?

In some cases, the word ‘I’ gets replaced with an adverb, and then I enter a never-ending cycle.

Your approach is astute, FF.

Words exist for a reason, including adverbs and I . The goal is not to eliminate them but to reduce their frequency and make them “invisible” to readers. That turns them into useful tools.

Good luck with your writing, and please stay safe! (Exclamation points, em dashes, and parentheses are more useful tools — when used sparingly. 🙂 )

Thank you for the reply Kathy.

I agree that making them “invisible” rather than eliminating them completely is the better approach. Everything would provide a greater impact when used sparingly.

All the best, and stay safe too. Footrot Flats

Hello Kathy, the article above really helped me but i am still just a little confused. . . . would it be alright if you could un-I-ify my story. i haven’t written much and i probably wont be using it, but just to get a rough idea on how i could do it.

I was sitting on the train minding my own business and reading a book, when I casually looked out the window. It was pretty dark and rainy, but I could still see the blurry silhouette of the woods turning into a dim lighted village. As I was about to turn away, I started to sweat and felt a pounding in my head. My heart felt as if I had just run a marathon 3 times and I could hear my blood rushing through my ears. My hands shook and my breathing turned uneven. My vision went all blurry. I had to get away. I did not want to be on a train while having a panic attack. I stood up and hit my knee on the table but I ignored the pain. I grabbed my book and backpack and yelled for assistance. An assistant quickly rushed over and asked if I needed anything. I told her to stop the train. “But ma’am, we don’t have a station here, we can’t stop here-” “Just stop the train. NOW! Please!” I cut her off. “Ma’am, are you feeling ok? You should probably sit down.” She offers. “STOP THE TRAIN! NOW!” I shout. She nodded to me and swiveled around and quickly rushed to the front of the train. My mouth started to feel dry and I could feel tears coming starting to form at the corners of my eyes. By this time I was shaking. I turned to the nearest compartment and grabbed the glass of water on the table. I took one big sip and looked up at the young bloke who was sitting there. My mouth felt a bit better knowing it was hydrated and I could say my words without them sounding raspy. “I am so sorry. I really needed that drink.” I grabbed my backpack and took out £2 and put it down on the table. “I’m really sorry about the drink, I know you paid for that so here’s the money. I know it was 3 pound but this is all I can find right now.” I blurted out. I could feel the train slowing down and felt nauseous. I sat down in the young blokes compartment seat and looked down. I could feel the guy’s eyes staring at the top of my head which made me feel uncomfortable.

sorry if thats too much. thank you 🙂

Thanks for stopping by, Astoria.

I’ve retired from editing, but you can join online critique groups free of charge.

Scribophile and Critique Circle are two popular sites.

Good luck with your writing, and stay safe!

Undertaking a short story/flash fiction assignment for Open University. Word count is up to 800 words. The premise is in hand, and I’ve done a plan.

Really want to do it in First POV, though I know third is easy to fall back on. Your advice is brilliant, I am just so nervous of the structure and grammar. I don’t envision that creative writing is for me, as the strain of English Lit etc scares me.

You can do this, Louise. I hope you’ll be able to use some of the advice in this post.

Good luck, and stay safe!

This is so frustrating, As I edit my work I can’t think of anything to replace my ‘I’ overuse!!!

Think less of how you control the action and more about how the action happens, period. The suggestions in this article will help.

Thanks for stopping by, Max!

Great article. Chuck Palahnuik is an expert at submerging the ‘I’, and I’m constantly perplexed about how to avoid the pitfalls you mentioned when following his advice. This has helped a great deal.

Thanks, Tom. May your muse be ever with you — and stay safe.

I get it, I just don’t know how to repair the problem. Online English class?

There’s no magic one-size-fits-all approach. You have to examine each occurrence to determine a suitable remedy. This requires time and effort; but as you edit, you become more proficient at creating solutions.

Thanks for stopping by!

Can you please give me some examples of books written in first person, without the overuse of ‘I’? My 13 year old daughter is in an Academic Excellence class and has had her eyes opened and mind blown buy how removing the ‘I’s, it makes you live the story. She has Aspergers and dyslexia and has always loved writing, it is her get away. We would be truly grateful for some guidance.

Warmest wishes Michelle Australia

Hi, Michelle. Thanks for stopping by.

The books that stand out in my mind are To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, all The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins, and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. They should keep your daughter busy for a while.

Thank you very much Kathy. I am truly grateful.

May you too keep safe.

Warmest wishes Michelle

Thank you so much. I always put I’s in my stories and it bothered me because ‘I’ use it repeatedly. That’s when ‘I’ started to notice it also want to thank you for the alternatives to making my story look as if a professional wrote it. Well I’m no professional but hopefully one day. 4 years later and came across this website. Thank you btw. (PS I was embarrassed now because I used my I’s a lot in this comment lolz so I had to fix it to make it right ) Anyways I’m forever grateful and have a good year in 2020!

Thanks for stopping by, Nora. Yes, those Is can be slippery little creatures. You’ve made the most important step by recognizing the problem.

You have a great 2020 too, and may the muses favor your writing!

Excellent, as per usual. 🙂

Thanks, Jenn!

Another excellent post, Kathy. This is exactly what I was looking for. As an added bonus, I now know what filter words are. Time for another edit on my latest WIP. (Heck – I’ve just noticed two I’s in the above comment. Oh no, there’s another two!)

Thanks, Tom. I laughed out loud as I was reading your reply. Next week I’ll be posting an open letter to book pirates. Arrgh! Three I ‘s.

Let’s see …

As my eyes scrutinized your reply, a humongous LOL burst from my lips. Next week’s blog post will feature an open letter to book pirates.

Doesn’t have the same snap, does it?

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How to Replace I in Essays: Alternative 3rd Person Pronouns

replacing I in essays

Learning how to write an essay without using ‘I,’ ‘We,’ or ‘You,’ and other personal languages can be challenging for students. The best writing skills recommend not to use such pronouns. This guide explores how to replace ‘I,’ ‘We,’ or ‘You’ in an essay and the methods to avoid them.

For those of us who have been able to overcome this, you will agree that there was a time when you experienced a challenge when finding alternatives to clauses such as “I will argue” or “I think.”

The good thing is that there are several methods of communicating your point and writing an essay without using ‘I’ or related personal language.

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Why Avoid Using Pronouns in Formal Writing

Before identifying the communication methods without using personal language like “I,” it is best to know why we should avoid such language while writing essays.

The most important reason for avoiding such language is because it is not suitable for formal writing such as essays. Appropriate professional English should not include any form of personal pronouns or language.

The second and equally important reason to avoid using personal language while writing an essay is to sound impersonal, functional, and objective.

In formal English, personal pronouns conflict with the idea of being impersonal, functional, and objective because they make redundant references to the writer and other people.

Personal pronouns will make an essay seem to contain only the writer’s perspectives and others they have deliberately selected. Again, they will make the work appear subjective.

Another reason to avoid personal language while coming up with an essay is to avoid sounding as if you have an urgent need to impress the reader through wording.

Personal pronouns like “you” and “I” tend to suggest something important that is away from what the writing is all about.

By continually using “I,” “we,” or “you,” you are taking the reader’s attention from the essay to other personal issues. The essay becomes all about the writer. 

That being said, let’s explore how to replace “I” in an essay.

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Ways of avoiding pronouns “i,” “you,” and “we” in an essay.

You can replace the pronouns ‘I’, ‘You’, and ‘We’ by replacing them with acceptable wording, applying passive voice instead of pronouns, Using a third-person perspective, adopting an objective language, and including strong verbs and adjectives.

In our other guide, we explained the best practices to avoid using ‘you’ in essay writing and use academically sound words. Let us explore each of these strategies in detail.

1. Replacing it with an Acceptable Wording

This is a very good strategy for replacing “I” in an essay. The problem is that it is often difficult to find the right word to replace the personal pronoun. Though this is the case, “I” has some alternatives.

For example, if the verb that follows it revolves around writing and research, such as “…will present” or “…have described”, it is best to replace “I” with text-referencing nouns such as “the essay.”

If you wanted to say “I will present” or “I have described”, then the alternative will be “the essay will present,” or “as described in the essay.”

Another method of replacing “I” in an essay is using appropriate wording like “this writer” if the verb’s action is not within the text.

While this is sometimes acceptable, it is often advised to have no words here by using passive verbs or their equivalents.

A wording that may also be used but rarely suitable is “the researcher”. This alternative can only be used when your actions as a writer are completely detached from the writing.

2. Using Passive voice Instead of Pronouns

Another way to replace “I” and other personal pronouns in an essay is to use passive voice. This is achieved by transforming an active verb passive.

Though this is the case, the strategy is often difficult, and it may create sentence structures that are not acceptable in formal writing and language.

The sentences in which “I” can be successfully changed using this strategy is when an active verb describing an object is transformed into its passive form. 

3. Using a Third-Person Perspective

This is a very important and applicable strategy when replacing “I” in an essay. This is where you avoid using first-person and second-person perspectives.

When referring to the subject matter, refer directly to them using the third person. For example, if you were to write, “I think regular exercise is good for mind and body”, you can replace it with “Regular exercise is good for mind and body”.

4. Use of Objective Language

Objective language is lost when a person uses informal expressions like colloquialisms, slang, contractions, and clichés. It is the reason why we discourage the use of contractions in essay writing so that you can keep things formal.

While informal language can be applicable in casual writing and speeches, it is not acceptable when writing essays. This is because you will be tempted to use a first-person perspective to convey your message.

5. Being Specific and using Strong Verbs and Adjectives

In most cases, essays that have been written using a lot of personal pronouns tend to be imprecise. When you want to avoid using “I” in your essay, try to be exact and straight to the point.

Personal pronouns tend to convey a subjective message, and it is up to the writer to explain their perspectives through writing.

Here, a writer will use a lot of “I think…” or “I believe…” to express their opinion. By doing so, the writer will end up wasting a lot of time explaining a concept.

Instead of doing that, it is best to look for appropriate verbs and adjectives to explain the points. Also, use objective language. Refer to the suggestions given by credible evidence instead of basing your arguments on what you think.

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Words to use Instead of Personal Pronouns like “You” and “I”

As noted, it is important to avoid using personal pronouns such as “You” and “I” when writing an essay.

By eliminating them or finding alternatives to them, your essay will be formal and objective. You can decide to eliminate them in a sentence.

For example, you could be having a sentence like “I think the author makes a valid point concerning capitalism.”

In this example, you can eliminate the personal language and write, “The author makes a valid point concerning capitalism.”

The second sentence goes straight to the point and is objective.

Other words to use instead of personal pronouns, like “You” and “I,” can be created when personal judgment words are avoided.

Instead, it is best to replace those words with those that refer to the evidence.

Examples of Ways to Replace Personal Pronouns

Below are examples of how personal judgment words can be replaced by words referring to the evidence.

• I feel – In light of the evidence
• From I think – According to the findings
• I agree – It is evident from the data that
• I am convinced – Considering the results
• You can see that – From the results, it is evident that

Using the third-person or “it” constructions can be used to replace personal pronouns like “You” and “I.” Such words also help to reduce the word count of your essay and make it short and precise.

For example, if you write “I conclude that, “replace those words with “it could be concluded that. ” Here, “it” constructions are helping replace personal pronouns to make the sentence more objective and precise.

To be more specific, words to replace personal pronouns like “I” include “one,” the viewer,” “the author,” “the reader,” “readers,” or something similar.

However, avoid overusing those words because your essay will seem stiff and awkward. For example, if you write, “I can perceive the plot’s confusion,” you can replace “I” by writing, “Readers can perceive the plot’s confusion.”

Words that can be used instead of personal pronouns like “You” include “one,” “the viewer,” reader,” “readers,” or any other similar phrases. It is similar to words that replace first-person pronouns.

For example, if you write “you can see that the poet’s tone is serious and urgent,” you can replace “You” by writing “readers/one can see that the poet’s tone is serious and urgent.”

Words to use Instead of “My” in an Essay

Since “My” demonstrates the possessiveness of something, in this case, the contents or thoughts within an essay, it makes the writing subjective. According to experts, writing should take an objective language . To do this, it is important to replace it.

You can replace the word “My” with “the”. For example, if you write, “My final thoughts concerning the issue are”, you can write, “The final thoughts concerning the issues are”.

In this case, the article “The” makes the sentence formal and objective.

Another method is eliminating the word “My” from the sentence to make it more objective and straight to the point.

In the same example above, if you write “My final thoughts concerning the issue are”, you can write “Final thoughts concerning the issue are”.

The major difference here is that the word “my” in the first example makes it subjective, and eliminating it from the sentence makes it sound formal and objective.

Final Advice

Therefore, when writing an essay, it is important to avoid personal pronouns like “You”, “I,” and “My.” Not all papers use third-person language. Different types of essays are formatted differently, a 5-paragraph essay is different from a 4-page paper , but all use third-person tones.

This is because an essay should be written in formal language, and using personal pronouns makes it appear and sound informal. Therefore, writing an essay without using ‘I’ is good.

Formal language makes your essay sound objective and precise. However, do not remove the first-person language when writing personal experiences in an essay or a paper. This is because it is acceptable and formal that way.

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Should I Use “I”?

What this handout is about.

This handout is about determining when to use first person pronouns (“I”, “we,” “me,” “us,” “my,” and “our”) and personal experience in academic writing. “First person” and “personal experience” might sound like two ways of saying the same thing, but first person and personal experience can work in very different ways in your writing. You might choose to use “I” but not make any reference to your individual experiences in a particular paper. Or you might include a brief description of an experience that could help illustrate a point you’re making without ever using the word “I.” So whether or not you should use first person and personal experience are really two separate questions, both of which this handout addresses. It also offers some alternatives if you decide that either “I” or personal experience isn’t appropriate for your project. If you’ve decided that you do want to use one of them, this handout offers some ideas about how to do so effectively, because in many cases using one or the other might strengthen your writing.

Expectations about academic writing

Students often arrive at college with strict lists of writing rules in mind. Often these are rather strict lists of absolutes, including rules both stated and unstated:

• Each essay should have exactly five paragraphs.
• Don’t begin a sentence with “and” or “because.”
• Never include personal opinion.
• Never use “I” in essays.

We get these ideas primarily from teachers and other students. Often these ideas are derived from good advice but have been turned into unnecessarily strict rules in our minds. The problem is that overly strict rules about writing can prevent us, as writers, from being flexible enough to learn to adapt to the writing styles of different fields, ranging from the sciences to the humanities, and different kinds of writing projects, ranging from reviews to research.

So when it suits your purpose as a scholar, you will probably need to break some of the old rules, particularly the rules that prohibit first person pronouns and personal experience. Although there are certainly some instructors who think that these rules should be followed (so it is a good idea to ask directly), many instructors in all kinds of fields are finding reason to depart from these rules. Avoiding “I” can lead to awkwardness and vagueness, whereas using it in your writing can improve style and clarity. Using personal experience, when relevant, can add concreteness and even authority to writing that might otherwise be vague and impersonal. Because college writing situations vary widely in terms of stylistic conventions, tone, audience, and purpose, the trick is deciphering the conventions of your writing context and determining how your purpose and audience affect the way you write. The rest of this handout is devoted to strategies for figuring out when to use “I” and personal experience.

Effective uses of “I”:

In many cases, using the first person pronoun can improve your writing, by offering the following benefits:

• Assertiveness: In some cases you might wish to emphasize agency (who is doing what), as for instance if you need to point out how valuable your particular project is to an academic discipline or to claim your unique perspective or argument.
• Clarity: Because trying to avoid the first person can lead to awkward constructions and vagueness, using the first person can improve your writing style.
• Positioning yourself in the essay: In some projects, you need to explain how your research or ideas build on or depart from the work of others, in which case you’ll need to say “I,” “we,” “my,” or “our”; if you wish to claim some kind of authority on the topic, first person may help you do so.

Deciding whether “I” will help your style

Here is an example of how using the first person can make the writing clearer and more assertive:

Original example:

In studying American popular culture of the 1980s, the question of to what degree materialism was a major characteristic of the cultural milieu was explored.

Better example using first person:

In our study of American popular culture of the 1980s, we explored the degree to which materialism characterized the cultural milieu.

The original example sounds less emphatic and direct than the revised version; using “I” allows the writers to avoid the convoluted construction of the original and clarifies who did what.

Here is an example in which alternatives to the first person would be more appropriate:

As I observed the communication styles of first-year Carolina women, I noticed frequent use of non-verbal cues.

Better example:

A study of the communication styles of first-year Carolina women revealed frequent use of non-verbal cues.

In the original example, using the first person grounds the experience heavily in the writer’s subjective, individual perspective, but the writer’s purpose is to describe a phenomenon that is in fact objective or independent of that perspective. Avoiding the first person here creates the desired impression of an observed phenomenon that could be reproduced and also creates a stronger, clearer statement.

Here’s another example in which an alternative to first person works better:

As I was reading this study of medieval village life, I noticed that social class tended to be clearly defined.

This study of medieval village life reveals that social class tended to be clearly defined.

Although you may run across instructors who find the casual style of the original example refreshing, they are probably rare. The revised version sounds more academic and renders the statement more assertive and direct.

Here’s a final example:

I think that Aristotle’s ethical arguments are logical and readily applicable to contemporary cases, or at least it seems that way to me.

Better example

Aristotle’s ethical arguments are logical and readily applicable to contemporary cases.

In this example, there is no real need to announce that that statement about Aristotle is your thought; this is your paper, so readers will assume that the ideas in it are yours.

Determining whether to use “I” according to the conventions of the academic field

Which fields allow “I”?

The rules for this are changing, so it’s always best to ask your instructor if you’re not sure about using first person. But here are some general guidelines.

Sciences: In the past, scientific writers avoided the use of “I” because scientists often view the first person as interfering with the impression of objectivity and impersonality they are seeking to create. But conventions seem to be changing in some cases—for instance, when a scientific writer is describing a project she is working on or positioning that project within the existing research on the topic. Check with your science instructor to find out whether it’s o.k. to use “I” in their class.

