How to Write About Yourself

Writing of the Autobiographical Nature

Introduce yourself. Writing about yourself can be tough, because there is so much you can say. You have a lifetime of experiences, talents, and skills to summarize in a paragraph, or two. Whatever kind of writing you are planning on doing, whatever your purpose, just think about it like you are introducing yourself to a stranger. What do they need to know? Answer questions like: Who are you? What is your background? What are your interests? What are your talents? What are your achievements? What challenges have you faced?

Start with a short list of your talents and interests. If you are not sure where to start, or if you are limited to one thing for the assignment, start by making a list. Brainstorm good ideas that will help you decide, then sketch out as many different answers as you feel necessary..

Narrow your topic. Pick one specific topic, describe it in detail, and use that to introduce yourself. It is better to pick one thing and use a lot of detail, than to give someone a big long list of general items. What is your most interesting or unique quality? What word(s) describes you the best? Choose that topic.

Use a few good details. When you have a specific topic to narrow in on, give the reader unique details to hold onto. Remember, you are describing yourself and add details that show you in a positive light: Bad: I like sports. Ok: I'm a fan of basketball, football, tennis, and soccer. Good: My favorite sport is football, both to watch and to play. Better: When I was growing up, I would watch Big Ten football with my dad and brothers every Saturday, before we'd go outside and toss the football around. I've loved it ever since.

Be humble. Even if you are very accomplished or talented, you want to come across like a down-to-earth person. Do not write about yourself to brag. List your accomplishments and your successes, but temper them with some more humble language: Braggy: I'm the best and most dynamic worker at my company right now, so you should want to hire me for my talents. Humble: I was lucky enough to be awarded three employee of the month awards at my current job. Turns out it was a company record.

Writing Personal Essays for School

Choose a memorable story to tell. Personal essays are commonly used for college applications and school assignments. It is different than a cover letter in that the purpose of a cover letter is to introduce a candidate for employment or admission, while a non-fiction essay is for exploring a theme. This type of writing requires that you tell a story about yourself, using specific, real-life details that highlight a particular theme or idea throughout the essay. Common themes or prompts for autobiographical essays include overcoming obstacles, great successes or spectacular failures, and what you learned about yourself.

Focus on a single theme or purpose. Unlike a cover letter, an autobiographical essay should not jump around quickly between different themes or events. It should stay focused on a single event or theme that makes some greater point. Depending on the assignment, you may need to connect a personal anecdote to a reading or an idea from class. Start brainstorming topics that are connected to that idea, to give yourself a variety of options to choose from.

Write about complex topics, not cliches. An essay does not need to make you look good, so much as how well you communicate the event. When you are thinking of topics to write about, think about your triumphs and successes, but also give some thought to parts of your life that could use improvement. For example, remember the time you forgot to pick up your sister from practice while you were partying with friends, or the time you skipped class and got caught might make for great essays too. Common autobiographical essay cliches include sports stories, mission trips, and dead grandmothers. While these can all make for excellent essays if done well, it is difficult to stand out when telling the story of how your lacrosse team lost a big game, then practiced hard, then won. It has been written before.

Limit the timeline as much as possible. It is almost impossible to write a good five page essay about your entire life up to your 14th birthday. Even a topic like "my senior year" is much too complex to actually pull off in a good essay. Pick an event that spanned no more than a day, or a few days at most. If you want to tell the story of your nasty break-up, start with the break-up, do not start with the star-crossed way you met. You have got to get immediately to the tension in the story.

Use vivid details. If you want to write a good non-fictional essay, it needs to be chock-full of vivid details and specific images and senses. When you have an idea of your topic, start writing a "memory list" of specific things that you remember about the event. What was the weather like? What did it smell like? What did your mother say to you? Your opening paragraph will set the tone for the rest of the essay. Rather than telling the dull biographical details (your name, your place of birth, your favorite food), find a way to express the essence of the story you are going to tell and the themes you are going to explore in your essay.

Start in the middle of the story. Do not worry about "building suspense" in an autobiographical essay. If you want to tell the story about the time you accidentally ruined Thanksgiving dinner, then write about peoples' reaction or how you moved on. That is the essay.

Connect the details to the big theme. If you are writing an essay about a disaster at Thanksgiving some time ago, do not forget that you are writing about more than a burnt turkey. What's the point of the story? What are we supposed to be getting out of this story? At least once a page, you need to have some thread that ties us back to the main theme or focus of the essay you are writing.

Writing a Cover Letter for an Application

Find the prompt. If you need a cover letter for a job or internship, for college, or for some other application opportunity, sometimes there will be a description or prompt of what is expected in the letter. Depending on the nature of the application, you may need to describe your readiness to complete the job, your qualifications, or other specific criteria. Possible prompts may include: Outline your qualifications and highlight your talents in a cover letter. Write about who you are. In a cover letter, describe how your education and experience qualifies you for this position. Explain how this opportunity will benefit your career goals.

Match the style to the purpose. Different employers and situations will call for different styles and tones in a cover letter. If you are applying to a university, it is always best to use a professional and academic tone throughout the letter. When you are applying to blog for a tech start-up that tells you to "Explain three things you rock at!" it is probably better to use a looser and more informal style of writing. When in doubt, keep it brief and serious. If you are unsure whether or not telling an amusing anecdote about your friend's bachelor party is appropriate in a cover letter, it is probably best to leave it out.

