How to Write a Personal Experience Essay

Buddha said: “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present actions.” Everybody will agree that we should live the real moments of the life but not live dreaming about future or regretting about past. Nevertheless, there are cases when we have to recollect the bright situations of our past; moreover, we are required to illustrate them in an interesting way with the help of different literary devices.

As you can notice we start our article philosophically; but thanks to this deep poetic context we want to pass on the theme that is related to the writing of personal experience essay. As a rule, such type of paper is well-spread in different universities as it improves writing skills and imagination of students; moreover, this essay helps reveal the level of student’s mental development.

There is no hesitation that the simplest – the hardest. According to survey a lot of students are confused because of structure and topic for the personal experience essay. That is why we invoke you to keep reading this article as it will make your writing process interesting and easy.

What is a Personal Experience Essay

The question related to the personal experience essay is rather controversial. On the one hand, scholars are sure that this is a type of biography that should include personal data about a writer. On the other hand, we can state that it is a composition that makes an “excursion” to the life of the narrator. Which of the definition should we support?

It is high time to thrash over the meaning of personal experience essay. So, it is a type of academic writing where the author reflects on the experience, retells and describes the brightest story of life. As you can notice, the main essence of this essay is motivated by its title. Nevertheless, you are required to know more about this essay in order to improve your score and pleasantly surprise professor. That is why we highly recommend you to keep reading this article as it can serve as a map that shows you correct destination.

Main Features of a Personal Experience Essay

According to the investigation, there is a distinct difference between writing a story about myself and personal experience essay. We have prepared for you a list of the main peculiarities that will help you write an essay of the best quality.

• A personal experience essay should be well-structured; that is why you are required to divide

the text into the three parts.

First component is an introduction. Here you give a brief “interview” and introduce yourself. We recommend you to start first paragraph with the quotation or proverb because it will enrich the content and motivate target audience to read the whole text. Another key thing to know is that introduction should be completed with the thesis sentence.

Second part is the main body. As a rule, it is the biggest component as here you present the vivid story of your life, give information about people that influence your behavior and way of thinking, and submit the story that has changed your destiny. Moreover, in the second paragraph you can include the “stream of your consciousness” and dialogs. Be sure that it will make your story diverse because it is interesting to read the author’s direct speech.

The third and final part is conclusion; here you can use dramatic style of narration, invoke people to act, and even reveal the moral of your paper. As a rule, the quality of introduction and conclusion is a crucial thing while checking a writing.

• Be brave and tell a true story of your life; of course, you can avoid unimportant facts, but still try to be unique and create the original content.
• Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence. It means that a first statement should contain the theme and main idea of the paragraph. Moreover, it helps readers evaluate the content of this part of a text. An interrogative sentence or quotation can be perfect beginning of the text as it hides some hidden context that audience will reveal while reading.
• You should write an essay in the first person. We recommend you to use such pronouns as I, my, and me. It will create the feeling that the narrator directly interacts with the readers.
• Do not forget to develop and improve the plot with the examples and dialogs. Avoid boring and long information as it discourages audience to read your material.
• The key thing of the personal experience essay is a good structure. The text should be well-built and include paragraphs and subtopics; it will help you avoid monotonous and boring content. Be sure that it is much more interesting to read a paper that includes different sections.
• The content should be well-structured and logically planed. Try to make up short but informative sentences. Moreover, the essay should be consistent with appropriate sequence of events. The convoluted structure will put the target audience off reading a paper.
• The personal experience essay should focus on the single event that is the main point of the writing. Be sure that it is vivid and deserves readers’ attention.
• The task of the writing is to describe the protagonists’ feelings and emotions related to the experience. Here you can present pros and cons of the situation that happened with you; moreover, here you can share mood and atmosphere of the vivid moment of your life.
• The style and tone of paper should be neat and positive. Do not try to be comic as it can irritate readers. Moreover, clarify the meaning of the borrowed words in order to prevent misunderstandings.

How to Choose a Good Personal Experience Essay Topic

According to survey, most of students have faced with the problem of choice topic. As a rule, it is troublesome to pick the best one for essay writing. In our case, we have a theme limitation as in personal experience essay there is no need to write about pollution or global warming, for instance. That is why the topic related to your inner world and experience will be dominant and central. Nevertheless, we are intended to help you decide the key theme for an essay that will worth attention.