Social Sciences: Some social scientists try to avoid “I” for the same reasons that other scientists do. But first person is becoming more commonly accepted, especially when the writer is describing their project or perspective.

Humanities: Ask your instructor whether you should use “I.” The purpose of writing in the humanities is generally to offer your own analysis of language, ideas, or a work of art. Writers in these fields tend to value assertiveness and to emphasize agency (who’s doing what), so the first person is often—but not always—appropriate. Sometimes writers use the first person in a less effective way, preceding an assertion with “I think,” “I feel,” or “I believe” as if such a phrase could replace a real defense of an argument. While your audience is generally interested in your perspective in the humanities fields, readers do expect you to fully argue, support, and illustrate your assertions. Personal belief or opinion is generally not sufficient in itself; you will need evidence of some kind to convince your reader.

Other writing situations: If you’re writing a speech, use of the first and even the second person (“you”) is generally encouraged because these personal pronouns can create a desirable sense of connection between speaker and listener and can contribute to the sense that the speaker is sincere and involved in the issue. If you’re writing a resume, though, avoid the first person; describe your experience, education, and skills without using a personal pronoun (for example, under “Experience” you might write “Volunteered as a peer counselor”).

A note on the second person “you”:

In situations where your intention is to sound conversational and friendly because it suits your purpose, as it does in this handout intended to offer helpful advice, or in a letter or speech, “you” might help to create just the sense of familiarity you’re after. But in most academic writing situations, “you” sounds overly conversational, as for instance in a claim like “when you read the poem ‘The Wasteland,’ you feel a sense of emptiness.” In this case, the “you” sounds overly conversational. The statement would read better as “The poem ‘The Wasteland’ creates a sense of emptiness.” Academic writers almost always use alternatives to the second person pronoun, such as “one,” “the reader,” or “people.”

Personal experience in academic writing

The question of whether personal experience has a place in academic writing depends on context and purpose. In papers that seek to analyze an objective principle or data as in science papers, or in papers for a field that explicitly tries to minimize the effect of the researcher’s presence such as anthropology, personal experience would probably distract from your purpose. But sometimes you might need to explicitly situate your position as researcher in relation to your subject of study. Or if your purpose is to present your individual response to a work of art, to offer examples of how an idea or theory might apply to life, or to use experience as evidence or a demonstration of an abstract principle, personal experience might have a legitimate role to play in your academic writing. Using personal experience effectively usually means keeping it in the service of your argument, as opposed to letting it become an end in itself or take over the paper.

It’s also usually best to keep your real or hypothetical stories brief, but they can strengthen arguments in need of concrete illustrations or even just a little more vitality.

Here are some examples of effective ways to incorporate personal experience in academic writing:

• Anecdotes: In some cases, brief examples of experiences you’ve had or witnessed may serve as useful illustrations of a point you’re arguing or a theory you’re evaluating. For instance, in philosophical arguments, writers often use a real or hypothetical situation to illustrate abstract ideas and principles.
• References to your own experience can explain your interest in an issue or even help to establish your authority on a topic.
• Some specific writing situations, such as application essays, explicitly call for discussion of personal experience.

Here are some suggestions about including personal experience in writing for specific fields:

Philosophy: In philosophical writing, your purpose is generally to reconstruct or evaluate an existing argument, and/or to generate your own. Sometimes, doing this effectively may involve offering a hypothetical example or an illustration. In these cases, you might find that inventing or recounting a scenario that you’ve experienced or witnessed could help demonstrate your point. Personal experience can play a very useful role in your philosophy papers, as long as you always explain to the reader how the experience is related to your argument. (See our handout on writing in philosophy for more information.)

Religion: Religion courses might seem like a place where personal experience would be welcomed. But most religion courses take a cultural, historical, or textual approach, and these generally require objectivity and impersonality. So although you probably have very strong beliefs or powerful experiences in this area that might motivate your interest in the field, they shouldn’t supplant scholarly analysis. But ask your instructor, as it is possible that they are interested in your personal experiences with religion, especially in less formal assignments such as response papers. (See our handout on writing in religious studies for more information.)

Literature, Music, Fine Arts, and Film: Writing projects in these fields can sometimes benefit from the inclusion of personal experience, as long as it isn’t tangential. For instance, your annoyance over your roommate’s habits might not add much to an analysis of “Citizen Kane.” However, if you’re writing about Ridley Scott’s treatment of relationships between women in the movie “Thelma and Louise,” some reference your own observations about these relationships might be relevant if it adds to your analysis of the film. Personal experience can be especially appropriate in a response paper, or in any kind of assignment that asks about your experience of the work as a reader or viewer. Some film and literature scholars are interested in how a film or literary text is received by different audiences, so a discussion of how a particular viewer or reader experiences or identifies with the piece would probably be appropriate. (See our handouts on writing about fiction , art history , and drama for more information.)

Women’s Studies: Women’s Studies classes tend to be taught from a feminist perspective, a perspective which is generally interested in the ways in which individuals experience gender roles. So personal experience can often serve as evidence for your analytical and argumentative papers in this field. This field is also one in which you might be asked to keep a journal, a kind of writing that requires you to apply theoretical concepts to your experiences.

History: If you’re analyzing a historical period or issue, personal experience is less likely to advance your purpose of objectivity. However, some kinds of historical scholarship do involve the exploration of personal histories. So although you might not be referencing your own experience, you might very well be discussing other people’s experiences as illustrations of their historical contexts. (See our handout on writing in history for more information.)

Sciences: Because the primary purpose is to study data and fixed principles in an objective way, personal experience is less likely to have a place in this kind of writing. Often, as in a lab report, your goal is to describe observations in such a way that a reader could duplicate the experiment, so the less extra information, the better. Of course, if you’re working in the social sciences, case studies—accounts of the personal experiences of other people—are a crucial part of your scholarship. (See our handout on  writing in the sciences for more information.)

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Using “I” in Academic Writing

Traditionally, some fields have frowned on the use of the first-person singular in an academic essay and others have encouraged that use, and both the frowning and the encouraging persist today—and there are good reasons for both positions (see “Should I”).

I recommend that you not look on the question of using “I” in an academic paper as a matter of a rule to follow, as part of a political agenda (see webb), or even as the need to create a strategy to avoid falling into Scylla-or-Charybdis error. Let the first-person singular be, instead, a tool that you take out when you think it’s needed and that you leave in the toolbox when you think it’s not.

Examples of When “I” May Be Needed

• You are narrating how you made a discovery, and the process of your discovering is important or at the very least entertaining.
• You are describing how you teach something and how your students have responded or respond.
• You disagree with another scholar and want to stress that you are not waving the banner of absolute truth.
• You need “I” for rhetorical effect, to be clear, simple, or direct.

Examples of When “I” Should Be Given a Rest

• It’s off-putting to readers, generally, when “I” appears too often. You may not feel one bit modest, but remember the advice of Benjamin Franklin, still excellent, on the wisdom of preserving the semblance of modesty when your purpose is to convince others.
• You are the author of your paper, so if an opinion is expressed in it, it is usually clear that this opinion is yours. You don’t have to add a phrase like, “I believe” or “it seems to me.”

Works Cited

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin . Project Gutenberg , 28 Dec. 2006, www.gutenberg.org/app/uploads/sites/3/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm#I.

“Should I Use “I”?” The Writing Center at UNC—Chapel Hill , writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/should-i-use-i/.

webb, Christine. “The Use of the First Person in Academic Writing: Objectivity, Language, and Gatekeeping.” ResearchGate , July 1992, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.1992.tb01974.x.

J.S.Beniwal 05 August 2017 AT 09:08 AM

I have borrowed MLA only yesterday, did my MAEnglish in May 2017.MLA is of immense help for scholars.An overview of the book really enlightened​ me.I should have read it at bachelor's degree level.

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Dr. Raymond Harter 25 September 2017 AT 02:09 PM

I discourage the use of "I" in essays for undergraduates to reinforce a conversational tone and to "self-recognize" the writer as an authority or at least a thorough researcher. Writing a play is different than an essay with a purpose.

Osayimwense Osa 22 March 2023 AT 05:03 PM

When a student or writer is strongly and passionately interested in his or her stance and argument to persuade his or her audience, the use of personal pronoun srenghtens his or her passion for the subject. This passion should be clear in his/her expression. However, I encourage the use of the first-person, I, sparingly -- only when and where absolutely necessary.

Eleanor 25 March 2023 AT 04:03 PM

I once had a student use the word "eye" when writing about how to use pronouns. Her peers did not catch it. I made comments, but I think she never understood what eye was saying!

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How to Write a Personal Essay for Your College Application

What does it take to land in the “accept” (instead of “reject”) pile?

How can you write an essay that helps advance you in the eyes of the admissions officers and makes a real impression? Here are some tips to get you started.

• Start early.  Do not leave it until the last minute. Give yourself time when you don’t have other homework or extracurriculars hanging over your head to work on the essay.
• Keep the focus narrow.  Your essay does not have to cover a massive, earth-shattering event. Some people in their teens haven’t experienced a major life event. Some people have. Either way, it’s okay.
• Be yourself.  Whether writing about a painful experience or a more simple experience, use the narrative to be vulnerable and honest about who you are. Use words you would normally use. Trust your voice and the fact that your story is interesting enough in that no one else has lived it.
• Be creative.  “Show, don’t tell,” and that applies here — to an extent. The best essays typically do both. You can help your reader see and feel what you are describing by using some figurative language throughout your piece.
• Make a point. As you finish your final body paragraphs ask yourself “So what?” This will help you hone in on how to end your essay in a way that elevates it into a story about an insight or discovery you made about yourself, rather than just being about an experience you had.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

We’ve all heard about the dreaded “college essay,” the bane of every high school senior’s existence. This daunting element of the college application is something that can create angst for even the most accomplished students.

• AA Amy Allen is a writer, educator, and lifelong learner. Her freelance writing business,  All of the Write Words , focuses on providing high school students with one-on-one feedback to guide them through the college application process and with crafting a thoughtful personal essay. A dedicated poet, Amy’s work has also been published in several journals including  Pine Row Press ,  Months to Years,  and  Atlanta Review .

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Using You in Academic Writing

Using You in Academic Writing Podcast

Using you in academic writing transcript.

This is Kurtis Clements with another effective writing podcast. In this episode, I am going to talk about using the second person, you and your, in academic writing.

Many folks are confused when it comes to using the second person pronouns “you” and “your” in their academic writing, in large part because such pronouns are used often in other kinds of writing, so it seems natural to use such words in academic writing.

What is “academic writing”? Academic writing is writing that is generally formal; by and large, it’s the kind of writing produced in school when you are writing a report or an essay. Academic writing usually does not contain contractions or slang, nor does academic writing use emoticons or exclamation points. Academic writing sticks to a fairly objective point of view and avoids personal pronouns such as “I, we, us, our, you,” and “your,” for example. Now this is not to say that academic writing will never use such pronouns, but as a guiding general principle such pronouns are not used often in academic writing.

I don’t want to confuse you, but not all writing produced in school is “academic.” For example, if you were taking a creative writing course, while you may write essays that require a formal approach to writing, you will also be writing “creatively”—short stories and poems and other genres that would not require you to use “academic writing.”

Imagine a poem like Gwendolyn Brook’s “We Real Cool” in which the speaker, a thug without much of a future, says, “We real cool. We left school. We lurk late” written in formal academic writing like this: “They were indifferent to the conventional values of society. They left school. They lurked late at night.” Big difference, right? Of course. Academic writing is not the kind of writing to use when writing creatively.

Ok, so back to our discussion of second person. Second person is the use of the pronouns “you” and “your” in writing. In this podcast, I sometimes relate what I am talking about to my audience—to you folks listening right now—so I will make statements like “I don’t want to confuse you, but…” In my podcast, which is not a formal writing situation, it’s fine to use the pronouns “you” and “your.”

As a guiding principle, the second person pronouns “you” and “your” should not be used in academic writing. Using “you and your” is informal and lacks the kind of professional tone found in academic writing. “You” may work fine in some situations (like this podcast, for example), but in academic writing, such usage can be downright confusing. When I use “you” in my podcast, it’s clear that I am addressing my listeners.

But let’s say you were reading a paper about recycling, something that you already do. What would your reaction be if every now and then the writer included a sentence like “All you would need to do is set up a few extra bins in your home for glass, paper, metal, and plastic, and then put each item into its respective bin.” What would your response be? You would likely be confused, right? After all, you already recycle. And imagine other instances of the writer referring to “you” in a sentence. Every time you read “you,” you stop in your tracks and think, “Me?”

Let’s say the recycling paper’s purpose is to persuade and thus the logical audience would be folks who don’t recycle. Would “you” be appropriate then? No. While there would clearly be less confusion on the part of readers, writing of a more formal nature should be as objective as possible and not refer directly to readers.

Imagine reading a formal academic essay that is arguing for greater individual effort to recycle, and throughout the paper the writer uses the objective third person point of view, making such statements as “Individuals have a responsibility to future generations to do what they can to cut down on waste” and “Individuals must be proactive in recycling at home and work,” and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, the writing shifts to second person and makes a statement like “You might be busy, but if you make recycling a top priority then you would probably be successful.”

Whoa, right?

Where did that sentence come from? As a reader, you were engaged in the persuasive but objective discussion of the need to recycle, when all of a sudden the writing shifts to second person, and it seems like the writer is pointing a finger at you.

The use of second person can be confusing, awkward, and off-putting in academic writing, so it’s best to avoid the pronouns “you” and “your.”

A good way to ensure such pronouns don’t appear in your paper is to read your work slowly aloud. Mark each “you” or “your” you find and revise accordingly. With a little practice, keeping the second person out of your writing will come naturally.

Thanks for listening, everyone. Happy writing.

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6 Steps to Writing the Perfect Personal Essay

Personal essays are easy once you know how!

• Tips For Adult Students
• Getting Your Ged

• B.A., English, St. Olaf College

It is the first day of a new school year and your teacher has just assigned a personal essay. They have good reasons for this assignment—personal or narrative essays allow teachers to assess your grasp of language, composition, and creativity.

If you don't know where to start or feel overwhelmed by the open-ended prompt, this list is here to help you navigate the process from beginning to end. Writing about yourself is easy to do when you keep the key ingredients of a great essay in mind.

Find Inspiration and Ideas

You can't begin a personal essay without a topic. If you are stuck on what to write about, look to some of these sources of inspiration:

• Consult lists of ideas to get your brain thinking about the possibilities of your essay. Remember that a personal essay is autobiographical, so do not write about anything untrue.
• Try writing a  stream of consciousness . To do this, start writing whatever is on your mind and don't stop or leave anything out. Even if ideas aren't connected to each other whatsoever, a stream of consciousness gets everything in your brain on paper and often contains many ideas.
• Do a little research. Browsing through whatever interests you can really get the creative juices flowing and lead to small self-reflections. Grab onto any of these that you think you might want to write about.

Don't be afraid to ask your teacher what they are looking for. If you still aren't sure what to write about, go to your teacher for suggestions or a more specific prompt.

Understand the Composition of an Essay

Before you start writing, remind yourself of basic essay composition. Almost all essays are made up of three parts: an introduction, a body of information, and a conclusion. The five-paragraph essay is a common iteration of this and it contains an introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion paragraph. Use an outline, or general essay plan, to jot down your ideas before writing.

Introduction : Start your personal essay with a hook, or an interesting sentence that grabs your readers' attention and makes them want to read more. Select a topic that you know you can write an interesting essay about. Once you have a compelling topic, decide on the main idea you want to communicate and use it to capture your readers' interest in the first sentence.

After the hook, use the introductory paragraph to briefly outline the subject of your essay. Your readers should have a clear understanding of the direction of the rest of your piece from the introduction.

Body : The body of your essay is made up of one or more paragraphs that inform your readers about your topic, each paragraph accomplishing this in a unique way.

The structure of a paragraph resembles the structure of an essay. A paragraph contains an attention-grabbing topic sentence, several sentences elaborating on the point of the paragraph, and a conclusion sentence or two that summarizes the main idea. The conclusion sentence of a paragraph should also be used to transition into the next paragraph by smoothly introducing the next topic without going into too much detail.

Each paragraph should have its own idea that is closely related to the topic of the whole essay but elaborates on the main idea in a new way. It is important that topics flow logically from one to the next so that your essay is easy to follow. If your paragraphs are not related to each other or the main idea, your essay may be choppy and incoherent. Keeping your sentences concise also helps with clarity. Feel free to break a large paragraph up into two separate paragraphs if the topic changes or goes on for too long.

Conclusion : Close your essay with a final paragraph that summarizes the points you have made and states the takeaways. When writing personal essays, conclusion paragraphs are where you talk about the lessons you learned, ways that you changed as a result of your subject, or any other insights that were gained from your experience. In short: restate the ideas from the introduction in a new way and wrap up your essay.

Use Appropriate Voice for Essay and Verbs

In English grammar, there are many elements of writing that determine the quality of your work and voice is one of the most important. There are two types of voice: the author's voice and the voice of verbs.

Author's Voice

One of the things your teacher will be looking for when reading your personal essay is the use of voice in your essay, which is your own personal style of telling a story. They will be looking for features of your writing that make it unique, analyze the pacing of your essay, and determine how you establish your authority.

Because personal essays are works of nonfiction, your voice must be reliable. Other than that, you are free to play around with the delivery of your essay. Decide how formal or casual you want to be, how you want to keep the attention of your readers, how you would like your readers to feel when reading your essay, and how you would like your story to come across as a whole.

Voice of Verbs

Don't be confused—verbs have their own voice that is entirely separate from the author's voice. The active voice occurs when the subject of your sentence is performing the action or verb and the passive voice occurs when the subject is receiving the action.

The subject is italicized in the following examples.

Passive : An essay was assigned by Ms. Peterson.

Active : Ms. Peterson assigned a personal essay about summer vacation.

Generally, the active voice is most appropriate for personal essays as it is more effective at progressing a story forward. Using verbs in the active voice also tends to come across as more authoritative.

