Global Village Hawaii Blog

Writing a Personal Essay: Tips and Hints!

DoS — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:13:56 +0000

We all love to hear about the trials and tribulations that others have experienced. We want to learn how someone overcame an obstacle, and found a way to move on. Personal essays allow those of us who have experienced life’s woes (and sometimes abundant joys), to share what we’ve learned, and to help lead others more effectively through their own life journey.

The personal essay is just that – a personal account of something you have experienced. It can be serious, dramatic, or even hilarious. But it must have a reason – or purpose – for sharing it with the reader. It is structured around a theme, and is rooted in experience and emotion. Finding topics for your essays is as easy as taking a good hard look at your own daily life. Ideas are in everything – from your rocky relationship with your mother, and your husband’s failure to put the cap on the toothpaste tube, to your teenager’s new driving skills (or lack of), and your preschoolers’ penchant for sharing your personal secrets with the strangers in the checkout line at the grocery store. We’ve all had moments that moved us to tears – not to mention tantrums – and we’re more than interested to hear how others have both survived (and blown), similar experiences.

What Makes A Good Personal Essay:

A good personal essay comes alive for the reader in the way the experience is shared. It’s not just a stream of consciousness account of your daily trials and joys, but a well-calculated and well-written story Use strong language and vivid images to transport your reader to the time, place and emotional state that you are describing. Make them feel and be part of the story. Make them laugh. Make them cry. Make them feel. Give them lots of action. Whether you’re writing a more dramatic piece, or a humorous take on an old problem, that’s what the personal essay is all about.

Written in the first person, it is true that the personal essay may start with an event that you experienced, but it isn’t necessary to share every single moment-by-moment play of it. Pick and choose what gives the story the impact that you are striving for. Leave out ultra-personal things (especially if they have no real impact on the story), and by all means, change the names of those in the story to protect your friends and family’s privacy. Remember to use all the qualities of good fiction in your essay: drama, good characterization, conflict, and more.

What To Watch Out For When Writing The Personal Essay:

Writing the personal essay can be therapeutic, for both the reader and the writer. Just be sure that you aren’t turning your story more into a “session with your therapist,” than a good, well-written, informative, and yes, interesting story. Readers want to come away with a sense that you’ve overcome some obstacle — and that they’ve learned something – by reading your piece. Manage to give them all that, and more, and you will have accomplished your goal.

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Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Futility Closet
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Elovivo - Dictionary

“O-U-G-H”

DoS — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:14:00 +0000

Posted in Language, Poems by Greg Ross on September 19th, 2009

I’m taught p-l-o-u-g-h
Shall be pronouncé “plow.”
“Zat’s easy w’en you know,” I say,
“Mon Anglais, I’ll get through!”

My teacher say zat in zat case,
O-u-g-h is “oo.”
And zen I laugh and say to him,
“Zees Anglais make me cough.”

He say, “Not ‘coo,’ but in zat word,
O-u-g-h is ‘off.’”
Oh, Sacre bleu! Such varied sounds
Of words makes me hiccough!

He say, “Again mon frien’ ees wrong;
O-u-g-h is ‘up’
In hiccough.” Zen I cry, “No more,
You make my t’roat feel rough.”

“Non, non!” he cry, “you are not right;
O-u-g-h is ‘uff.’”
I say, “I try to spik your words,
I cannot spik zem though.”

“In time you’ll learn, but now you’re wrong!
O-u-g-h is ‘owe.’”
“I’ll try no more, I s’all go mad,
I’ll drown me in ze lough!”

“But ere you drown yourself,” said he,
“O-u-g-h is ‘ock.’”
He taught no more, I held him fast,
And killed him wiz a rough!

– Charles Battell Loomis

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Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

The Brain

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Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Children: "Language Skills"
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Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Indo-European Languages
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Confused?

DoS — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:54:55 +0000

Though you may already know that lay is correct in both of the following sentences:

Everyday I lay my towel in the shade on the beach.
Yesterday I lay down in the shade on the beach.

You might not be aware that the following sentences are the equivalents after the tenses have been adjusted:

Yesterday I laid my towel in the shade on the beach.
Everyday I lie down in the shade on the beach.

Confused? well check out this cool site I just discovered!

Here are a few screen caps to give you an idea of what to expect!

and for the pesky group of conjunctive adverbs:

So, make good use of this site; after all, everyone gets confused about some expressions every now and and again.

English is not Stupid

DoS — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:54:54 +0000

Neighbor Island Music Video

DoS — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:17:16 +0000

Courtesy of animoto.

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Fri, 01 May 2009 00:00:00 PDT

BRAGI: Icelandic as a foreign language (front page)
BRAGI er námsefni í íslensku sem erlent tungumál.
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