• First of all, you should decide the target audience and age category. It is a crucial step as you should meet the expectation and wishes of readers. We are more than sure that your granny, for instance, will not read with enthusiasm a story about Facebook or trends in fashion.
• You are required to pick such vivid story that will convey positive mood and present readers new sip for life.
• Realize whether this topic is interesting to you. There is no doubt that you will not get pleasure describing the event that has a dull and negative reflection of your soul.
• Make up a list of the possible topics and choose one that sounds better. Moreover, you should find credible sources that can support your thesis and ideas.
• Try to avoid plagiarism; do not copy existed topic as it is impossible to create the original content based on the previously investigated theme.
• As a rule, such type of writing requires to describe the moment related to the important person in your life; small but significant event; a vivid traveling moment.
• Finally, we recommend you to evaluate the topic and realize whether it is interesting and important.

Write About a Conflict

It goes without saying that each story should have a climax. That is a central part that invokes readers to be nervous and support a protagonist. Nevertheless, you should remember that such type of writing aims to relax people and motivate them to act positively. If to put the words into the shell, you are required to recollect such conflict that has taught you to be brave. Moreover, the conflict should be connected with other characters as it will make the plot more interesting to read. As a rule, readers prefer unpredictable scenario with a happy end. That is why accept challenge and reflect on the dramatic life story that deserves Oscar.

A List of Personal Experience Essay Topic Ideas

As a rule, students hesitate which topic to pick – the one that tutor proposed or choose by yourself. We invoke you to be the master of your future masterpiece and pick the theme according to your tastes and wishes. Do not worry if you have no idea what to write about. In order to make this procedure easier, we have collected possible topics and divided them into several groups. Hope it will help you make a right choice.

Group #1: Positive experience. Here you can include moments related to your first steps, discovering the world, and interaction with parents. As you understand, this group requires describing vivid memories of your childhood. Moreover, here you can write about your friends and their influence on your personality. So, this topic group has age limitation, in particular, your childhood. Pay attention to several topics that are suitable for this group.

• My first steps.
• My unforgettable feelings in kindergarten.
• My family – my treasury.
• How I walk with my dog.
• What makes my parents special.
• A time when you saw mum cries.
• My unforgettable holiday in the countryside.
• My dog Lucky.
• My first visit to the zoo.

Group #2: School and student life. This group contains topics that are related to your first lessons, conflicts with teachers, and first love. There is no hesitation that you have a great diversity of themes that can attract the readers’ attention. Moreover, you can reflect on the funny cases and make the mood of target audience better.

• My favorite subject.
• My first dissatisfied note.
• The funniest case that happened to me.
• The teacher that I admire.
• New Year party at school.
• An exhausted exam.
• My first time at dorm.

Group #3: My adventurous life: here you can include bright moments from your holiday and traveling. We highly recommend you to be creative and attract readers to plunge into the atmosphere of your interesting life. Moreover, you can present to people culture and traditions of the country that you have visited. Without any doubt, such writing will have not only entertaining but also cognitive essence.

Group #4: My personality and people that surrounds me. This group contains the themes that reveal the mysteries of your private life and inner world. Here you can express the attitude to the other people; illustrate the conflicts with society; describe the person who inspires you. As it turned out, this is the most extensive group as it contains different aspects of your life that is why you can choose a broad topic and start creating. Do you still hesitate which topic to choose?

Personal Experience Essay Examples

Surfing the Internet, you can find numerous samples of the personal experience essay. Nevertheless, we invoke you to accept a challenge and write by yourself. At the first glimpse, it sounds impossible, but now you have all necessary information that will help you cope with this task. All that you need is to pick a “strong” topic and follow the format of that type of writing. In case of lack of inspiration feel free and use other samples as the frame for your future paper. We want to focus your attention on the brief outline of the personal experience essay.

Part#1: Introduction. Here you address to readers and invoke them to keep reading your paper; do not try to be omniscient and funny. Here you should build a type of bridge that will help an audience realize the main opinion of the writing.

Part#2: Main body. Here you illustrate conflict 1 and solution 1. Be sure that the language that you use is grammatically and lexically correct. Do not forget about the logical sentences with the appropriate structure. After you have solved conflict 1, you should present conflict 2 and solution 2. It will make your content much more interesting and diverse.

Part#3: Conclusion: It summarizes and draws a line after the two previous parts. Here you can present the use and moral of your experience and wish something to readers.

So, do not hesitate and develop your writing skills. Hope that this article broke your stereotypes and proved that the bright moment of life can become the literary masterpiece.