Be Consistent With Point of View and Tense

Personal essays are about yourself, so it is important that your point of view and tense be consistent with this. Personal essays are almost always written in first person tense, using the pronouns I, we, and us to tell what happened. Readers need to know what something was like from your perspective.

Remember that you can only speak to your own thoughts and feelings in first person tense unless you know for sure what another person was thinking or feeling and can quote them.

Personal essays are also written in the past tense because they describe something that happened to you, not something that is happening or will happen. You cannot speak confidently about experiences that have not happened or are still happening because you have not yet learned from them. Teachers will probably want you to write a personal essay to reflect on a real experience that taught you something.

Use Your Own Vocabulary

Just as you shouldn't lie when writing personal essays, you also shouldn't waver. Your choice of vocabulary can help you establish and maintain themes throughout your essay. Every word matters.

Your goal when writing a personal essay should be authenticity and you need to choose your vocabulary accordingly. Use the words that naturally come to mind when you are writing and don't try to be something that you are not. Your language should fit the topic and guide readers to interpret your writing in a certain way.

Here are some examples of how to choose the right words.

• When you are making a statement of opinion or fact, use powerful words that make your ideas clear. For example, say, "I ran like my life depended on it," rather than, "I ran pretty fast."
• If you are trying to communicate uncertainty that you felt during an experience, use words that convey these feelings. "I questioned whether or not it was a good idea," rather than, "I didn't know what would happen."
• Use positive language. Write about what did happen or what is rather than what did not happen or what is not . "I left room for dessert after dinner," instead of, "I hated dinner and couldn't even finish it."

Always be as descriptive as possible and incorporate all of your senses into your writing. Write about how something looked, sounded, felt, smelled, or tasted to help your readers imagine the experience for themselves. Use adjectives that support what you have described but do not use them to do the work of describing for you.

Edit, Edit, Edit

English grammar is tough even for native English speakers. Brush up on grammar rules before writing and revisit your work when you are finished to ensure that you have written an essay that you can be proud of.

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Webinar Transcripts: What About Me? Using Personal Experience in Academic Writing

What about me using personal experience in academic writing.

Presented October 31, 2018

View the webinar recording

Last updated 12/11/2018

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Housekeeping

• Will be available online within 24 hours.
• Polls, files, and links are interactive.
• Now: Use the Q&A box.
• Later: Send to [email protected] or visit our  Live Chat Hours .
• Ask in the Q&A box.
• Choose “Help” in the upper right-hand corner of the webinar room

Audio: All right. Well, hello, everyone and thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Beth Nastachowski and I am the Manager of Multimedia Writing instruction here at the Writing Center and I'm just getting us started here with a couple of quick housekeeping notes before I hand this session over to our presenter today, Claire

A couple of things to keep in mind, the first is I have started the recording for the webinar. I'll be posting the regarding in the webinar archive and you can access that later if you have to leave for any reason during the session or if you would like to come back and review the session or access the slides, you can do that from the recording.

I also like to note here that we record all of the webinars in the Writing Center, so if you ever see a webinar being presented live and you can't attend or if you're looking for help on a particular writing topic, we have those recordings available for you 24/7 so you can just take a look at the archive in the categories there to find a recording that would be useful for you

We also hope that you'll interact with us throughout the session, so I know Claire has lots of polls and the chats she'll be using throughout the session, so make sure to interact with her and your fellow students there

But also note that the links throughout the slides that Claire has are also interactive, so you can click on the links and it will open up in a new tab on your browser, and can you also download the slides that she has here in the Files Pod that’s at the bottom right‑hand corner and can you download those slides and they'll save to your computer as well

Finally, we also have a Q&A Box on the right‑hand side of the screen so I'll monitor that box throughout the session and would be happy to answer any questions or respond to any comments that you have, so do let me know as soon as you have a question or comment, I'm happy to hear from you and I know Claire will be stopping for questions and comments to address those aloud throughout certain points of the presentation as well

However, at the very end of the session if we get to a point where we need to close out the session because we're out of time and you still have questions, please feel free to email us or visit the Live Chat Hours and we're happy to respond to you there and I'll display this information at the end of the session as well

Alright. Actually, this is our final point here. If you have any questions or have any technical issues, feel free to let me know in the Q&A Box, I have a couple of tips and tricks I can give you, but the Help Button at the top right‑hand corner is really the place to go if you have any significant issues.

Visual: Slide changes to the title of the webinar, “ What About Me? Using Personal Experience in Academic Writing ” and the speakers name and information: Claire Helakoski, Writing Instructor, Walden University Writing Center.

Audio: Alright, and so with that, Claire, I will hand it over to you.

Claire: Thanks so much, Beth. Hi, everyone, I'm Claire Helakoski a writing instructor here at the Walden Writing Center and I’m coming in from Grand Rapids, Michigan today to present What About Me? Using Personal Experience in Academic Writing today, and also Happy Halloween to those of you that celebrate it.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Learning Objectives  

After this session, you will be able to:

• Identify the benefits and drawbacks of using personal experience in writing
• Determine the situations when using personal experience is appropriate
• Integrate personal experience effectively
• Access additional resources

Audio: All right. So first I want to go over our learning objectives today which are that after the session you'll be able to identify the benefits and drawbacks of using personal experience in your academic writing, determine the situations where using personal experience is appropriate, integrate personal experience effectively, and access additional resources.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Caveat

We are specifically talking about

personal experience in coursework ,

meaning discussion posts or weekly

assignments .

Doctoral studies are a whole other thing!

Audio: All right, and I do want to start with a caveat that I'm specifically talking about personal experience in coursework, so discussion posts, or weekly assignments. Doctoral studies are a very different things and if you are beyond your coursework and just working on your doctoral study, this presentation may not be as beneficial to you at your current stage since it does get a little more specific and the requirements are a little bit different in those aspects of your writing.

So today we're going to really focus on that coursework discussion post, weekly paper assignments.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Walden Students

• Are at an advantage!
• In previous education institutions
• In careers in their chosen field of study
• In military , family , or volunteer situations

Audio: All right. So Walden students are at an advantage for talking about personal experience because most of you are already working in your fields or have previous education and careers in your field of study, even if you're not working in that now, you've had some sort of career most likely, and I'm just speaking broadly and statistically here, but also through military family or volunteer situations, our students from my experience, tend to be very passionate and knowledgeable about their topics and that means you're at an advantage to have all of these great personal experiences to inform that passion and your coursework as it applies to your current job, future job, or past work that you've done.

Where does that experience go?

What does it count for?

Audio: So, we might wonder where does that experience go, right, because we're often kind of told to pull back on the personal experience in our coursework. So where does it go? Where does it end up sort of counting for? Sorry. I thought there was a pop‑up there.

That experience doesn't go anywhere in a sense that it's there, it is valuable, it is important, it has informed your decision to pursue your degree and there are many assignments that I have personally seen in the Writing Center that will let you kind of tap into that and express it in your coursework. It doesn't count for anything as far as, you know, a grade or something like that, but it's beneficial because it gives you that sort of starting point, that jumping off place to begin your work, right.

A lot of times even if you're starting an assignment that's not really meant to explore personal experience, you might think of a personal experience that you've had had and decide to pursue that topic, so it counts in a sense that you're mentally kind of already engaged with your subject, you’re invested in it, and that gives you a starting point for any type of writing you're going to do for your coursework.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Poll: How convinced are you?

Paragraph A

            By and large, substance abuse in the United States begins during adolescence. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2013) stated that on an average day 881,684 adolescents smoke cigarettes, 646,707 smoke marijuana, and 457,672 drink alcohol. Adult addicts typically report beginning substance use in adolescence. In fact, one in four Americans who started using addictive substances in their teens are addicted now, compared to one in 25 who began using after the age of 21 (National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, 2011). When teens engage in substance use, their behavior impacts their adult lives.

Paragraph B

            By and large, substance abuse in the United States begins during adolescence. As a school paraprofessional, I know this is a problem. I see teenagers every day in the high school library who are drunk or high. Just this past year, five separate students got into serious car accidents (with injuries) due to substance use. We actually have to employ drug-sniffing dogs in the school as well. These teens do not get the help they need, and so addiction becomes something they struggle with as adults as well.

Audio: So, we're going to start with a little poll here. We have Paragraph A and Paragraph B, so I'd like you to read them both and note which option you're most convinced by, and I'm going to not read these aloud because I think it would take longer than you guys reading them through, but I will give you a couple minutes to read them through and consider which of them you find most convincing and then let us know in the poll.

[silence as students respond]

I see the answers still trickling in here. I'm going to give you another minute to go ahead and respond if you have not and then we'll talk over our responses.

All right. It looks like the responses have kind of stopped trickling in so I'm going to go ahead and talk about each of these options. So, a lot of you, most of you, chose Paragraph A and that is probably because we have a lot of great statistics in Paragraph A, right. We're focusing on this kind of overall issue, we have proof that it is an issue, really specific proof, right. We're talking about numbers and statistics, and then we kind of explain what all of that means at the end there. Whereas in Paragraph B, we have kind of the same topic, right. So, we're still talking about substance use in teenagers, but this one is talking about what this writer sees in their work every day. They see these things happening, and they do have some specifics like the five separate students and what's going on in their school, and they have a kind of the same takeaway or opinion, which is that addiction is an issue and, you know, something kind of needs to be done.

So, they really are about the same topic, but Paragraph A is likely a little more convincing to the wider majority of people because it's more neutral, it has facts and statistics, you know, from all over really because it's from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Organization and so it's a big study by an established organization. And in Paragraph B while these personal experiences are great and they definitely do speak to an issue at this person's school, so if that was the assignment, then this would probably be appropriate, but if we're talking about this as a whole issue for the country or like a larger health issue, then talking about it more globally with more global statistics is going to be effective there and a little bit more convincing for an outside reader who isn't a member of this Paragraph B person's school.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Academic Writing

Readers expect

• to see research-based evidence* supporting statements even if the writer has expertise in the area
• to be persuaded through logic and reasoning

*information from course readings, books, scholarly journals, trusted websites

The need for research doesn’t mean your own knowledge is unimportant or wrong

Audio: All right. So as I kind of went over, in academic writing, readers expect to see that research‑based evidence which supports statements even if the writer has expertise in the area, so because none of us are doctors in our field yet, we aren't considered experts in our area, even though we most likely have experiences that inform us on our topic and we might have really great things to say about it, but we're not considered experts yet. And in academic writing, even the experts are still going to find that research‑based evidence to help support what they're saying. So that's just a general expectation of academic writing, and it's one of the things that separates it from other types of writing that you may have done in the past or that you may see in other fields.

Readers also expect to be persuaded through logic and reasoning rather than sort of emotional appeals or those other, you know, tools that people will use in online articles or, you know, commercials and things like that that are really overly persuasive and personal and have lots of emotion. That's not quite the right tone for that academic writing, that scholarly writing. It's not a wrong technique, but it should be saved for different arenas, different places where you're going to write. In academic writing, you want to be logical, objective, fact based, and by evidence, I mean information from your course readings, from books, scholarly journals, trusted website, so research you're doing that's been done by other people in your field and is supported and reviewed.

All right. As I've kind of gone over as well, the need for research doesn't mean your own knowledge is unimportant or wrong. It just means that you need to be a little bit careful about when and where you use that personal knowledge in your course writing because a lot of times it won't meet reader expectation, so while it can inform what you're going to write about, you'll want to use that information to fuel your research, for example.

And as we'll go over in a little bit, there are assignments that specifically ask for your own experiences, opinions, and ideas and so you can look out for those as well.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: When is personal experience okay?

• In the research process
• Thinking ● Researching ● Thinking ● Researching ● Writing

Audio: All right, so as I've sort of gone over, you might be wondering when is personal experience okay? As I mentioned in the research process, we're kind of getting you started and personal experience is a great tool, a really beneficial tool to give you a jumping off point. Like in our paragraph example, this writing has seen these issues with teenage addiction in their school so they can say, I know this is an issue and I don't think it's just an issue in my school so what I want to do is think about that issue, research that issue, and then end up writing about that issue.

And your research and thinking and writing process may go back and forth, and it probably should, right. You think of an idea, do a little research to see what's out there, think about it again, do I have enough points, do I maybe need more, is it maybe going in a different direction than I thought? Maybe do a little more research, and then start your writing. And informing that with your personal experience to help get you started for something that you observe or something that you already know to be true can be really beneficial as a jumping off point for your research.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Type of Assignments

• Assignment instructions might use the term “you” as in “What do you think will be most useful to you…”
• Assignment instructions might say, “Demonstrate your learning…” or “Refer to specific experiences in your workplace…”
• Assignment instructions might say, “Select a topic based on something you have seen, heard, or experienced…”
• Assignment instructions might say, “Describe your educational and professional background…”

Audio: So in your assignments, you may have some assignments, as I mentioned, that are going to ask for you to talk about personal experience and that is a great, great use of personal experience and a place where personal experience is not only okay but it's asked for and it's expected, and one of the key words you can look for in your assignment prompt is you, so look out for assignment prompts that use the word "you." What would you do? What do you think? What experience do you have in this field? And what would you do in this situation? Lots of "you" there but, of course, you're going to use "I," you're going to use your personal experience in those situations.

So, here’s a few that come up. An example in a reflection paper or a post, what do you think will be most useful to you? Right, reflection means you're going to talk about your experience, it's kind of inherent to reflecting on your own writing and ideas.

In a prior learning narrative, the assignment instructions might say something like, demonstrate your learning, refer to experiences in your workplace. I've seen a lot like that so obviously those are really good places to bring out that personal experience.

The assignment instructions might say something like, select a topic based on something you have seen, heard, or experienced. Or I've seen papers that deal with, you know, for example, different leadership styles or something like that and it will ask if you've had any experience with a prior manager that exhibited one of these leadership styles. Those are great places to use that personal experience. And in your professional development plan, if you write one of those, you'll definitely write about personal experience because the assignment instructions will say something like, describe your educational and professional background. So those are all wonderful places to use that personal experience and where you're being asked to use that personal experience.

So, don't feel like we're saying never, ever, ever use personal experience. You're going to have to use your judgment, and that's kind of what this webinar is to help you do, right. So, in your research process, personal experience can be helpful. In assignments that are using "you" and not just this week "you've read," but like asking questions of what do you think, what would you do in your workplace? Those are great questions where you could use some of the experience that you may have.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: To Illustrate a Theory

According to the theory of caring, nurses should be sensitive facilitators of a healing environment (Watson, 1979). I demonstrate this when I talk to patients in a calm voice, listen attentively to their needs, and limit the amount of visitors and noise.

Systems theory looks at a system holistically, with the parts working together (Janson, 2015). An example of this interdependence in my organization is…

Audio: And Sometimes talking about illustrating a theory could be a good place to introduce personal experience as well. Here is an example. According to the theory of caring, nurses should be sensitive facilitators of a healing environment. I demonstrate this when I talk to patients in a calm voice, listen attentively to their needs, and limit the amount of visitors and noise.

So, this assignment probably has something to do with talking about nursing theories and how you do or do not implement them in your nursing practice, right. So, they probably used "you" in the assignment somewhere, but it's not just all personal reflection. It's talking about the reading, talking about how you use these tools, so that's a great place to use that personal experience in a nice specific concrete way.

Here is another example. Systems theory looks at a system holistically with the parts working together and an example of this interdependence in my organization is, and again here we've probably been asked to write about your organization or a past experience in your workplace in the assignment prompt, but when you're combining that with research, demonstrating that theory with personal experience can be really beneficial and helpful for readers because you have that nice evidence and then a concrete example.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Benefits of Personal Experience

• better understanding
• stronger connection with the material
• perhaps more confidence
• more interesting
• helpful to see an example from an insider perspective

Audio: All right, so the benefits of personal experience for you are that better understanding of your topic, a stronger connection with the material. I mentioned that passion before. And maybe more confidence writing about it because you know for sure that this is an issue, this is something that's going on, this is something you've noticed, you've experienced, and so you can go into it with confidence into your research that there is going to be something out there that supports what you've seen and what you've experienced or what practices you have in your workplace.

For your reader, adding that personal experience where appropriate can be more interesting and helpful to see those examples from an insider perspective. As you all know, I'm sure, excuse me. ‑‑ as you all know I'm sure, reading just about theories can be a little dry, so having those concrete examples of what that looks like in practice can be much more engaging for readers.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Questions

Audio: All right. Let's pause for a moment to see if we have any questions.

Beth: Thanks so much, Claire. Something just came in here. Oh, yeah, so you just said this I think a little bit, but could you talk a little more and kind of address the question that the student had had on whether they can use first person in their personal experience when discussing personal experience, and specifically maybe tips for using first person in those cases too. Does that make sense?

Claire: Yes, it does. That's a great question. So, I know that some of you have probably heard beyond just don't use personal experience but you may have heard don't use "I," right, which is the first person. So, don't use "I," but using "I" isn't incorrect per APA, and I'll go over this a little about bit later, but the kinds of "I" statements you want to avoid are those I believe, I feel, I think statements. Unless of course your writing a personal reflection of some kind in which case those would be appropriate. But when you’re talking about personal experience you’re going to have to use "I," right. That just makes sense, it would be really weird to say something like, this this writer has experienced. Instead just say, in my workplace I have done this, I exemplify this theory when I do this really focusing on actions you've taken or things that you've observed in your workplace through the use of "I" is going to be much clearer for the readers and help them out. So, using "I" is not inappropriate for personal experience. It's really those other kind of more feeling‑based statements that you really want to watch out for.

Beth: Thank you so much, Claire. I think you just covered a little bit of examples of when to use that first person, and so I think we're good for now. Yeah. I'll keep watching out for more questions, but I think that covers it for now.

Claire: Thanks, Beth, and yeah, we will go can over some examples of using "I" a little bit further on in this presentation too, so you can look for that or look forward to that, sorry.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: When is using personal experience inappropriate?

