CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.D

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Editing and Publishing Personal Essays

Editing Personal Essays

After you have made major improvements during the revision stage, you need to return to your text to polish it. Errors in punctuation, capitalization, spelling, usage, and grammar can distract readers from the events you are trying to present. They also, of course, are embarrassing. The activities on this page will help you.

Editing Dialogue

One key component of an effective narrative is dialogue—the words people say. Handling dialogue can be tricky.

When two or more people are having a conversation, start a new paragraph whenever you have a new speaker:

"How about the library?" he asked one day, rightly seeing that I was bored.

"Why not?"

On the drive there, Grandpa said, "You see that woman on the corner with the baby?"

I glanced out the window. "Yep."

"She's actually a spy. That baby is a walkie-talkie. She's sending in my coordinates. Better turn here to throw her off the track."

Note that a comma separates words like said or asked from the quoted material. A period separates a complete sentence from quoted material.

When one person speaks, or the spoken words are details included in a larger idea, you can embed them in the paragraph.

He'd ridden the wave from the early days to the eventual fold-up and collapse. "We're fine, buddy," he told me. Between a high former salary and severance, we had money enough to find something new. . . .

Place quotation marks before and after quoted material. When periods or commas follow quoted material, always put them inside the close quotation marks. When exclamation points or question marks follow quoted material, place them inside if they punctuate the quotation and outside if they punctuate the whole sentence. Note the correct punctuation in the following dialogue.

"Box it or toss it," Dad said, dragging the shrieking tape gun over yet another box. "We're going to have to ship everything to storage while I look for a place. You'll stay with Grandpa till then."

"Grandpa," I echoed. I didn't know much about him. He was on Facebook, but not Snapchat, so we were not in each others' worlds. He lived in Ohio, but not in Columbus—in a little city called Marion. "How long?"

"However long it takes," Dad replied, flashing an apologetic smile.

What did he mean, "However long it takes"?

Check dialogue.

In the dialogue below, place punctuation where needed. Afterward, check the dialogue in your personal essay to make sure punctuation and paragraphing are correct.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Revising Personal Essays

After completing a first draft of your personal essay, you should set it aside for a time if you can. Just as you can more easily understand a long period of time by reflecting on it afterward, you can better understand your writing when you get some distance. Then return to revise with fresh eyes.

Revising for Pace

You can't go into great depth about everything that happened over a few months' time. The essay would turn into an endless novel. Imagine Jake's journey across the Great Plains if he reported every excruciating detail.

Too Much Detail

. . . We pass mile marker 193 in Kansas. The road goes on without a bend as far as the eye can see. Only the heat coming off makes it waver. On both sides, corn stretches to the horizon. A farm clusters to the left. An exit leads to a county road. We stay on the Interstate. We pass mile marker 194. . .

Appropriate Detail

. . . then the even longer plains. It was as if the world was saying, "You really want to keep going? There's pretty much nothing that direction." Finally, we left the brown lands and got where things were greening up. Flat gave way to hills, and they to the mighty Mississippi. . .

On the other hand, you can't tell an effective story if you just gloss over everything. Imagine Jake's whole personal essay rendered that way.

Too Little Detail

After Dad lost his job in San Francisco, I lived with Grandpa in Marion, Ohio, until we could find a place to rent just outside of Columbus.

You need to dive into deep detail in an important moment and then provide a quick summary of other action before diving into detail again. Focus on significant events. The trip to the library, the trip to Goodwill—these changed the writer, while mile marker 193 in Kansas did not.

Review your pacing.

Reread your personal essay. If an important event gets glossed over, add details that bring it alive for readers, slowing down the pace so they can experience it firsthand. If an unimportant event drags on, delete some details, or replace the passage with a single summary sentence. Continue working until all parts have effective pacing.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Writing a Personal Essay

After listing events on a time line and gathering different details about them, you are ready to write your personal essay. But a personal essay is more than a chronological list of events. It is a true-life story with you as the hero, so you need to build it like a story. The activities on this page will help.

Writing the Beginning

The beginning of your essay has a number of jobs:

Catch the reader's attention
Introduce the character (yourself)
Describe the setting (time and place)
Create conflict

You can click on the side notes of this excerpt to see how the sample student essay does all of these things in a compact space:

Catch Attention Winter wouldn't let go. Tired gray snow clung to the curbs. Tired gray clouds clung to the sky. The lion of March still prowled, growling its storms and hissing its sleet, and Introduce Character I wondered why Mom ever chose to move to Wisconsin.

