How to Write an Essay about Yourself for High School
Knowing how to write an essay about yourself for high school is very important because this is when you start writing cover letters and bio notes which require you to express yourself. To some people, writing about themselves seems embarrassing. However, high school teachers always assign students personal essays or essays about themselves. An essay about yourself is an essay that allows you to tell readers about your character without sounding egotistical. This essay focuses on personal growth and reflection.
A good personal essay or essay about self is usually specific to who the writer is. For instance, your personal essay can tell readers about a special award that you won after working so hard that you missed your summer vacation. It can also tell readers about a relative that you try to emulate or admire. This essay can also tell readers about a tragedy that affected your worldview profoundly.
A step by step guide on how to write an essay about yourself for high school
- Know what is expected of you
The first thing that you should do is to determine what you are expected to tell readers through your essay. This entails determining the specifics as described in the essay question or prompt. Read the essay instructions carefully to understand what the instructor expects of you so that you can come up with a personal essay that covers them properly.
Among the things that you should consider while reading the essay prompt include:
- Formatting guidelines
Understand how the instructor expects you to format the essay about yourself. This includes spacing, use of footers or headers, and how to include citations in your essay. Following the specified formatting guidelines will enable you to give the instructor the best first impression.
- Topic
Although the essay is precisely about you, there might be more to this essay than that. For instance, the instructor might want you to discuss a specific influential person or event that affected your life, aspiration, or a favorite hobby in detail. Read through the essay prompt carefully to determine if the instructor gives such specifications.
- Word limit
Look out for the maximum and minimum words that your essay should have. Make sure that your essay falls within the specified words’ range because the instructor might reject your essay or give you a bad grade if you do not follow this instruction.
- Determine who will read your essay
Perhaps, this is among the most important steps of a guide on how to write an essay about yourself for high school that you need to consider. The instructor may specify who you will be writing the essay for. It could be an essay for college admission or an essay that you are writing for your colleagues in high school. When you know who your audience is, you can fine-tune your essay in terms of its tone so that it can appeal to the target audience. It is important that you always have your audience in mind while writing the essay.
- Think about your life or an aspect of it
Depending on your essay prompt, you need to think about a particular aspect of your life or your life in general. Determine what you want to tell your readers. What plans or goals do you have for your future? Suppose you are to die tomorrow, what would you want others to know about you or how would you like others to remember you? Write down the answers to these questions as they pop up in your mind. Write down what you think about it on paper.
- Develop an outline
After writing down what you think about on a paper, create an outline that enables you to shape the information according to the requirements of your essay question. Your outline should comprise of the main sections and subsections that indicate the information that you will be presenting or conveying to your readers and the way you will present that information. Simply put, the outline should highlight the main points of your essay and label the main paragraphs in the way that you want the information to appear in your essay as well as include the key point of each paragraph.
- Introduce yourself
A good personal essay should have a solid introduction. Write an introduction that engages readers with interesting facts about you. Make sure that your introduction captures the attention of the readers so that they can want to continue reading your essay. Remember that the introduction should simply introduce you to the reader in a brief manner. Therefore, avoid giving readers too many details because these will form the body of your essay.
To write a good introduction of an essay about you:
- Create an intrigue or a mystery that raises questions in the readers’ minds or appeal to their emotions and senses so that they can relate to the subject matter of your essay.
- Avoid summarizing your essay and instead, try to draw readers into reading your essay and to explain briefly and clearly the main point of your essay.
- Avoid making the introduction lengthy and complex because this will make readers lose interest in your essay.
Write the body of your personal essay
It is important that you know how to maintain a focus in the body as you master the steps of a guide on how to write an essay about yourself for high school because the body is the heart of this essay. After laying the ground with your introduction, you need to focus on a specific event or topic as required by the essay prompt. Follow your essay outline to avoid straying and avoid going unnecessarily deeper in some sections because this might interfere with the word limit.
You can write about different aspects of your life if the essay prompt allows but always maintain a focus. Make sure that your essay is personal and that it tells a story. Always remember that you are writing an essay about yourself. Therefore, make it personal by telling readers about personal experiences, hopes, and thoughts of your future.
- Write a strong conclusion
After writing the body of your personal essay, end it with a strong conclusion. Conclude your essay by connecting the details to present the big theme of your essay. Do not cut your story abruptly because this will leave readers hanging. Instead, start wrapping up the essay at the right time and consciously. You can summarize your main points briefly, recap what you told readers, or pose a question to your readers. Come up with a conclusion that tells readers what you have told them in your essay in a brief manner. Ensure that everything that you wrote about in the essay is tied up effectively by the conclusion.
Bonus hints and reminders on how to write an essay about yourself for high school
- Develop a style and voice
An essay about you is personal and therefore it should be unique. Having a unique style and voice is one of the ways of making your essay unique. Some of the aspects of style and voice include tone and sentence structure. Consider these aspects to make your essay unique.
- Treat your essay like a story
A personal essay should not sound like a research paper. However, it is an event’s account which means that it is technically nonfiction. Therefore, tell your story from your own perspective while using literary techniques.
- Be careful with sensitive information
Perhaps, you want to tell readers about a friend that you had in your former class who used to cheat in exams and how he influenced you. With such a sensitive subject, you want to avoid being implicated or identify your friend since they have not given you their consent. However, you do not have to refer to other people by name. You can change details such as their names or dates if this becomes necessary while writing a personal essay.
- Edit your essay
Editing an essay before the submission is very important because it ensures that readers take the essay seriously while focusing on the essay content. If your essay has many grammatical, typos, and spelling errors, ensuring this becomes almost impossible. Therefore, proofread your essay and revise it or hire our professional editors to edit your essay for all mistakes in your personal essay.
- Use a sample essay
One of the best ways via which you can easily master the steps of a guide on how to write an essay about yourself for high school is by using a good sample essay. A good sample essay acts as a practical guide that you can use while practicing how to write a personal essay. Click here for a personal essay sample.
Get online help with an essay about yourself
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Sources
http://classroom.synonym.com/write-autobiography-essay-form-4817.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-About-Yourself