• Avoid generalizing
• Our schools are failing. Parents want more individualized support for their children in the classroom.
• My daughter texts constantly, which shows that teenagers use cell phones more than they did in the past.

Audio: All right. So, when is using personal experience inappropriate? So, we talked about when it's appropriate, right, during your research process, when your assignment specifically asked for that reflection, that background information, or when you're exemplifying a theory in an assignment which has kind of asked for how you connect to the source reading for that week.

Right, so those are all great places and appropriate places to use that first person and that personal experience.

When using personal experience is inappropriate is using it as evidence in an argument, it's kind of like our Paragraph B from earlier. I noticed this at my school so all teenagers should go through drug testing and that's just too general, right. It's not backed up enough. You want to avoid generalizing. Personal experience can lead to those generalizations, so here are some examples.

Our schools are failing, parents want more individualized support for their children in the classroom, and so this is just really vague, right? This first one, it's really vague and how do I know that schools are failing, whose opinion is this, it's just the writer's opinion and that's probably not enough to say that our schools are failing, like they might be an authority on if their own school is failing, but that's a whole big other ‑‑ I assume they're talking about schools in the United States but they could be talking about the whole world, so it's important to be really specific and use that evidence to avoid those generalizations.

Our second example is my daughter texts constantly which shows that teenagers use cell phones more than they did in the past. So again, this observation, we can't expand it out to all teenagers or all schools or all anything from one personal experience, right? Even our own hospital or at our own high school that our daughter attends, we would have to actually do research and do some kind of study to make this type of statement because otherwise somebody could say anything they wanted, right. I could say, online students are lazy, which I know to be very untrue since I work with Walden students all the time, but I could just say that if we didn't need to have that evidence, if I was just going to use my own personal biased opinion, I could say whatever I wanted. I could say something like that and I wouldn't need to go find any research. I would just say it like it's true and move on, so to avoid that, to have that credibility, you want to have that research to back up statements and avoid using that personal experience, those personal observations, and stating them as facts that extend beyond your own observation.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Problems with Using Only Experience

• How does one person’s experience compete with verified and reported research involving many people?
• No foundation of knowledge
• No practice with library skills, research, and using sources

Audio: The problems with using only your personal experience in your work are that it's not a very convincing argument. As I sort of just explained, one person's experience, how does that compete with verified research involving many people or across many states or years. You know, one person's opinion just isn't as strong as that. There isn't a clear foundation of knowledge if you're only using personal experience, then you're not explaining, you know, how you contribute to the conversation that's already happening on this topic and that's one of my favorite, favorite things about academic writing is that we're constantly contributing to the conversations that are already happening in our field. And if it's just your opinion and you’re not taking into account what other people have already said or are saying on your topic, then you're not coming off as having a foundation of knowledge or really contributing to that conversation.

Also, the problem with only using experience is you won't get practice with those library skills, research, and using sources effectively. And you're going to need those skills as you progress through your programs, even if maybe you don't need them on your first few discussion posts, for example, you will need them throughout your program and to succeed in your fields.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Example of Effective Integration

By and large, substance abuse in the United States begins during adolescence. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2013) stated that on an average day 881,684 adolescents smoke cigarettes, 646,707 smoke marijuana, and 457,672 drink alcohol. Adult addicts typically report beginning substance use in adolescence. In fact, one in four Americans who started using addictive substances in their teens are addicted now, compared to one in 25 who began using after the age of 21 (National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, 2011). To address this pattern, school districts should implement prevention and intervention programs.

At my high school in suburban Atlanta, I helped create Clean Matters. The program follows the National Institute on Drug Abuse principles of …

Audio: All right. So, I want to talk about an example of that effective integration of personal experience with research, so this isn't only research, right, it's personal experience and research.

By and large, substance abuse in the United States begins during adolescents. The substance abuse and mental health services administration stated that on average, an average day, oh, man I'm so bad at reading numbers aloud. This many adolescents smoked cigarettes, marijuana, and drank alcohol. Adult addicts typically report beginning substance use in adolescence, and in fact one in four Americans who started using addictive substances in their teens are addicted now compared to 1 in 25 who began using at the age of 21. To address this pattern, school districts should implement prevention intervention programs. At my high school in suburban Atlanta, I helped create Clean Matters and the program follows the National Institute on Drug abuse Principles of ‑‑

So here you can see that we have this great effective paragraph, and this is that you might recognize as our Paragraph A from earlier, and so we have this effective paragraph that has lots of information from a source. We have a clear takeaway at the end, right? We're saying this is information that is true, here is what this means, this is an issue, it needs to be addressed, right? And here is what we can do.

Then we have an example of what someone is doing already, so for example I've seen some paper assignments that say something like establish your health issue, discuss what your community is doing to combat this issue, for example.

So, this would be a great place to establish your issue using that research and then include what you're doing in your community, especially if you do have that personal involvement and the assignment asked about your community, then this is a good place to use that personal experience and talk about the campaign that you personally worked on.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Chat

Chat: Did the author effectively

integrate their personal experience in this reflection paper?

Being an active listener is probably the most challenging part of my face-to-face communication. Although I choose my responses wisely and use skills such as validation and empathic listening, I struggle to be an active listener and easily get distracted by mental noises and perceptual biases. Active listeners are “people who focus on the moment, are aware of interactions as they unfold, respond appropriately, and are aware of distractions” (Dobkin & Pace, 2006, p. 98). To strengthen this skill, I must practice clearing my mind and eliminating distractions so I can fully focus on the messages I am receiving.

Audio: All right, so let's do another practice, now that we've done through an example of that effective integration. Did the author here effectively integrate their personal experience in this reflection paper, and why or why not? I will read it aloud for you. Being an active listening is probably the most challenging part of my face‑to‑face communication. Although, I choose my responses wisely and use skills such as validation and empathic listening, I struggle to be an active listener and easily get distracted by mental noises and perceptual biases Active listeners are people who focus on the moment, are, aware of interactions, respond appropriately and are aware of interactions. To strengthen this skill, I must practice clearing my mind and eliminating distraction so I can fully focus on the message I am receiving.

Go ahead and take a minute and then tell us what you think in the chat box.

[silence as students type]

I can see some people are still typing. I'll give you another minute to go ahead and finish up with your response here.

All right. It looks like our contributors have dried up, so I'm going to go ahead and talk over. If you're still typing, go ahead and keep typing and I'll just begin our discussion.

So, a lot of you said that you did think that this was effective in general because we do have some source information that we're dealing with here and we are tying that in to our personal experience. A few of you suggested having the evidence sort of earlier in the paragraph to help support the observations that the writer is making a little bit sooner rather than necessarily beginning with a personal, a sentence of personal experience. And you know, I think it really depends on what the assignment is, right, which is always the answer with personal experience. What is the assignment? This assignment is probably one that I've seen where you take some sort of, you know, assessment or quiz about your skills and then write a reflection about how you scored and what you can do to have kind of like an improvement plan, so that's what I'm guessing this is here.

And in that case, right, it probably is fine to have that personal experience right away in the paragraph because this is a more personal reflective type of assignment, but it's a good thing to keep in mind that you may want to start with an overall what is this paragraph really going to be about, what is the bigger kind of connection, think about your thesis, and then if there are personal details to add to have them a little bit later can be very effective as well.

So great observations, everybody. Thank you for participating.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Tips for Effectively Using Personal Experience

Audio: All right, so now we're going to go through some tips for effectively using that personal experience.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Effective Integration Tips

DO use the first-person point of view.

• Helps you avoid referring to yourself in the third person or passive voice.
• Unclear: In this writer’s role as an executive assistant, this writer compiles reports on financial transactions.
• Appropriate: In my role as an executive assistant, I compile reports on financial transactions.

Audio: All right, so as we sort of mentioned before with the questions about using "I," you use that first‑person point of view for your first‑person experience, right. It helps avoid referring to yourself in the third person or in passive voice, which can be very confusing for readers.

An example is in this writer's role an as executive assistant this writer compiles reports on financial transactions. That's not only repetitive, but it's a little confusing because in academic writing, right, we write about what other writers think all the time, so if I'm a reader and I'm seeing this, I'm thinking, okay, by this writer, do they mean the researcher they were just talking about in the last paragraph? Who do they mean? Who were they talking about exactly? So that can be really unclear. Whereas, in my role as an executive assistant I compile reports on financial transactions. There is nothing wrong with using first person in that way, right, because it's not biased, it's not opinionated, it's explaining what you do in your role so there is nothing inappropriate about that per APA.

This blog on including relevant details might be helpful!

DO stay on task.

• Ask yourself: Is this experience directly related to the assignment? How much does the reader really need to know?
• Too Much: I want to pursue a degree in social work at Walden. My stepfather kicked me out of the house when I was 14, and I became homeless. On the streets, I was scared and hungry and had to steal or beg to get by. I don’t want other teens to suffer like I did for many years.
• Appropriate: I want to pursue a degree in social work at Walden. The experience of being homeless as a teenager has made me empathetic toward other people in similar situations.

Audio: All right. You do want to stay on task, so what I see sometimes is even in those assignments that are asking for you to write about your own experience, I see some students get a little bit carried away and I know why because you're so excited to be able to write about that personal experience, to be able to share that you might end up getting kind of off topic and maybe sharing more than is strictly needed for the assignment, so you want to stay focused. You want to ask, is this experience directly related to the assignment? How much does the reader really need to know?

So here is an example. I want to pursue a degree in social work at Walden. My step‑father kicked me out of the house when I was 14 and I became homeless. On the streets I was scared and hungry and had to steal or beg to get by and I don't want other teens to suffer like I did for many years. So, do we need all of that information to understand why this person wants to pursue a degree at Walden?

We can probably cut it down, right. I want to pursue a degree in social work at Walden. The experience of being homeless as a teenager has made me empathetic towards other people in similar situations. So, we're taking the ideas and we're sort of paraphrasing ourselves, right. We're shrinking it down and we're focusing on what the point is, what's the importance of these personal details, what's the takeaway for the reader.

And I have a blog post on including relevant details that I wrote for these specific situations, so you can click that active link or if you're watching this as a recording, you can download the slides and you'll be able to review it there as well, so that has some more detailed examples if this sounds like something you maybe do.

DO Use an objective, formal, nonjudgmental voice (even if the content is very personal).

• Ask yourself: Is this voice appropriate for a professional context?
• Too casual: In my opinion, the students were behaving like brats. I couldn’t even get their attention to take attendance! I had to…
• Appropriate: One day at preschool, the students were particularly rambunctious. It was difficult to take attendance, so I …

Audio: Do remain objective, formal and nonjudgmental even if the content is very personal. Ask yourself, is this voice appropriate for professional context. And when I think of a professional context, I like to imagine that you are writing a letter to a person in your field who you greatly respect but have never met in person, so that might be a helpful visual for some of you, really thinking about that tone. You want to be formal, you want to be direct, you want to seem smart, right, so you want to avoid being overly emotional or, you know, judgmental potentially or opinionated.

Example is in my opinion; the students were behaving like brats. I couldn't even get their attention to take attendance, so here is that less appropriate use of "I" that we sort of talked about before, right. My opinion, so unless the prompt specifically asks for your opinion, then you shouldn't have statements like "in my opinion" or "I believe" and then we have, I couldn't even get their attention to take attendance, so we're just kind of complaining, right.

Instead, we can write one day at preschool the students were particularly rambunctious and so it was difficult to take attendance, so really, we're saying the same thing here but we just tweaked it. We made it more objective, more observable, and something you can think about is, if someone was watching you in your situation, would they find your description effective to paint the picture that they saw, right? Whereas like, students were behaving like brats, that's really subjective. Whereas, the students were energetic or rambunctious that's something that someone could easily observe if they were standing outside of the classroom and they could tell it was difficult for you to take attendance, but I couldn't even get their attention is very personal, that's drawing on not only your personal experience of what happened but you're sort of mental and emotional state while it was happening, so that's another thing to help you kind of focus in on remaining objective and clear, is to think about, am I portraying what happened or am I portraying my emotional response to what happened?

DO NOT wear “experience blinders.”

• Remain open
• Consult other sources and viewpoints, even contradictory ones
• Instead: Provide a citation for personal experience

Audio: All right. Don't wear those experience blinders. Remain open. Think about, you know, someone might say your experience just doesn't belong in this paper, you know, and that's not saying that your experience doesn't matter or isn't important or they're not informed and knowledgeable and intelligent about your topic. It's just, you know, it may not be for the assignment or it might just not match kind of that formal scholarly academic tone.

You can consult other sources and viewpoints, even contradictory ones on your topic, to help maintain that kind of neutral tone throughout even if you think you already have an opinion on it, and you can provide a citation instead of just your personal experience, right. You can provide a citation if you have written about it before, for example, or if you're drawing from your personal experience and you want to go look up something that mirrors what you experienced.

Chat: How would you pair personal

experience with this quote from an article?

Write 1-2 sentences.

“About 75% of the online students surveyed

indicated that they were more engaged in courses

that included images, video, and audio” (Sherman

& MacKenzie, 2015, p. 31).

Audio: All right. So here we have our last practice, so how would you pair personal experience with this quote from an article? And assume that this is appropriate, right, your assignment has asked you to pair personal experience, and so here is a quote. About 75% of the online students surveyed indicated they were more engaged in courses that included images, video, and audio. So, what's your personal experience that connects with this quotation? Write one to two sentences in the Chat Box and then we'll talk about some of them.

I'm seeing some great responses so far and I'm going to go ahead and give you guys another minute or so before we talk over these.

All right. I'm going to go ahead and start talking about a few of the examples that I pulled, but if you're still typing, please go ahead and continue typing.

All right, so one example is "I experience better engagement in courses when I start an online degree with Walden University, images, videos, and webinar and presentations helped me stay focused. So, that pairs nicely with our evidence because they found 75% of students were more engaged by this type of content, right, and so this person is adding to that by saying that they agree, right, and that they give some specifics as to what that looked like here at Walden, so that's a great use of personal experience.

All right. We have sort of an introduction, which was from teaching, information, literacy, and public speaking, my experience is that ‑‑ so that's a great introduction to kind of, what your experience was with that engaging content. I would caution you here to not then just have the quotation, right. Because your experience isn't that 75% of online students surveyed indicated their engagement, right. Your experience is that you also were more engaged by those image, video, and audio, right. You can only speak to your own experience and that's something that wasn't in this presentation, but which is important to think about. You don't want to pair a citation with an "I" statement because it doesn't make sense, right. That writer, Sherman and Mackenzie they didn't write about you. They wrote about subjects in their study. So, pairing with an "I" statement is confusing to readers and you want to make that statement separate from the evidence and show how it connects but you don't want to mash it together in the same sentence.

All right. In my experience as an online student, images, video, and audio have been beneficial in keeping me engaged in online courses. So that’s great, right? That's similar to the first one I read, having the nice specifics and they're agreeing with the statistics and supporting them with their own experience.

Personally, I find my attention is drawn to an attraction eye catching image or video, and right so again we're just kind of agreeing with that source information.

Here’s another one that kind of takes what is an "I" statement or personal statement and goes a little bit too far out from their own experience. From personal experience the use of video and images are imperative for effective learning. The only person you really have authority to say that about is yourself, right. So, from personal experience, the uses of videos are imperative for my learning to be effective is something that you are definitely qualified and should say, right, if that's true here, that would be a great use of personal experience. But you don't want to say, I also, like I agree and this is true for everybody. You don't want to go beyond yourself.

Research has proven that a good number of online students are engaged with video and audio learning experiences, and so that's more of a paraphrase of this quotation, right. That's not personal experience. It's not saying that I had this experience that is supported by this research, right, so there were so many great examples there and I really appreciate your input, and it just shows that this is a skill and it takes time and practice and it is way easier when it's an assignment you have in front of you and you know exactly what personal experience you want to use.

But I'm going to go ahead and move on so that we have time for questions at the end.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Additional Resources

• Avoiding Bias web page
• All About Audience podcast episode
• Why You Shouldn’t Wiki blog post
• APA blog post on personal experience
• Prior Learning Portfolio web page (UG students)

Audio: All right. So, I promise to use some additional resources at the beginning of this presentation and here are some great ones. We have an Avoiding Bias web page. We have all about audience podcast episode. We also have a podcast episode called Objectivity and Passion that is really good if you feel or if someone is saying that you are too emotional or too passionate about your topic, or you're getting a little opinionated, that's a good one too.

Why You Shouldn't use Wikipedia Blog Post we have an APA, APA has a blog post on personal experience, and for undergraduate students, there is a Prior Learning Portfolio web page to assist you.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Questions: Ask Now or Later

[email protected] •  Live Chat Hours

Learn More:

Check out the recorded webinars “What Is Academic Writing?”

and “Writing Effective Academic Paragraphs”

Audio: And before I turn it over for questions, I also wanted to note that I think a paper review, which I don't think was linked on a previous page, but a paper review is a really great resource too when you're using this personal experience and you're not sure if you are telling too much or, you know, if you're being too passionate about your topic or how well you're integrating that personal experience with those resources. You can send in your paper for a paper review through our paper review system, My Pass, and a writing instructor like myself will read it, give you feedback, and then attach a draft with comments and links in it the day of or day after your scheduled appointment. So that can be really useful and just let us know on your appointment form that you're kind of nervous about using personal experience effectively or would like some assistance with that, and we will focus on that in your review.

All right. Do we have any lingering questions, Beth?

Beth: Yeah. Thanks so much, Claire. Thank you so much. That was all fantastic first off. But we did have a question from a student who was saying, you know, what if their assignment is asking for their personal experience but they're just not coming up with ideas, like they're kind of having writer's block in that area. Do you have any strategies to help students generate ideas from their own personal experience?

Claire: That's a good question. Yeah, it can certainly be challenging, you know, especially if you're being asked, for example, if you're changing career paths and then you're being asked to sort of write about your experience in that career area. Because I have seen some assignments that are like that so I can see why it would be hard to sort of come up with an experience.

