Tips for writing personal essays:

1. If you don't find yourself interesting then how can anyone else? You need to think
about what it is that defines you as a person, what marks you out as different,
unique, special. The reader needs to want to get to know you.
2. What events from your distant and more recent past stick out in your mind?
Sometimes seemingly insignificant events teach you something unexpected or
funny or profound about life. These are the moments that are worth recounting to
reveal your true personality to your readers.
3. What are your passions, hobbies and interests in life? The quirkier, the better.
Every examiner is fit to vomit when they see yet another essay on your desire to
be a premiership footballer or the next X Factor winner (yawn!). Remember,
personal essays reveal your uniqueness so anything that makes you sound like
every other teenager on the planet is not worth including.
4. Are you opinionated? What issues do you feel most strongly about? Religion,
politics, education, history, science, space travel, global warming, human rights,
celebrity culture, technology? Do you have any areas of specialist knowledge? Is
there any way you can work these into your essay?
5. Who are the people you find most fascinating in life? They don't need to be
famous but they do need to be worthy of our time if you're going to write about
them.

Style

Plan in advance. Organize your ideas. Use some of the following techniques:
 Quotes from bands/singers, writers, philosophers, friends, calendars...
 Anecdotes from your past. Of course, you can always describe an event that
happened to someone else and pretend it happened to you.
 Descriptive style – so that the reader is drawn into the experiences you evoke.
 Reflection on your experiences/beliefs/attitudes – show an awareness of how
you have become the person you are.
 Imagination – you are free to wander off on a tangent, letting your thoughts flow
naturally . . . as long as you eventually return to the point.
 Humour – be as funny, sarcastic and brutally honest as you are in real life.
Students tend to be pokerfaced and overly serious in the exam, then you meet
them in real life and they're a total scream but somehow they didn't manage to
get this across in their writing. So sad ;-(
 Hyperbole – take the truth and exaggerate it. Make your writing dramatic.
 Observations about life, love, and lemonade. Here is your chance to muse about
everything.
 Identify problems and offer solutions. Don't be a Moaning Myrtle!
 Sample question: "Imagine 20 years from now you win a prestigious award and
everyone wants a piece of you. Write a personal essay describing how you
became the person you are today (2034)"