Create Conflict A job. I got it. A break-up. Yeah. Life happened. She started over, and so did I. Again.

Describe Setting This time, I changed schools mid-semester, which meant I lost half my credits and had to play catch-up in every class. I knew nobody and didn't have any real desire to make friends. How long would we be here? I trudged to school and trudged home and sat in that gray apartment flipping through Snapchats to see the full-color lives of my friends back in Florida.

"I'm taking a second job," Mom told me one night. "So I won't be home most evenings."

This excerpt catches the reader's attention by creating an intriguing mood. You can experiment with other opening strategies.

Write the beginning.

Experiment with strategies for capturing the reader's interest. Use the examples below for inspiration. Then develop a beginning that introduces you, describes the setting, and creates conflict.

Start in the middle of the action.
A lump in my throat, I grabbed a script and took the stage in front of a theater filled with strangers. Old strangers. How did I wind up here?
Use interesting dialogue.
"If you get cast in this show, you're going to have to swear. Onstage. Loudly."
Pose a fascinating question.
Do caterpillars know what they are doing when they entomb themselves in a chrysalis, or do they just figure they've finally gone crazy? I felt slightly crazy when I buried myself in two months of rehearsals for On Golden Pond.
Make a startling statement.
Sometimes guts are smarter than brains.

The Climb

The Climb I have this fear. It causes my legs to shake. I break out in a cold sweat. I start jabbering to anyone who is nearby. As thoughts of certain death run through my mind, the world appears a precious, treasured place. I imagine my own funeral, then shrink back at the implications of where my thoughts are taking me. My stomach feels strange. My palms are clammy. I am terrified of heights. Of course, it’s not really a fear of being in a high place. Rather, it is the view of a long way to fall, of rocks far below me and no firm wall between me and the edge.

The Boy with Chris Pine Blue Eyes

The Boy with Chris Pine Blue Eyes High school alone is the hardest part of any teenager’s life, but when it gets mixed in with an awkward adolescent’s idea of liking someone, life turns into a whirlwind emotional adventure. Like my plate wasn’t overflowing already with a chemistry teacher who called me “Crash” (a name I acquired after dropping a beaker during our first lab), a sassy algebra teacher who said that I didn't have the aptitude for the subject, or a French teacher who flirted with the class and laughed at her own jokes.

It’s a Boy!

It’s a Boy! “Congratulations, you have a new baby boy!” my child-development teacher said as she handed over the 10-pound bundle. Last year in my high school child-development class, each student had to take the “Think-It-Over” baby home for a night to get a taste of parenthood. Even before I received the baby, I knew I was not ready to be a parent as a senior in high school. I could still remember when my brother and sister were little and I would have to take care of them all the time.

Take Me to Casablanca

Take Me to Casablanca My day in Africa was one I’ll not soon forget. I toured two major cities of Morocco—land of mystery, enticement, and enchantment. I was expecting belly dancers, snake charmers, and many exotic sights filled with color and intricate decoration. While I did see some of what I expected, the majority of what I saw was totally unexpected and will haunt me forever. As I boarded the ship that was to take me across the Mediterranean Sea to the northern shores of Morocco, I felt an array of mixed emotions. Mainly, I was excited.

My Greatest Instrument

My Greatest Instrument Some people express themselves through beautiful art; others are masters of the page and speak silently through writing. I, on the other hand, express myself with the greatest instrument I have, my voice. I make my living by speaking to groups large and small. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than public speaking, and my interest in public speaking began when I was quite young. At age eight I realized that I belonged in front of an audience.

Snapshots

Snapshots Most of the snapshots of my life are held in the photo albums of my mind. Some were captured by a camera, and those pictures I keep in a shoebox under my bed. I’m lucky to have “shoebox photos” of the earliest things I can remember. For example, three days after my third birthday, Katherine Emily arrived. I remember my dad taking me to see my new baby sister; we stopped at a gas station on the way to the hospital and bought my mom candy and a cola. That day, the camera caught the tiny smile only a big sister could have as she holds one of the best birthday presents ever.

H’s Hickory Chips

H’s Hickory Chips I look at the old tin building; it seems to have been there since the beginning of time. Its strong posts and nonchalant slouch make me wonder if it will be rooted in the same place forever. As soon as I walk in, the strong, rustic smell of hickory wood assails me. It takes me back to my family’s last Fourth of July barbeque, when the hickory chips smoking the ribs gave off their thick aroma. I wait for my eyes to adjust in the dark, humid place, not taking a step until they do because of the ageless spider that could have made its home in my path.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.D