If you're really struggling and your faculty has kind of asked you to talk through a scenario or a leadership situation and you're just not coming up with one, then I would definitely reach out to your faculty and see if maybe you can use a scenario from some reading or talk through something like that because that can happen, right, where you just don't really have an experience that fits the bill.

As far as where you definitely know you have experiences, but you're kind of struggling to figure out which one to talk about, or you feel like there are too many, or you just don't know where to start, I would definitely try free writing, which is where, you know, you ask yourself about the topic and you just write for a given amount of time, so I usually start with like 10 minutes, and you just write about that topic, everything you can remember, everything you can think about related to that topic and your experience, and that can really help like jog your memory and focus in on specific events that might be helpful, but definitely, you know, especially if you're coming back to school from a ‑‑ from a while outside of school, then you might not remember a really clear memory to use for a specific example, and in that case I would definitely just ask your faculty and let them know what's going on because they're not trying to trip you up with that. They're just playing on how a lot of Walden students have relevant, current kind of experiences in their field and they're not meaning for you to not be able to complete the assignment.

Beth: That's fantastic, Claire. Can I provide maybe one other idea? I was just thinking of something that's just something I was thinking about.

Claire: Yeah

Beth: Depending on your assignment too, it's also helpful to sometimes read, I don't know, like other more popular research or just like do a Google Search on a topic. Maybe you know, the theoretical peer review journal articles you're reading about a topic just don't help you connect that top wick your own experience, maybe it's like a leadership style or something, but reading an article about leadership styles in a more informal publication that you wouldn't cite in your paper but that could help you generate ideas, that can sometimes sort of make it more real for you. That's been helpful for me in the past sometimes. I don't know, I just wanted to throw that out there as well. I hope that's okay.

Claire: Yeah, no. That's a great idea too. It doesn't have to be research to like spark your ideas. Maybe you want to go watch a TED Talk or you know find an infographic, Beth loves infographics, so find an infographic or find, you know, a little like life hacker article that kind of breaks it down.

Beth: Something yeah. I like that, and I know this is like, it felt so blasphemous when I just read it but sometimes it will even say go to the Wikipedia page on the topic, you won't cite the Wikipedia page but you might generate ideas from it or find other research that's cited on the page too, so yeah.

Okay. No other questions, Claire, that are coming in. Do you have any last thoughts you want to leave everyone with before we kind of wrap up?

Claire: Just, you know, make sure you're looking over your assignment really carefully when you're deciding if you want to use personal experience or not. And if you are ever unsure, ask your faculty. It is their job and they will know if they want personal experience or not in that paper and they will be able to tell you really clearly if you're not sure.

Beth: Perfect. Thank you so much, Claire. I'm seeing lots of thanks coming into the Q&A Box. Thank you, thank you everyone for attending, if you have any more questions, make sure to reach out and we hope to see you at another webinar coming up soon. Thanks, everyone.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, is it acceptable to use 'i' in a college essay.

Hi everyone, I'm working on my college essay, and I'm wondering if it's okay to use 'I' in my writing. I've heard that using first-person can be frowned upon in formal writing, but I also want my essay to be personal. Can I use 'I' in my college essay, or should I avoid it? Thanks!

Hi there! It's absolutely fine to use 'I' in your college essay. College essays are meant to be personal and provide insight into who you are as an individual. Using first-person is actually encouraged in this context.

While it's true that first-person can be frowned upon in some formal writing, college essays are an exception to this rule. The goal is to showcase your unique experiences, perspective, and voice. By using 'I', you'll be able to create a more engaging and authentic narrative.

Just remember to strike a balance between sharing your personal experiences and demonstrating your ability to write coherently and effectively. Make sure you're still presenting a well-organized essay with a clear focus. Good luck with your essay, and feel free to ask any more questions if you need assistance!

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CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

How to Write a Personal Essay: Your Easy Guide

The power of a well-written personal essay should never be underestimated. Inspiring readers with your experiences, lessons learned from past mistakes, or simply describing the joy you felt from doing a fun activity can literally change people's lives. Take a moment to reflect upon this. How much influence you can have on your audience with just a pen and paper in your hand and thoughts flowing through your head is insane.

To take the reins of your floating thoughts and put them into perspective, you need to know how to write a personal essay. Otherwise defined as a nonfiction narrative story, the personal essay format differs slightly from other kinds of writing with its implicit structure. Once we touch upon those, we will also explore some personal essay topics with our online essay writing service . After reading this article, we promise you'll be so confident writing your personal statement that you might want to craft many personal essays in one go!

What is a Personal Essay?

A personal essay is a type of autobiographical writing where the author shares a meaningful personal experience. Typically assigned in high school and college courses, these essays are also required for college applications, graduate programs, or job applications.

The main goal of a personal essay is to reveal aspects of the author's life and personality through storytelling. By recounting a pivotal event or experience, the writer aims to connect with the reader and convey a deeper understanding of who they are. For applicants, these essays serve as a way to showcase their unique qualities and persuade admissions officers or employers of their suitability.

Personal essays vary widely in content and style, reflecting the diversity of human experiences. They can explore a range of topics, from reflections on personal growth to poignant moments of realization. What distinguishes a personal essay is its emphasis on the author's subjective perspective and the significance of the story being told.

Notable examples of personal essays include Robert Louis Stevenson's "An Apology for Idlers," where he muses on the value of leisure; Zora Neale Hurston's "How It Feels to Be Colored Me," which explores identity and race; and F. Scott Fitzgerald's "What I Think and Feel at 25," a reflective piece on youth and aspirations.

In crafting a personal essay, it's key for the writer to stay focused on the intended purpose: to reveal something meaningful about themselves through a compelling narrative. Whether for academic assignments or application processes, these essays offer a unique opportunity to share personal stories that resonate with readers and leave a lasting impression.

What Do You Write in a Personal Essay?

In a personal essay, the content revolves around sharing a significant personal experience that has had a profound impact on the writer's life. Here's a breakdown of what to consider when writing a personal essay:

• Choose a Compelling Topic : Select an experience or event that is meaningful and memorable. This could be a moment of personal growth, a challenge overcome, a cultural experience, or a significant relationship.
• Craft a Narrative : Create a personal essay structure like a story, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Introduce the situation or event, develop the narrative with details and reflections, and conclude with insights gained or lessons learned.
• Reflect and Analyze : Beyond recounting the events, reflect on why this experience is significant to you. What did you learn about yourself or others? How did this experience shape your beliefs, values, or future goals?
• Be Honest and Authentic : Personal essays thrive on authenticity. Write openly about your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the experience. Avoid exaggeration or embellishment; instead, focus on conveying genuine emotions and insights.
• Showcase Your Voice : Personal essays are an opportunity to showcase your unique perspective and voice. Use descriptive language, anecdotes, and personal observations to engage the reader and convey the impact of the experience on your life.
• Consider the Audience : Whether you're writing for a class assignment, college application, or job application, consider the expectations and interests of your audience. Tailor your essay to resonate with them while staying true to your own story.
• Edit and Revise : After drafting your essay, revise it for clarity, coherence, and impact. Check for grammar and punctuation errors, and ensure that your essay flows smoothly from start to finish.

Proper Format

Now that you know what is a personal essay, let’s start with the formatting specifics. The format for personal essay can be similar to most academic tasks with just a few distinct aspects. Let's examine the details from our paper writer :

If you’re required to write an essay using Harvard essay format , check out our detailed guide for an easy understanding. 

Personal Essay Topics

If you have got a lot of exciting stories to tell, your personal essay can shine brightly by interactively engaging the reader. Put in a little extra effort and dig deeper to find a unique or interesting experience or an unusual moment in your life.

Looking at a life lesson from another angle can turn into deep and purposeful subject matter. If you decide to pick a topic from a huge list of personal essay topics that you found on the internet, be precise and careful because not all of them can meet the requirements of your professor.

Personal Narrative Essay Topics

In this type of writing, try to explore a unique experience that creates a sense of conflict in your life. Explore how and why you were confused, annoyed, or hurt by the experience. Imagine your piece of paper as a place where you can freely express your emotions, discuss significant moments, & reflect on their impact on your life. This tip can help you create many really good essay topics, but if you need motivation, you can find some examples below.

• 'One small step that helped me skyrocket in my career!'
• 'Why controlling urges teaches you to master self-control.'
• 'People only learn from their own mistakes.'
• 'Life is not a one-dimensional path: it is curvier than a snake!'
• 'What I learned about conquering my fears.'
• 'The moment when I should have made a better choice.'
• 'The moment I overcame my public speaking fear.'
• 'How I conquered adversity with strength.'
• 'The impact of mentorship: valuable lessons learned from my mentor.'
• 'My journey to finding a place to belong.'

Personal Essay Topics on Specific Emotions

You may also talk about a specific event in your life that left a long-lasting impression on you. Usually, this type of essay reflects an incident that took place in your life and shifted it in some way. Dive deeper into your mind and find an event that is unique and personal to you. The weirder the occurrence, the more likely the essay will be engaging to read.

• 'How I ran away from fear: the power of exercising.'
• 'How I overcame the trauma through painting.'
• 'My quest to reclaim my cultural identity
• 'How I tackled cultural shock while studying abroad.'
• 'The year I went from being an amateur to a professional artist.'
• 'The best solo hike of my life
• 'The moment I beat my eating disorder and learned to love my true self.'
• 'How practicing gratitude helped me find beauty in the ordinary.'
• 'The power of letting go of toxic relationships
• 'How I lived up to my family's legacy.'

If you have not noticed, each of these titles can bring a fascinating vibe to the table. The names grab your attention, but you can only honestly know what they are about when reading them. That is the secret to a provocative title!

Cultural Identity and Heritage

• How family traditions shaped my cultural identity.
• My experience celebrating a traditional festival from my culture.
• Challenges and benefits of growing up in a multicultural household.
• How learning my native language has influenced my identity.
• Exploring my ancestral roots through genealogy research.
• Cultural stereotypes I've encountered and how they've affected me.
• Attending cultural events or ceremonies that are important to my heritage.
• How studying abroad influenced my understanding of my own culture.
• The influence of art or literature from my culture on my personal beliefs.
• Navigating the intersection of different cultural identities (e.g., biracial, bicultural).

Relationships and Connections

• A memorable romantic proposal or gesture that impacted our relationship.
• Lessons learned from a mentor or role model in my life.
• Dealing with cultural differences in relationships with friends or partners.
• A significant friendship that has shaped who I am today.
• Reconnecting with a family member after a long period of estrangement.
• How a long-distance relationship challenged and strengthened my connection with someone.
• The dynamics of sibling relationships in my family.
• How volunteering or community involvement has deepened my relationships.
• A falling-out with a friend and the lessons learned from the experience.
• The impact of a teacher or coach who believed in me during a challenging time.

Challenges and Resilience

• How I overcame a significant health crisis or injury.
• Ways I coped with the loss of a loved one and how it changed my perspective on life.
• Moving to a new country or city and adapting to a different culture.
• How I survived a natural disaster or traumatic event and rebuilt my life.
• Balancing academic or career challenges with personal goals and well-being.
• Overcoming a fear or phobia that held me back for a long time.
• Dealing with financial hardship and how it shaped my priorities.
• How I advocated for myself or others in the face of injustice or discrimination.
• Learning a new skill or achieving a personal goal despite initial setbacks.
• How I overcame a period of self-doubt and found strength in resilience strategies.

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Crafting an Outline for Personal Essay

Like most academic tasks, the personal essay can be easily structured into 5 paragraphs . This is one of the most important steps of personal narrative essay writing at any level. Your outline for personal essay will serve as a navigator, so you don't want to get off track. Understanding how to start personal essay, what to write in body paragraphs, and how to conclude it appropriately will be important.

Personal Essay Introduction

Start your writing with an introductory paragraph. As it gives your reader a clear understanding of what the story will be about. Employ a hook sentence to catch their attention and motivate them to read the rest of the paper with a whimsical thesis statement. It can be a narrative thesis, for example. But it must be written in one concise sentence that will bring the reader to the starting point of your essay.

Don't leave your readers in the dark in the introduction by explaining the important things such as:

• Who are the major characters?
• When and where is it taking place?
• What kind of story is it?

Here are some how to start a personal essay examples:

In the heart of bustling Tokyo, amidst the neon lights and throngs of commuters, I found myself unexpectedly lost in a labyrinth of narrow streets and unfamiliar faces. It was here, in the chaotic vibrancy of Shinjuku, that I discovered a deeper connection to my Japanese heritage, navigating not only the city's geography but also my own cultural identity.

Standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, the vast expanse of ancient rock and winding Colorado River below, I felt a surge of exhilaration and fear mingle within me. This monumental landscape not only challenged my fear of heights but also invited me to contemplate the sheer scale of nature's beauty and my place within it.

Personal Essay Body 

After creating an introduction, you must formulate three body paragraphs supporting your thesis statement. Each new point should contain its own body paragraph. Don't forget to make transitions from one paragraph to another to make sure that everything flows smoothly.

Usually, the body section is presented in the form of your experiences and your reflections on these events. You should also note the passage of time in your body sections, so make sure that the reader is aware of when and how each specific chapter took place.

How to Write a Conclusion Paragraph for Personal Essay?

Ultimately, it will be essential to wrap everything up and give your audience a sense of completeness by writing a proper conclusion. Restate your thesis, summarize the main points you have stated in body paragraphs, and leave your reader with a specific emotion, depending on the subject of your paper.

Readers should also discover a life lesson by going through the story. It is a moment where you show what you have learned from your experiences or how previous events have changed your life.

Tips for Personal Essay Writing Process

If you think you already possess sufficient knowledge of personal essays, we've yet to supply you with more information. Now let's explore the various stages of personal essay writing. Follow the list of valuable tips and advice without skipping a beat from our service where you can buy personal statement too.

Start with an Engaging Opening Sentence

Open your personal essay with an introductory section that will be engaging and interesting for your reader. In the opening section, introduce the principal characters of the story as well as the central theme or themes. It should also present the fundamental question of the essay.

Write from Your Unique Point of View

You are free to write from your point of view or in your own unique style. In contrast to other types of essays, writing from your perspective or in your personal manner is welcomed. For instance, if you are writing about a trip adventure, you might express your individual writing style by describing the sights and sounds that captured your attention. As a result, your writing will be more interesting and genuine and will better convey your experiences and feelings.

Take the Characters into Account

Be sure to describe your characters from all angles. Even though it is your real-life experience, you should still consider storytelling elements like the plot and characters. Using these ingredients in your writing will keep your reader engaged and help your essay flow smoothly.

Shed Light on a Deep Truth

Discuss your background experience with honesty and curiosity. Don't be afraid to uncover a hidden truth or a truth you didn't know was there at the time. Expose a thing that is uncomfortable or difficult for you to discuss. No matter who will read your essay. Whether it will be a teacher or somebody else, they will definitely appreciate your honesty and strive to share your experience.

Write a Rough Draft & Submit

After you have completed all the previous steps, it's time to write a rough draft. Writing a rough draft lets you get new ideas for a personal essay. Moreover, it's a great place to polish your essay and correct small grammar, spelling, and other types of mistakes. Get a second pair of eyes: No one can rate your writing as well as a neutral party. Once you have checked everything, you can start writing the final paper.

Before submitting your personal essay, double-check everything once again and make sure to present the central theme. After it, go through it and proofread your entire piece. Reading an essay full of grammatical mistakes is somewhat frustrating, which can be easily avoided. You can ask your classmate for help, so in that way, you will save each other. Don't forget to meet the deadline - and you're officially finished!

Personal Essay Examples

In our time it’s much more easier to find things on the Internet, and examples are not an exception. Remember one simple thing: not everything that you can find on the Internet is done correctly. If you need some inspiration to get started, you can find several examples of personal essays below, or you can use our free essay samples to sharpen your skills on any type of writing.

As we scratched the surface of the personal essay writing process and delved deep into the specific stages of creating a flawless paper, we hope you gained some valuable insights. These tips are all you'll ever need to inspire readers or even WOW the admissions officers!

If you want our experienced writers to help you with any writing assignment, whether a persuasive essay , creative nonfiction, or any type of college essay, hit us up with your ' do my homework for me ' request and consider it done with the highest caliber!

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How Do I Write a Personal Essay?

What are examples of personal essay, what are the elements of a good personal essay.

Daniel Parker

is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

• Updated existing information
• Added topics
• Added the sections on what is a personal essay and what to consider when writing one
• Personal Narrative Essays . (n.d.). https://www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/Personal%20Narrative%20Essays.pdf  
• Pavic, H. (2023, November 14). Crafting Compelling Personal Essays . Lakewood University. https://lakewood.edu/2023/11/crafting-compelling-personal-essays/#/  

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How to Write a Personal Essay

Last Updated: February 2, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 311,430 times.

A good personal essay can move and inspire readers. It can also leave the reader unsettled, uncertain, and full of more questions than answers. To write an effective personal essay, you will need to first understand the structure of a personal essay. You will then need to brainstorm ideas for the personal essay so you are ready when it is time to sit down and craft your essay.

Starting Your Personal Essay

• For example, maybe you want to write about an experience where you learned about failure. You may think the time you failed a pop quiz in class. Though the quiz may have seemed insignificant to you at the time, you realized later that failing the pop quiz forced you to reassess your goals and motivated you to get a passing grade. Seen from a certain angle, your small failure became a gateway to perseverance and determination.

• This could be a seemingly small moment that ended up having a profound influence on you later, such the first time you experienced disgust as a child or the look on your mother’s face when you told her you were gay. Try to really dig into why you were hurt or compelled to overcome a challenge in this moment in your essay.
• Remember that moments charged with strong emotion will often be more engaging to readers. Having a strong reaction to a specific moment will allow you to write passionately about it and keep your reader interested in your essay.

• For example, you may focus on the day you found out your father cheated on your mother, or the week you mourned the death of a loved one. Think about a heavy experience in your life that shaped who you are today.
• You may also decide to write about a seemingly light topic or event, such as your first ride on a roller coaster, or the first time you went on a cruise with your partner. No matter what event you choose, make sure it is an event that triggered a strong emotional response, ranging from anger to confusion to unabashed joy.