Describe why you are writing in the first paragraph. The first two sentences should explain the purpose of your cover letter and your application clearly. If someone reading your cover letter is unclear about what it is you are writing about, your application will quickly get chucked in the trash. "I'm writing to apply for the entry-level position with Company Inc. advertised on your website. I think my experience and training makes me an ideal candidate for this position." Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary to include your name in the body of the letter: "My name is John Smith and I am applying...." Your name will be included in the signature, as well as the header of a cover letter, so there is no need to put it in the text itself.

Structure the cover letter as cause and effect. A cover letter should explain to the potential employer or admissions board why you are the best candidate for the position, or why you should be admitted to the university or program to which you are applying. To do this, you need to make sure every cover letter describes what you bring to the table and how that will help satisfy the ambitions of both parties. Make sure all cover letters describe the following details clearly: Who you are and where you come from. Where you want to go. How this opportunity would potentially help you get there.

Detail your talents and skills specifically. What makes you the ideal type of candidate for the job or position you are applying for? What experiences, skills, training, and talent do you bring to the table? Be as specific as possible. It is alright to note that you are "A passionate leader in all walks of life" but it would be much better to write about an example of a time you lead in a surprising way. Stay focused on skills and talents that connect specifically to the thing you are applying for. Extracurricular involvement, leadership roles, and other types of outstanding achievement may be important to you personally, but it may be totally extraneous. If you include something, ensure to connect it specifically to the goal of the cover letter.

Describe your goals and ambitions. Where do you want to go from here? Both admission boards and employers are more interested in people with ambition and self-starters who will be motivated to achieve at a high level. Be as specific as possible. If you are writing a university cover letter, it is obvious that you have to have a degree to get a job as a doctor, but how did you come to choose this field? Why did you choose this school? What, specifically, do you want to take away from the experience?

Explain how both parties will benefit from your selection. What do you bring to the table that other candidates do not? How would the university benefit from having you as a member of the student body? How would you benefit from getting that new job? Your readers will be interested in hearing how you present yourself. Be careful about using a cover letter to critique a business. It is not the time to describe the suffering of a particular brand over the previous fiscal quarter, then promising that you will be able to turn it around with your ideas. That might not go over well if you are hired, and then you are unable to live up to the promise.

Do not mistake the cover letter for the resume. While it is important to list your best skills as they apply to the job you are interested in, a cover letter is not the place to get specific. Make sure the resume and the cover letter contain different information. Even if it is impressive, a high GPA or class ranking does not belong in a cover letter. Highlight it on your resume, but do not include it in two different places of the application.

Keep it brief. Ideal cover letters should be about half to one full page in length, and somewhere between 250-400 words. Certain places may ask for longer letters, in the neighborhood of 700-1000 words, but it is rare that cover letters should ever be longer than that.

Format the letter. Cover letters are usually single-spaced and in a legible font, such as Times or Garamond. Generally, cover letters should include a salutation addressed to the admission board or a specific contact listed on the application, a closing with your signature, and the following contact information included in the header of the document: Your name Mailing address E-mail Telephone and/or fax number EXPERT TIP Lucy Yeh Lucy Yeh Career & Life Coach Lucy Yeh is a Human Resources Director, Recruiter, and Certified Life Coach (CLC) with over 20 years of experience. With a training background with Coaching for Life and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at InsightLA, Lucy has worked with professionals of all levels to improve the quality of their careers, personal/professional relationships, self marketing, and life balance. Lucy Yeh Lucy Yeh Career & Life Coach Expert Trick: Save time and effort by creating one generic format that you can use for many different job applications by tweaking the specific content for each one. Start with a general introductory paragraph, then a section or two fleshing out your resume and expertise as it relates to the job, and finish it off with a closing paragraph and a note of thanks.

Writing a Short Biography Note

Write about yourself in the third person. Short blurb-style bio notes are common in work directories, pamphlets, and other materials. You may be asked to provide one for any number of reasons. They are usually short, and can be somewhat awkward to write. Pretend you are writing about someone else. Write your name and start describing that person like a character or a friend: "John Smith is the Executive Vice President of Company Inc..."

Explain your position or title. Be sure to clarify your specific role and specialty, taking into consideration the purpose of the bio note. Describe what it is you do and what it is that people know you for. If you are a jack of all trades, say so. Do not be afraid to list "actor, musician, mother, motivational speaker, and professional rock climber" if they all apply equally.

Briefly list your responsibilities or accomplishments. If you are a frequent winner of awards and distinctions, a bio note is a good time to list them and toot your own horn. Try to keep bio notes focused on recent history. It is common to list degrees that you have received. Pay particular attention to anything that ties into the work you are writing about. If you have special training, include it here.

Include a bit of your personal life. Bio notes do not need to be cold. It is common to end on a small personal detail that will spice up bio notes a bit. Consider including your cat's name, or a quirky detail about a hobby: "John Smith is the Executive Vice President of Company Inc., in charge of marketing and overseas acquisitions. He received an MBA with distinction from Harvard and lives in Montauk with his cat Cheeto." Do not overshare. It can seem funny to immediately start with "John Smith loves rafting and hates eating Cheetos. He's a total boss" and such bio notes can be appropriate for some venues, however be careful to avoid awkward oversharing. Telling everyone about your killer hangover might be best left for after work talk.

Keep it brief. Generally, these types of bio notes are no more than a few sentences. They will usually be included on a contributor page or a list of other employees all together. You do not want yours to stand out as the person who droned on for half a page, when everyone else used a few sentences. Stephen King, who is one of the most successful and popular authors in recent history, has a bio note that just lists the name of his family members, his hometown, and his pets. Consider leaving out the self-congratulation entirely.