• For example, you may think about why you and your mother stopped speaking years ago or why you are no longer close to a childhood friend. You may also look at past romantic relationships that failed and consider why they did not succeed or a relationship with a mentor that went sour.
• This could also be about someone that you're close with. For example, you could write about a moment that tested your relationship with a close friend.

• Ask yourself questions about the current event. For example, how does the current event intersect with your own experiences? How can you explore a current social issue or event using your personal thoughts, experiences, and emotions?
• For example, you may have an interest in writing about Syrian refugee camps in Europe. You may then focus your personal essay on your own status as a refugee in America and how your experiences a refugee have shaped the person you are now. This will allow you to explore a current event from a personal perspective, rather than simply talk about the current event from a distant, journalistic perspective.

• The introductory section should include “the hook”, opening lines where you catch the reader’s attention. It should also have some sort of narrative thesis, which is often the beginning of an important event in the piece or a theme that connects your experience to a universal idea.
• The body sections should include supporting evidence for your narrative thesis and/or the key themes in your piece. Often, this is in the form of your experiences and your reflections on your experiences. You should also note the passage of time in your body sections so the reader is aware of when and how certain events occurred.
• The concluding section should include a conclusion to the events and experiences discussed in the essay. You should also have a moral of the story moment, where you reflect on what you learned from your experiences or how your experiences changed your life.
• In the past, it was advised to have five paragraphs total, one paragraph for the introductory section, three paragraphs for the body section, and one paragraph for the concluding section. But you can have more or less than five paragraphs for your personal essay as long as you have all three sections.

Writing the Personal Essay

• Don't begin with a line that explains exactly what is going to be discussed in, such as, “In this essay, I will be discussing my fraught relationship with my mother." Instead, draw your reader into your piece and still provide all the information needed in your opening line.
• Start instead with a specific scene that contains the key characters of the essay and allows you discuss the central question or theme. Doing this will allow you to introduce the reader to the characters and the central conflict right away.
• For example, if you are writing about your fraught relationship with your mother, you may focus on a specific memory where you both disagreed or clashed. This could be the time you and your mother fought over a seemingly insignificant item, or the time you argued about a family secret.
• Try to use an active voice instead of a passive voice as much as possible when you're writing your essay.

• This writing voice may be conversational, much like how you might speak to a good friend or a family member. Or, the writing voice may be more reflective and internal, where you question your own assumptions and thoughts about the subject of the essay.
• Many personal essays are written in the first person, using “I”. You may decide to write in the present tense to make the story feel immediate, or past tense, which will allow you to reflect more on specific events or moments.
• Include vivid sensory descriptions in your essay to help the reader connect with your unique perspective. Describing touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound can help the reader invest in your story and feel like they're there with you.

• You can also include lines of dialogue spoken by your characters, based on your memory of the event. However, you should limit dialogue to only a few lines a page, as too much dialogue can start to veer away from personal essay and more toward fiction.

• You may use a plot outline to organize your essay. The plot points should act as supporting evidence for the central question or issue of the essay.

• It’s important to remember that though an experience may appear to have all the drama necessary to make a good personal essay, it may be a drama that is too familiar to the reader already. Be wary of experiences that are familiar and filled with pathos that a reader may have experienced before.
• If you are writing about the sudden death of a loved one, for example, it may feel important and deep to you. But the reader will likely know what to expect of an essay about a dead loved one, and may not relate to your essay because they did not know the loved one like you did.
• Instead, you may try to uncover a truth that is deeper than “I am sad my loved one died.” Think about what the loved one meant to you and how the loved one affected your life, in positive and negative ways. This could lead to the uncovering of a deeper truth and a stronger personal essay.

Polishing Your Essay

• For example, you may use metaphor to describe the experience of telling your mother you are gay. You may describe your mother’s face as “impenetrable, a sudden wall”. Or you may use a simile, such as “my mother’s reaction was silent and stunned, as if she had been struck by lightning.”

• As you read it out loud, you should highlight any sentences that are confusing or unclear as well as sentences that do not appear as strong as the rest of the draft. You should also make sure your characters are well developed and your essay follows some kind of structure or sense of plot. Consider if you are hitting a deeper truth in your draft and what you can do to get there if it is not yet on the page.Revising your essay will only make it that much stronger.

• When you are revising, you should consider if your content is really worth writing about, if you are writing about a topic or subject you are passionate about, and if your reader will understand your writing. You want to avoid confusing your reader, as this can turn her off from reading to the end of your essay.
• You should also make sure the focus and themes of the essay are clear. Your experiences should center around a central question, issue, or theme. This will ensure your personal essay is well written and concise.
• Avoid relying on spellcheck to catch all of the spelling and grammar errors in your essay.

Expert Q&A

• To get a better sense of the genre, you should read highly crafted examples of personal essay. There are several known personal essays that are often taught in academia, including "Notes of a Native Son” by James Baldwin, “The Death of a Moth” by Virginia Woolf, “Shipping Out” by David Foster Wallace, “The White Album” by Joan Didion, and “We Do Abortions Here” by Sallie Tisdale. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Ask yourself several questions as you read the examples, such as: How does the writer introduce the subject of their essay? How does the writer explore the subject for a personal perspective? What are the key themes in the essay? How does the writer connect their personal experiences to a universal theme or idea? How does the writer use humor or wit in the essay? What is the concluding moral of the essay? Does the end of the essay leave you satisfied, unsettled, curious, or all of the above? Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

Sample Essay and Template

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://owl.excelsior.edu/writing-process/thesis-sentence/thesis-sentence-angles/
• ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 20 May 2020.
• ↑ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/englishcomp1/chapter/writing-a-narrative-or-personal-essay/
• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/personal-essay/
• ↑ https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-write-a-personal-essay
• ↑ https://stlcc.edu/student-support/academic-success-and-tutoring/writing-center/writing-resources/point-of-view-in-academic-writing.aspx
• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/story-plot/
• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/literary-devices/
• ↑ http://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/vandybloggers/2013/09/how-to-write-your-personal-essay/
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/revising-drafts/

About This Article

To write a personal essay, start by deciding on an experience that affected your life in some way, such as how failing a pop quiz in class made you change your goals. Next, draft an outline containing the points you want to make, and including an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. When writing, start your essay with an engaging scene that introduces the characters and main theme, then develop the characters in the body section so they're well-rounded. Conclude by summing up what you learned from the experience. For tips on how to include a plot in your essay and how to proofread your work, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Table of Contents

Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, using first person in an academic essay: when is it okay.

• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by Jenna Pack Sheffield

Related Concepts: Academic Writing – How to Write for the Academic Community ; First-Person Point of View ; Rhetorical Analysis; Rhetorical Stance ; The First Person ; Voice

In order to determine whether or not you can speak or write from the first-person point of view, you need to engage in rhetorical analysis. You need to question whether your audience values and accepts the first person as a legitimate rhetorical stance. Source:Many times, high school students are told not to use first person (“I,” “we,” “my,” “us,” and so forth) in their essays. As a college student, you should realize that this is a rule that can and should be broken—at the right time, of course.

By now, you’ve probably written a personal essay, memoir, or narrative that used first person. After all, how could you write a personal essay about yourself, for instance, without using the dreaded “I” word?

However, academic essays differ from personal essays; they are typically researched and use a formal tone . Because of these differences, when students write an academic essay, they quickly shy away from first person because of what they have been told in high school or because they believe that first person feels too informal for an intellectual, researched text. While first person can definitely be overused in academic essays (which is likely why your teachers tell you not to use it), there are moments in a paper when it is not only appropriate, but also more effective and/or persuasive to use first person. The following are a few instances in which it is appropriate to use first person in an academic essay:

• Including a personal anecdote: You have more than likely been told that you need a strong “hook” to draw your readers in during an introduction. Sometimes, the best hook is a personal anecdote, or a short amusing story about yourself. In this situation, it would seem unnatural not to use first-person pronouns such as “I” and “myself.” Your readers will appreciate the personal touch and will want to keep reading! (For more information about incorporating personal anecdotes into your writing, see “ Employing Narrative in an Essay .”)
• Establishing your credibility ( ethos ): Ethos is a term stemming back to Ancient Greece that essentially means “character” in the sense of trustworthiness or credibility. A writer can establish her ethos by convincing the reader that she is trustworthy source. Oftentimes, the best way to do that is to get personal—tell the reader a little bit about yourself. (For more information about ethos, see “ Ethos .”)For instance, let’s say you are writing an essay arguing that dance is a sport. Using the occasional personal pronoun to let your audience know that you, in fact, are a classically trained dancer—and have the muscles and scars to prove it—goes a long way in establishing your credibility and proving your argument. And this use of first person will not distract or annoy your readers because it is purposeful.
• Clarifying passive constructions : Often, when writers try to avoid using first person in essays, they end up creating confusing, passive sentences . For instance, let’s say I am writing an essay about different word processing technologies, and I want to make the point that I am using Microsoft Word to write this essay. If I tried to avoid first-person pronouns, my sentence might read: “Right now, this essay is being written in Microsoft Word.” While this sentence is not wrong, it is what we call passive—the subject of the sentence is being acted upon because there is no one performing the action. To most people, this sentence sounds better: “Right now, I am writing this essay in Microsoft Word.” Do you see the difference? In this case, using first person makes your writing clearer.
• Stating your position in relation to others: Sometimes, especially in an argumentative essay, it is necessary to state your opinion on the topic . Readers want to know where you stand, and it is sometimes helpful to assert yourself by putting your own opinions into the essay. You can imagine the passive sentences (see above) that might occur if you try to state your argument without using the word “I.” The key here is to use first person sparingly. Use personal pronouns enough to get your point across clearly without inundating your readers with this language.

Now, the above list is certainly not exhaustive. The best thing to do is to use your good judgment, and you can always check with your instructor if you are unsure of his or her perspective on the issue. Ultimately, if you feel that using first person has a purpose or will have a strategic effect on your audience, then it is probably fine to use first-person pronouns. Just be sure not to overuse this language, at the risk of sounding narcissistic, self-centered, or unaware of others’ opinions on a topic.

Recommended Readings:

• A Synthesis of Professor Perspectives on Using First and Third Person in Academic Writing
• Finding the Bunny: How to Make a Personal Connection to Your Writing
• First-Person Point of View

Brevity – Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow – How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity – Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style – The DNA of Powerful Writing

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• Applying to graduate school
• How to Write Your Personal Statement | Strategies & Examples

How to Write Your Personal Statement | Strategies & Examples

Published on February 12, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on July 3, 2023.

A personal statement is a short essay of around 500–1,000 words, in which you tell a compelling story about who you are, what drives you, and why you’re applying.

To write a successful personal statement for a graduate school application , don’t just summarize your experience; instead, craft a focused narrative in your own voice. Aim to demonstrate three things:

• Your personality: what are your interests, values, and motivations?
• Your talents: what can you bring to the program?
• Your goals: what do you hope the program will do for you?

This article guides you through some winning strategies to build a strong, well-structured personal statement for a master’s or PhD application. You can download the full examples below.

Urban Planning Psychology History

Table of contents

Getting started with your personal statement, the introduction: start with an attention-grabbing opening, the main body: craft your narrative, the conclusion: look ahead, revising, editing, and proofreading your personal statement, frequently asked questions, other interesting articles.

Before you start writing, the first step is to understand exactly what’s expected of you. If the application gives you a question or prompt for your personal statement, the most important thing is to respond to it directly.

For example, you might be asked to focus on the development of your personal identity; challenges you have faced in your life; or your career motivations. This will shape your focus and emphasis—but you still need to find your own unique approach to answering it.

There’s no universal template for a personal statement; it’s your chance to be creative and let your own voice shine through. But there are strategies you can use to build a compelling, well-structured story.

The first paragraph of your personal statement should set the tone and lead smoothly into the story you want to tell.

Strategy 1: Open with a concrete scene

An effective way to catch the reader’s attention is to set up a scene that illustrates something about your character and interests. If you’re stuck, try thinking about:

• A personal experience that changed your perspective
• A story from your family’s history
• A memorable teacher or learning experience
• An unusual or unexpected encounter

To write an effective scene, try to go beyond straightforward description; start with an intriguing sentence that pulls the reader in, and give concrete details to create a convincing atmosphere.

Strategy 2: Open with your motivations

To emphasize your enthusiasm and commitment, you can start by explaining your interest in the subject you want to study or the career path you want to follow.

Just stating that it interests you isn’t enough: first, you need to figure out why you’re interested in this field:

• Is it a longstanding passion or a recent discovery?
• Does it come naturally or have you had to work hard at it?
• How does it fit into the rest of your life?
• What do you think it contributes to society?

Tips for the introduction

• Don’t start on a cliche: avoid phrases like “Ever since I was a child…” or “For as long as I can remember…”
• Do save the introduction for last. If you’re struggling to come up with a strong opening, leave it aside, and note down any interesting ideas that occur to you as you write the rest of the personal statement.

Once you’ve set up the main themes of your personal statement, you’ll delve into more detail about your experiences and motivations.

To structure the body of your personal statement, there are various strategies you can use.

Strategy 1: Describe your development over time

One of the simplest strategies is to give a chronological overview of key experiences that have led you to apply for graduate school.

• What first sparked your interest in the field?
• Which classes, assignments, classmates, internships, or other activities helped you develop your knowledge and skills?
• Where do you want to go next? How does this program fit into your future plans?

Don’t try to include absolutely everything you’ve done—pick out highlights that are relevant to your application. Aim to craft a compelling narrative that shows how you’ve changed and actively developed yourself.

My interest in psychology was first sparked early in my high school career. Though somewhat scientifically inclined, I found that what interested me most was not the equations we learned about in physics and chemistry, but the motivations and perceptions of my fellow students, and the subtle social dynamics that I observed inside and outside the classroom. I wanted to learn how our identities, beliefs, and behaviours are shaped through our interactions with others, so I decided to major in Social Psychology. My undergraduate studies deepened my understanding of, and fascination with, the interplay between an individual mind and its social context.During my studies, I acquired a solid foundation of knowledge about concepts like social influence and group dynamics, but I also took classes on various topics not strictly related to my major. I was particularly interested in how other fields intersect with psychology—the classes I took on media studies, biology, and literature all enhanced my understanding of psychological concepts by providing different lenses through which to look at the issues involved.

Strategy 2: Own your challenges and obstacles

If your path to graduate school hasn’t been easy or straightforward, you can turn this into a strength, and structure your personal statement as a story of overcoming obstacles.

• Is your social, cultural or economic background underrepresented in the field? Show how your experiences will contribute a unique perspective.
• Do you have gaps in your resume or lower-than-ideal grades? Explain the challenges you faced and how you dealt with them.

Don’t focus too heavily on negatives, but use them to highlight your positive qualities. Resilience, resourcefulness and perseverance make you a promising graduate school candidate.

Growing up working class, urban decay becomes depressingly familiar. The sight of a row of abandoned houses does not surprise me, but it continues to bother me. Since high school, I have been determined to pursue a career in urban planning. While people of my background experience the consequences of urban planning decisions first-hand, we are underrepresented in the field itself. Ironically, given my motivation, my economic background has made my studies challenging. I was fortunate enough to be awarded a scholarship for my undergraduate studies, but after graduation I took jobs in unrelated fields to help support my parents. In the three years since, I have not lost my ambition. Now I am keen to resume my studies, and I believe I can bring an invaluable perspective to the table: that of the people most impacted by the decisions of urban planners.

Strategy 3: Demonstrate your knowledge of the field

Especially if you’re applying for a PhD or another research-focused program, it’s a good idea to show your familiarity with the subject and the department. Your personal statement can focus on the area you want to specialize in and reflect on why it matters to you.

• Reflect on the topics or themes that you’ve focused on in your studies. What draws you to them?
• Discuss any academic achievements, influential teachers, or other highlights of your education.
• Talk about the questions you’d like to explore in your research and why you think they’re important.

The personal statement isn’t a research proposal , so don’t go overboard on detail—but it’s a great opportunity to show your enthusiasm for the field and your capacity for original thinking.

In applying for this research program, my intention is to build on the multidisciplinary approach I have taken in my studies so far, combining knowledge from disparate fields of study to better understand psychological concepts and issues. The Media Psychology program stands out to me as the perfect environment for this kind of research, given its researchers’ openness to collaboration across diverse fields. I am impressed by the department’s innovative interdisciplinary projects that focus on the shifting landscape of media and technology, and I hope that my own work can follow a similarly trailblazing approach. More specifically, I want to develop my understanding of the intersection of psychology and media studies, and explore how media psychology theories and methods might be applied to neurodivergent minds. I am interested not only in media psychology but also in psychological disorders, and how the two interact. This is something I touched on during my undergraduate studies and that I’m excited to delve into further.

Strategy 4: Discuss your professional ambitions

Especially if you’re applying for a more professionally-oriented program (such as an MBA), it’s a good idea to focus on concrete goals and how the program will help you achieve them.

• If your career is just getting started, show how your character is suited to the field, and explain how graduate school will help you develop your talents.
• If you have already worked in the profession, show what you’ve achieved so far, and explain how the program will allow you to take the next step.
• If you are planning a career change, explain what has driven this decision and how your existing experience will help you succeed.

Don’t just state the position you want to achieve. You should demonstrate that you’ve put plenty of thought into your career plans and show why you’re well-suited to this profession.

One thing that fascinated me about the field during my undergraduate studies was the sheer number of different elements whose interactions constitute a person’s experience of an urban environment. Any number of factors could transform the scene I described at the beginning: What if there were no bus route? Better community outreach in the neighborhood? Worse law enforcement? More or fewer jobs available in the area? Some of these factors are out of the hands of an urban planner, but without taking them all into consideration, the planner has an incomplete picture of their task. Through further study I hope to develop my understanding of how these disparate elements combine and interact to create the urban environment. I am interested in the social, psychological and political effects our surroundings have on our lives. My studies will allow me to work on projects directly affecting the kinds of working-class urban communities I know well. I believe I can bring my own experiences, as well as my education, to bear upon the problem of improving infrastructure and quality of life in these communities.

Tips for the main body

• Don’t rehash your resume by trying to summarize everything you’ve done so far; the personal statement isn’t about listing your academic or professional experience, but about reflecting, evaluating, and relating it to broader themes.
• Do make your statements into stories: Instead of saying you’re hard-working and self-motivated, write about your internship where you took the initiative to start a new project. Instead of saying you’ve always loved reading, reflect on a novel or poem that changed your perspective.

Your conclusion should bring the focus back to the program and what you hope to get out of it, whether that’s developing practical skills, exploring intellectual questions, or both.

Emphasize the fit with your specific interests, showing why this program would be the best way to achieve your aims.

Strategy 1: What do you want to know?

If you’re applying for a more academic or research-focused program, end on a note of curiosity: what do you hope to learn, and why do you think this is the best place to learn it?

If there are specific classes or faculty members that you’re excited to learn from, this is the place to express your enthusiasm.

Strategy 2: What do you want to do?

If you’re applying for a program that focuses more on professional training, your conclusion can look to your career aspirations: what role do you want to play in society, and why is this program the best choice to help you get there?

Tips for the conclusion

• Don’t summarize what you’ve already said. You have limited space in a personal statement, so use it wisely!
• Do think bigger than yourself: try to express how your individual aspirations relate to your local community, your academic field, or society more broadly. It’s not just about what you’ll get out of graduate school, but about what you’ll be able to give back.

You’ll be expected to do a lot of writing in graduate school, so make a good first impression: leave yourself plenty of time to revise and polish the text.

Your style doesn’t have to be as formal as other kinds of academic writing, but it should be clear, direct and coherent. Make sure that each paragraph flows smoothly from the last, using topic sentences and transitions to create clear connections between each part.

Don’t be afraid to rewrite and restructure as much as necessary. Since you have a lot of freedom in the structure of a personal statement, you can experiment and move information around to see what works best.

Finally, it’s essential to carefully proofread your personal statement and fix any language errors. Before you submit your application, consider investing in professional personal statement editing . For $150, you have the peace of mind that your personal statement is grammatically correct, strong in term of your arguments, and free of awkward mistakes.

A statement of purpose is usually more formal, focusing on your academic or professional goals. It shouldn’t include anything that isn’t directly relevant to the application.

A personal statement can often be more creative. It might tell a story that isn’t directly related to the application, but that shows something about your personality, values, and motivations.

However, both types of document have the same overall goal: to demonstrate your potential as a graduate student and s how why you’re a great match for the program.

The typical length of a personal statement for graduate school applications is between 500 and 1,000 words.

Different programs have different requirements, so always check if there’s a minimum or maximum length and stick to the guidelines. If there is no recommended word count, aim for no more than 1-2 pages.

If you’re applying to multiple graduate school programs, you should tailor your personal statement to each application.

Some applications provide a prompt or question. In this case, you might have to write a new personal statement from scratch: the most important task is to respond to what you have been asked.

If there’s no prompt or guidelines, you can re-use the same idea for your personal statement – but change the details wherever relevant, making sure to emphasize why you’re applying to this specific program.

If the application also includes other essays, such as a statement of purpose , you might have to revise your personal statement to avoid repeating the same information.

If you want to know more about college essays , academic writing , and AI tools , make sure to check out some of our other language articles with explanations, examples, and quizzes.

College essays

• College essay examples
• College essay format
• College essay style
• College essay length
• Diversity essays
• Scholarship essays

Academic writing

• Writing process
• Avoiding repetition
• Literature review
• Conceptual framework
• Dissertation outline
• Thesis acknowledgements
• Burned or burnt
• Canceled or cancelled
• Dreamt or dreamed
• Gray or grey
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How to Write a Personal Essay

Published September 27, 2020. Updated May 20, 2022.

Personal Essay Definition

A personal essay is an essay that tells about you, about some aspect of yourself and your life that you wish to share.

Overview of a Personal Essay

A personal essay is all about the one who is writing the essay, but it is structured and organized in a predictable pattern. A personal essay is a part narration (telling a story), part description, and part reflection (analyzing something that happened and attributing meaning to it). You can write a full-length personal essay without doing research. This kind of essay helps to show your writing skills and abilities and helps the reader get to know you and your writing voice. However, a personal essay still needs a focus.

This page covers the following points:

Key Takeaways

What is a personal essay, parts of an essay, why would you be asked to write a personal essay, what a personal essay needs to have, possible topics to write about.

• A personal essay is about you, about some aspect of yourself and your life that you wish to share
• A teacher might assign a personal essay as a way to get to know you and your writing style
• A personal essay still needs to follow the conventions and structures of essay writing
• A personal essay should have a well-defined beginning, middle, and end

If you look at the name, a personal essay is an essay about YOU. You know something about yourself, right? This should be a piece of cake to write!

Now, hang on just a second…

Yes, it’s about you, but don’t forget that second part of the name: essay. It is still an essay that needs to follow the conventions and structures of essay writing.

So a personal essay is not just five paragraphs that go on and on about your favorite movies.

A personal essay is all about you, but it is structured and organized in a predictable pattern. It is part narration (telling a story), part description, and part reflection (analyzing something that happened and attributing meaning to it).

To help you write a personal essay, this guide will:

• Tell you why a teacher might assign a personal essay
• List what a personal essay needs to have
• Give you a list of possible topics to write about
• Take you through the parts of an essay, with a sample

Worried about your writing? Submit your paper for a Chegg Writing essay check , or for an Expert Check proofreading . Both can help you find and fix potential writing issues.

Most essays have three parts: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

Think of the organization of an essay like this:

• Intro – Tell your reader what you’re going to write about
• Body – Write about it
• Conclusion – Tell them what you wrote about

Let’s go through each part of a personal essay. Each part includes a sample.

Introduction

You want to begin your essay with a hook . A hook is an interesting opening that “catches” your reader and makes them want to read more. Your hook is usually the first sentence or two. Since this is a personal essay, it’s fine to have your hook be something interesting about you.

After you’ve hooked the reader, you want to give some context or background information. Think of each sentence in your intro as a stepping point. Each sentence brings you closer to your thesis statement.

Once you’ve given some context, write a thesis statement, which tells the reader exactly what they’re going to read about. Since it’s a personal essay, this should preview for the reader what they’re going to learn about you. Think of it as a map to the rest of your essay.

Sample Introduction

Can you identify the hook, background information, and thesis statement in this sample?

Did you know that children can “absorb” languages without even trying? Until the age of about nine, children acquire languages, and they can acquire more than one at a time. After that age, new languages must be learned, which is a long, slow process. I acquired two languages as a child because my parents spoke Spanish at home, but I learned English at school. Then, in university, I decided to try to learn a third language: French. After years of learning and some practicing, I can communicate in basic French.

A typical essay has between one and three body paragraphs, although you can write as many as you need (or as many as your teacher assigns you). Regardless of how many body paragraphs, they will all be organized in a similar manner.

Start with a topic sentence to show your reader what is coming up. This is a general sentence that gives an overview of that paragraph.

The substance of a personal body paragraph is, of course, information about you. Whatever you’re sharing with the reader goes here.

End a body paragraph with a sentence that summarizes what you wrote or that leads into the next paragraph.

Sample Body Paragraphs

Can you identify the topic sentences? Is all of the information in the body paragraphs about the writer?

In university, I chose to study French for two reasons. First, I thought it was the most beautiful language I’d ever heard. Second, I wanted the experience of learning a language, of learning vocabulary and grammar little by little. I took a French class every semester of college and by the time I graduated… well, the truth is that I still couldn’t communicate easily. But I was determined to continue learning until I could.

In graduate school, I needed an elective, so I chose a French class. I took a placement test and was placed in French 102. At first, I was devastated – four years of college French and I was back in French 102? But I decided to embrace the opportunity to keep learning. My decision paid off. Because I was a little older, I approached my French in a more mature way. I was able to understand the grammar better, and I was less shy about speaking up. One of our assignments was to give a three-minute presentation in French about a French topic, and I spoke about cheese. I will admit that a lot of translation took place while I was writing my presentation, but the presentation was a success.

After graduate school, I took the opportunity to spend six months in a French-speaking country. At first, I was very nervous. We have all heard the stereotype of finicky French people who won’t talk to you if your French isn’t perfect. That wasn’t my experience at all; I was able to communicate enough to buy a baguette every morning, ask for directions, order a pizza, and generally make my way in this French-speaking country.

Before you turn in that paper, don’t forget to cite your sources in APA format , MLA format , or a style of your choice.

This is how your essay ends and is the last impression your reader takes away.

Conclude your essay by tying back to your thesis statement (from the introduction). Then, summarize the main points of your essay.

If you want, end with a closing statement: an idea that you want your reader to walk away with. If you haven’t included a reflection in the body paragraphs, the closing statement would be a good place to put it.

Sample Conclusion

Can you identify the sentence that ties back to the thesis statement? Can you identify the summary of the main points? Can you identify a closing statement?

Even now, I wouldn’t say I’m a fluent French speaker. Will I ever be? I don’t know, but I can proudly say that I am able to communicate in French well enough to make myself understood and to understand what other people tell me, even if I often have to ask, “Can you speak more slowly, please?” in French. Learning another language is not an easy process. You have to really want it because it will take time and effort. However, if you are dedicated, you can definitely learn another language successfully enough to communicate. 

Example Personal Essay on Learning French

Example personal essay on loving writing.

A teacher might assign a personal essay for a variety of reasons, especially early on in the semester or school year. Here are a few of those reasons:

• You might need to brainstorm or outline what you want to write about, but you shouldn’t need research. After all, you’re writing about YOU.
• Your teacher will be able to see how you write. Can you structure sentences? Are your ideas coherent? Are you creative? How is your vocabulary?
• Do you know what the introduction, body, and conclusion are? Do you include a thesis statement and paragraphs? Do you clearly transition your ideas?
• At the beginning of a school term, this is an excellent way for a teacher to get to know their students. What you choose to write about will reveal who you are, and how you choose to write tells the teacher something about your writing voice.

It would be nice to think you can just write whatever you want about yourself, but that would not necessarily be an essay.

A personal essay still needs to have a focus: what is it about? It won’t address everything about you. This is an essay, not a 20-volume encyclopedia.

A personal essay still needs to be organized. It needs to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The reader should feel like they took a trip to a particular destination, not like they’re lost in the woods, wandering aimlessly.

A personal essay still needs to have developed characters. Characters? Yes. They don’t just appear in fiction. Whoever populates your essay – whether it’s just you, or you and your family, or you and your friends – they are considered characters, and they should be developed.

A personal essay still needs to have consistency in point of view and verb tense. This sounds more technical, but because you’ll be writing about yourself, you want to make sure your point of view remains consistent. Adopting the first-person point of view is perfectly acceptable. Write “I” all over the place! But don’t start referring to yourself as “she” or “he” halfway through, because that will confuse your reader. Also, keep your verb tenses consistent. Are you writing in the present tense? Be consistent. Are you writing in the past tense? Be consistent. Will you jump back and forth in time? Make sure you don’t lose your reader when you make those switches.

A personal essay still needs to make a point by the end. Reflect on what this all meant. Why did you choose to write about this ? Let’s say you write about your relationship with your grandmother. At the end of the essay, your reader should understand what was important about your relationship with her. How did she impact you? How is your life different, better, sweeter because of your relationship with her? Make sure your essay answers those questions for your readers.

Since a personal essay is, you know, personal, it’s better to choose a topic that resonates with you. If the topic makes you feel meh , don’t choose that one! Don’t like any of these? Choose something else that you want to share!

For each of these topics, you can write about something positive or negative, as long as it was meaningful to you:

• Your relationship with a family member
• Your relationship with a friend or loved one
• An animal, such as a pet, that affected you
• A place where you felt comfortable
• A place where you felt uncomfortable
• An experience you had growing up
• A situation that didn’t turn out the way you expected
• A difficult lesson you learned
• A strong belief you have
• A goal you accomplished with hard work

Published September 7, 2020.

By Halina Stolar. Halina has a master’s degree in teaching and taught English as a Second Language and writing for almost 15 years overseas. She now works as a freelance writer and geeks out over grammar for fun.

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No pronouns allowed in essays?

I am just downright confused. I just received instructions for the essays for a class. The instructions include not using pronouns in essays and in particular to "avoid the use of the words: this, that, he, she, it, they..etc."

I obviously wouldn't use first person pronouns, use a pronoun without an antecedent, etc, but I've never heard of using NO pronouns as best practice for academic writing. I'm having a hard time imaging an essay without any pronouns. It seems like the writing would be chunky and redundant.

The rubric shows a 20% grade reduction for using pronouns.

Is this really a thing?

More From Forbes

How not to write your college essay.

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If you are looking for the “secret formula” for writing a “winning” college essay, you have come to the wrong place. The reality is there is no silver bullet or strategy to write your way to an acceptance. There is not one topic or approach that will guarantee a favorable outcome.

At the end of the day, every admission office just wants to know more about you, what you value, and what excites you. They want to hear about your experiences through your own words and in your own voice. As you set out to write your essay, you will no doubt get input (both sought-after and unsolicited) on what to write. But how about what NOT Notcoin to write? There are avoidable blunders that applicants frequently make in drafting their essays. I asked college admission leaders, who have read thousands of submissions, to share their thoughts.

Don’t Go In There

There is wide consensus on this first one, so before you call on your Jedi mind tricks or predictive analytics, listen to the voices of a diverse range of admission deans. Peter Hagan, executive director of admissions at Syracuse University, sums it up best, saying, “I would recommend that students try not to get inside of our heads. He adds, “Too often the focus is on what they think we want.”

Andy Strickler, dean of admission and financial aid at Connecticut College agrees, warning, “Do NOT get caught in the trap of trying to figure out what is going to impress the admission committee. You have NO idea who is going to read your essay and what is going to connect with them. So, don't try to guess that.” Victoria Romero, vice president for enrollment, at Scripps College adds, “Do not write about something you don’t care about.” She says, “I think students try to figure out what an admission officer wants to read, and the reality is the reader begins every next essay with no expectations about the content THEY want to read.” Chrystal Russell, dean of admission at Hampden-Sydney College, agrees, saying, “If you're not interested in writing it, we will not be interested when reading it.” Jay Jacobs, vice provost for enrollment management at the University of Vermont elaborates, advising. “Don’t try to make yourself sound any different than you are.” He says, “The number one goal for admission officers is to better understand the applicant, what they like to do, what they want to do, where they spend the majority of their time, and what makes them tick. If a student stays genuine to that, it will shine through and make an engaging and successful essay.”

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Don’t Be Artificial

The headlines about college admission are dominated by stories about artificial intelligence and the college essay. Let’s set some ground rules–to allow ChatGPT or some other tool to do your work is not only unethical, it is also unintelligent. The only worse mistake you could make is to let another human write your essay for you. Instead of preoccupying yourself with whether or not colleges are using AI detection software (most are not), spend your time focused on how best to express yourself authentically. Rick Clark is the executive director of strategic student success at Georgia Institute of Technology, one of the first institutions to clearly outline their AI policy for applicants. He says, “Much of a college application is devoted to lines, boxes, and numbers. Essays and supplements are the one place to establish connection, personality, and distinction. AI, in its current state, is terrible at all three.” He adds, “My hope is that students will use ChatGPT or other tools for brainstorming and to get started, but then move quickly into crafting an essay that will provide insight and value.”

Don’t Overdo It

Michael Stefanowicz, vice president for enrollment management at Landmark College says, “You can only cover so much detail about yourself in an admission essay, and a lot of students feel pressure to tell their life story or choose their most defining experience to date as an essay topic. Admission professionals know that you’re sharing just one part of your lived experience in the essay.” He adds, “Some of the favorite essays I’ve read have been episodic, reflecting on the way you’ve found meaning in a seemingly ordinary experience, advice you’ve lived out, a mistake you’ve learned from, or a special tradition in your life.” Gary Ross, vice president for admission and financial aid at Colgate University adds, “More than a few applicants each year craft essays that talk about the frustration and struggles they have experienced in identifying a topic for their college application essay. Presenting your college application essay as a smorgasbord of topics that ultimately landed on the cutting room floor does not give us much insight into an applicant.”

Don’t Believe In Magic

Jason Nevinger, senior director of admission at the University of Rochester warns, “Be skeptical of anyone or any company telling you, ‘This is the essay that got me into _____.’ There is no magic topic, approach, sentence structure, or prose that got any student into any institution ever.” Social media is littered with advertisements promising strategic essay help. Don’t waste your time, energy, or money trying to emulate a certain style, topic, or tone. Liz Cheron is chief executive officer for the Coalition for College and former assistant vice president of enrollment & dean of admissions at Northeastern University. She agrees with Nevinger, saying “Don't put pressure on yourself to find the perfect, slam dunk topic. The vast majority of college essays do exactly what they're supposed to do–they are well-written and tell the admission officer more about the student in that student's voice–and that can take many different forms.”

Don’t Over Recycle

Beatrice Atkinson-Myers, associate director of global recruitment at the University of California at Santa Cruz tells students, “Do not use the same response for each university; research and craft your essay to match the program at the university you are interested in studying. Don't waste time telling me things I can read elsewhere in your application. Use your essay to give the admissions officer insights into your motivations, interests, and thinking. Don't make your essay the kitchen sink, focus on one or two examples which demonstrate your depth and creativity.” Her UC colleague, Jim Rawlins, associate vice chancellor of enrollment management at the University of California at San Diego agrees, saying “Answer the question. Not doing so is the surest way we can tell you are simply giving us a snippet of something you actually wrote for a different purpose.”

Don’t Overedit

Emily Roper-Doten, vice president for undergraduate admissions and financial assistance at Clark University warns against “Too many editors!” She says, “Pick a couple of trusted folks to be your sounding board when considering topics and as readers once you have drafts. You don’t want too many voices in your essay to drown you out!” Scripps’ Romero agrees, suggesting, “Ask a good friend, someone you trust and knows you well, to read your essays.” She adds, “The goal is for the admission committee to get to know a little about you and who better to help you create that framework, than a good friend. This may not work for all students because of content but helps them understand it’s important to be themselves.” Whitney Soule, vice provost and dean of admissions at The University of Pennsylvania adds, “Avoid well-meaning editorial interference that might seem to polish your writing but actually takes your own personal ‘shine’ right out of the message.” She says, “As readers, we connect to applicants through their genuine tone and style. Considering editorial advice for flow and message is OK but hold on to the 'you' for what you want to say and how you want to say it.”

Don’t Get Showy

Palmer Muntz, senior regional admissions counselor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks cautions applicants, “Don’t be fancier than you are. You don’t need to put on airs.” He adds, “Yes, proofread your work for grammar and spelling, but be natural. Craft something you’d want to read yourself, which probably means keeping your paragraphs short, using familiar words, and writing in an active voice.” Connecticut College’s Strickler agrees, warning, “Don't try to be someone you are not. If you are not funny, don't try to write a funny essay. If you are not an intellectual, trying to write an intellectual essay is a bad idea.”

Anthony Jones, the vice president of enrollment management at Loyola University New Orleans offers a unique metaphor for thinking about the essay. He says, “In the new world of the hyper-fast college admission process, it's become easy to overlook the essential meaning of the college application. It's meant to reveal Y...O...U, the real you, not some phony digital avatar. Think of the essay as the essence of that voice but in analog. Like the completeness and authenticity captured in a vinyl record, the few lines you're given to explain your view should be a slow walk through unrestrained expression chock full of unapologetic nuances, crevices of emotion, and exactness about how you feel in the moment. Then, and only then, can you give the admissions officer an experience that makes them want to tune in and listen for more.”

Don’t Be A Downer

James Nondorf, vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid at The University of Chicago says, “Don’t be negative about other people, be appreciative of those who have supported you, and be excited about who you are and what you will bring to our campus!” He adds, “While admissions offices want smart students for our classrooms, we also want kind-hearted, caring, and joyous students who will add to our campus communities too.”

Don’t Pattern Match

Alan Ramirez is the dean of admission and financial aid at Sewanee, The University of the South. He explains, “A big concern I have is when students find themselves comparing their writing to other students or past applicants and transform their writing to be more like those individuals as a way to better their chances of offering a more-compelling essay.” He emphasizes that the result is that the “essay is no longer authentic nor the best representation of themselves and the whole point of the essay is lost. Their distinctive voice and viewpoint contribute to the range of voices in the incoming class, enhancing the diversity of perspectives we aim to achieve.” Ramirez simple tells students, “Be yourself, that’s what we want to see, plus there's no one else who can do it better than you!”

Don’t Feel Tied To A Topic

Jessica Ricker is the vice president for enrollment and dean of admissions and financial aid at Skidmore College. She says, “Sometimes students feel they must tell a story of grief or hardship, and then end up reliving that during the essay-writing process in ways that are emotionally detrimental. I encourage students to choose a topic they can reflect upon positively but recommend that if they choose a more challenging experience to write about, they avoid belaboring the details and instead focus on the outcome of that journey.” She adds, "They simply need to name it, frame its impact, and then help us as the reader understand how it has shaped their lens on life and their approach moving forward.”

Landmark College’s Stefanowicz adds, “A lot of students worry about how personal to get in sharing a part of their identity like your race or heritage (recalling last year’s Supreme Court case about race-conscious admissions), a learning difference or other disability, your religious values, LGBTQ identity…the list goes on.” He emphasizes, “This is always your choice, and your essay doesn’t have to be about a defining identity. But I encourage you to be fully yourself as you present yourself to colleges—because the college admission process is about finding a school where your whole self is welcome and you find a setting to flourish!”

Don’t Be Redundant

Hillen Grason Jr., dean of admission at Franklin & Marshall College, advises, “Don't repeat academic or co-curricular information that is easily identifiable within other parts of your application unless the topic is a core tenant of you as an individual.” He adds, “Use your essay, and other parts of your application, wisely. Your essay is the best way to convey who your authentic self is to the schools you apply. If you navigated a situation that led to a dip in your grades or co-curricular involvement, leverage the ‘additional information’ section of the application.

Thomas Marr is a regional manager of admissions for the Americas at The University of St Andrews in Scotland and points out that “Not all international schools use the main college essay as part of their assessment when reviewing student applications.” He says, “At the University of St Andrews, we focus on the supplemental essay and students should avoid the mistake of making the supplemental a repeat of their other essay. The supplemental (called the Personal Statement if using the UCAS application process) is to show the extent of their passion and enthusiasm for the subject/s to which they are applying and we expect about 75% of the content to cover this. They can use the remaining space to mention their interests outside of the classroom. Some students confuse passion for the school with passion for their subject; do not fall into that trap.”

A Few Final Don’ts

Don’t delay. Every college applicant I have ever worked with has wished they had started earlier. You can best avoid the pitfalls above if you give yourself the time and space to write a thoughtful essay and welcome feedback openly but cautiously. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect . Do your best, share your voice, and stay true to who you are.

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How NOT to write your college essay

Dean of Admissions Whitney Soule says that well-meaning editorial interference to polish the writing in a college application essay can take the personal “shine” out of the message.

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Today’s Teenagers Have Invented a Language That Captures the World Perfectly

By Stephen Marche

Mr. Marche is the author, most recently, of “The Next Civil War.”

My son just completed high school and when he leaves for college in the fall my life will change in ways I’m still struggling to contemplate. Among the things I’ll miss most are his lessons in teenage slang. My son has always been generous with me, and I’ve found the slang of his generation to be so much better and more useful than any that I’ve ever used. His slang has also offered me an accidental and useful portrait of how he and his generation see the world.

The primary value of slang has been to create linguistic shibboleths, a way to differentiate yourself quickly from other people. Sometimes the distinction was generational, sometimes it was racial, and sometimes it was ideological, but the slang itself was ultimately a form of social etiquette. From one generation to the next, the terms changed, but the meanings typically didn’t. New words were routinely adopted to express familiar concepts: one generation’s “cool” becomes another’s “dope” and so on.

Members of my son’s generation have a vastly superior approach to slang. They’ve devised a language that responds to the new and distinct reality they face.

Anyone with children, especially ones on the cusp of adulthood, has to reckon with the shameful fact that the world we’re leaving them is so much worse than the one we brought them into. My son’s slang reflects that: It’s a distinct language created for a society that’s characterized, online and off, by collapsing institutions, erosions in trust and a loss of faith in a shared sense of meaning.

“Mid” is an obvious example. I don’t think it even qualifies as teenage slang anymore — it’s too useful and, by now, too widespread. In my son’s usage, things that are mid are things that are essentially average or slightly below. You can’t really complain about them, but they produce no joy. They’re often the result of the refinement of market research to the exact level that tepid consumer acceptance is achieved. Everything in Starbucks falls into the category of “mid.” So does everything in an airport. It’s a brilliant, precise word for a world full of mild disappointments, where the corner bakery that used to do some things well and other things poorly has been reliably replaced by yet another Le Pain Quotidien.

“Glazed” has a similarly impressive precision. When my son describes something as glazed, it’s meant to signify not lying, exactly, or even exaggerating, but the act of positively spinning a judgment. “Glazed” indicates a gilding of information; sports commentary, for example, is 90 percent glaze. When Stephen A. Smith, the quintessential glazer, likens Anthony Edwards to Michael Jordan , a proper response might be “The Ant glazing is crazy.” But glaze is also the perfect description of the way social media works: The world you encounter online is perpetually glazed, with everything taking on an artificially positive, unreal and not entirely trustworthy gloss.

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Yahoo Finance

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Mortgage rates today, June 29, 2024: Rate increases aren't drastic enough to impact your monthly payment

Most mortgage rates have increased since last week. A week ago, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.56%. Today, it's up six basis points to 6.62% .

On a $400,000 mortgage loan, 6.56% would result in a monthly payment of $2,544 toward your mortgage and principal. At today's rate of 6.62%, your monthly payment would be $2,560 — this is only a difference of $16 monthly or $192 annually.

Mortgage interest rates have been following this pattern for weeks, inching up or down but not making any drastic changes. If you're ready to buy a home, you may be better off starting the process now than splitting hairs over a few basis points from week to week.

Dig deeper: When will mortgage rates go down? A look at 2024 and 2025.

Today's mortgage rates

Here are the current mortgage rates, according to the latest Zillow data:

30-year fixed: 6.62%

20-year fixed: 6.26%

15-year fixed: 5.99%

5/1 ARM: 6.67%

7/1 ARM: 6.68%

30-year FHA: 5.99%

15-year FHA: 6.06%

30-year VA: 5.92%

15-year VA: 5.60%

5/1 VA: 6.07%

Remember, these are the national averages and rounded to the nearest hundredth.

Use our mortgage calculator

Use Yahoo Finance's free mortgage calculator to see how various interest rates and term lengths will impact your monthly mortgage payment. It also shows how the home price and down payment amount play into things.

Our calculator includes homeowners insurance and property taxes in your monthly payment estimate. You even have the option to enter costs for private mortgage insurance (PMI) and homeowners' association dues if those apply to you. These details result in a more accurate monthly payment estimate than if you simply calculated your mortgage principal and interest.

30-year fixed mortgage rates: Pros and cons

There are two main advantages to a 30-year fixed mortgage: Your payments are lower, and your monthly payments are predictable.

A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has relatively low monthly payments because you’re spreading your repayment out over a longer period of time than with, say, a 15-year mortgage. Your payments are predictable because, unlike with an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM), your rate isn’t going to change from year to year. Most years, the only things that might affect your monthly payment are any changes to your homeowners insurance or property taxes .

The main disadvantage to 30-year fixed mortgage rates is mortgage interest — both in the short and long term.

A 30-year fixed term comes with a higher rate than a shorter fixed term, and it’s higher than the intro rate to a 30-year ARM. The higher your rate, the higher your monthly payment. You’ll also pay much more in interest over the life of your loan due to both the higher rate and the longer term.

Learn more: How to get the lowest mortgage rates

15-year fixed mortgage rates: Pros and cons

The pros and cons of 15-year fixed mortgage rates are basically swapped from the 30-year rates. Yes, your monthly payments will still be predictable, but another advantage is that shorter terms come with lower interest rates. Not to mention, you’ll pay off your mortgage 15 years sooner. So you’ll save potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest over the course of your loan.

However, because you’re paying off the same amount in half the time, your monthly payments will be higher than if you choose a 30-year term.

Dig deeper: 15-year vs. 30-year mortgages

Adjustable mortgage rates: Pros and cons

Adjustable-rate mortgages lock in your rate for a predetermined amount of time, then change it periodically. For example, with a 5/1 ARM, your rate stays the same for the first five years and then goes up or down once per year for the remaining 25 years.

The main advantage is that the introductory rate is usually lower than what you’ll get with a 30-year fixed rate, so your monthly payments will be lower. (Current average rates don't reflect this, though — fixed rates are actually lower. Talk to your lender before deciding between a fixed or adjustable rate.)

With an ARM, you have no idea what mortgage rates will be like once the intro-rate period ends, so you risk your rate increasing later. This could ultimately end up costing more, and your monthly payments are unpredictable from year to year.

But if you plan to move before the intro-rate period is over, you could reap the benefits of a low rate without risking a rate increase down the road.

Learn more: Adjustable-rate vs. fixed-rate mortgage

Is now a good time to buy a house?

It might not feel like a good time to buy a house . Recently, 30-year rates have been hovering around 6.50% to 7%, which looks terrible compared to 2021, when you could lock in a rate of 3% or lower.

It might be a better time to buy than you’d expect, though. The highest mortgage rate on record was 18.63% in October 1981, which makes a 6.62% rate not seem so bad. It’s also very unlikely that rates will drop to below 3% again anytime soon.

And even though house prices are high , they are growing less rapidly than they were a couple of years ago. And new-home construction is starting to pick up.

To sum it up, it’s still not the best time to buy a house because rates are relatively high and prices remain firm. But if the timing is right for you, your budget can accommodate the higher rates, and you've found the home for you, there's no time like the present.

Today's mortgage rates: FAQs

What is a 30-year mortgage rate right now.

The national average 30-year mortgage rate is 6.62% right now, according to Zillow. But keep in mind that averages can vary depending on where you live. For example, if you're buying in a city with a high cost of living, rates could be even higher.

Are interest rates expected to go down?

Yes, mortgage interest rates are expected to decrease gradually over the next couple of years. Experts predict the average 30-year rate will go down to 6.6% to 6.7% by the end of 2024, and then to 6% to 6.3% by late 2025.

Are mortgage rates dropping?

Mortgage rate trends vary from day to day, but yes, mortgage rates are dropping overall. According to Freddie Mac, mortgage rates have dropped for four straight weeks .

Brazil’s Supreme Court decriminalizes possession of marijuana for personal use

Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday voted to decriminalize possession of marijuana for personal use, making the nation one of Latin America’s last to do so, in a move that could reduce its massive prison population.

With final votes cast on Tuesday, a majority of the justices on the 11-person court have voted in favor of decriminalization since deliberations began in 2015.

The justices must still determine the maximum quantity of marijuana that would be characterized as being for personal use and when the ruling will enter into effect. That is expected to finish as early as Wednesday.

All the justices who have voted in favor said decriminalization should be restricted to possession of marijuana in amounts suitable for personal use. Selling drugs will remain illegal.

In 2006, Brazil’s Congress approved a law that sought to punish individuals caught carrying small amounts of drugs, including marijuana, with alternative penalties such as community service. Experts say the law was too vague and didn’t establish a specific quantity to help law enforcement and judges differentiate personal use from drug trafficking.

Police continued to arrest people carrying small quantities of drugs on trafficking charges and Brazil’s prison population continued to swell.

“The majority of pre-trial detainees and those convicted of drug trafficking in Brazil are first-time offenders, who carried small amounts of illicit substance with them, caught in routine police operations, unarmed and with no evidence of any relationship with organized crime,” said Ilona Szabó, president of Igarapé Institute, a think tank focusing on public security.

Congress has responded to the top court’s ongoing deliberations by separately advancing a proposal to tighten drug legislation, which would complicate the legal picture surrounding marijuana possession.

In April, the Senate approved a constitutional amendment criminalizing possession of any quantity of illicit substance. The lower house’s constitutional committee approved the proposal on June 12, and it will need to pass through at least one other committee before going to a floor vote.

If lawmakers pass such a measure, the legislation would take precedence over the top court’s ruling but still could be challenged on constitutional grounds.

Speaking to reporters in capital Brasilia, the Senate’s president, Rodrigo Pacheco, said it isn’t the Supreme Court’s place to issue a decision on the matter.

“There is an appropriate path for this discussion to move forward and that is the legislative process,” he said. “It is something that, obviously, arouses broad discussion and it is a subject of preoccupation for Congress.”

Last year, a Brazilian court authorized some patients to grow cannabis for medical treatment after the health regulator in 2019 approved guidelines for the sale of medicinal products derived from cannabis. But Brazil is one of a few countries in Latin America that hasn’t decriminalized the possession of small quantities of drugs for personal consumption.

The Supreme Court’s ruling has long been sought by activists and legal scholars in a country where the prison population has become the third largest in the world. Critics of current legislation say users caught with even small amounts of drugs are regularly convicted on trafficking charges and locked up in overcrowded jails, where they are forced to join prison gangs.

“Today, trafficking is the main vector for imprisonment in Brazil,” said Cristiano Maronna, director of JUSTA, a civil society group focusing on the justice system.

Brazil ranks behind U.S. and China in countries with the highest prison populations, according to the World Prison Brief, a database tracking such figures.

Some 852,000 individuals were deprived of liberty in Brazil as of December 2023, according to official data. Of those, nearly 25% were arrested for possession of drugs or trafficking. Brazilian jails are overcrowded, and Black citizens are disproportionately represented, accounting for more than two-thirds of the prison population.

A recent study by Insper, a Brazilian research and education institute, determined that Black individuals found by police with drugs were slightly more likely to be indicted as traffickers than white people. The authors analyzed over 3.5 million records from Sao Paulo’s public security secretariat from 2010 to 2020.

“An advance in drug policy in Brazil! This is an issue of public health, not security and incarceration,” leftist lawmaker Chico Alencar wrote on X after the ruling.

By contrast, Gustavo Scandelari, a specialist on Brazil’s penal code at law firm Dotti Advogados, said he doesn’t foresee the ruling bringing about a significant shift from the status quo, even after the top court establishes a maximum quantity of marijuana for personal use. Scandelari argued that the amount will remain one determinant of whether authorities consider a person a dealer or a user, but not the only one.

Some Brazilians, like 47-year-old Rio de Janeiro resident Alexandro Trindade, have managed to be upset with both the Supreme Court decriminalizing marijuana and Congress pushing to keep it illegal.

“The Supreme Court is not the right place (for such decision). This should be submitted to a plebiscite for the people to decide,” Trindade said. “Both the Supreme Court and Congress have been very opposed to society in this.”

As in other countries in the region, like Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, medicinal use of cannabis in Brazil is allowed, though in a highly restricted manner.

Uruguay has fully legalized the use of marijuana, and in some U.S. states recreational use for adults is legal. In Colombia, possession has been decriminalized for a decade, but a law to regulate the recreational use of marijuana so that it can be sold legally failed to pass in the Senate in August. Colombians can carry small amounts of marijuana, but selling it for recreational purposes is not legal.

The same goes for Ecuador and Peru. Both distribution and possession remain illegal in Venezuela.

Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled in 2009 it was unconstitutional to penalize an adult for consuming marijuana if it didn’t harm others. But the law has not been changed and users are still arrested, although most cases are thrown out by judges.

Uruguay became the first country to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2013 although it was only implemented in 2017. Uruguay’s whole industry, from production to distribution, is under state control and registered users can buy up to 40 grams of marijuana per month through pharmacies.