"To discover who I am. Writing the personal essay celebrates my difference, authenticates who I am, justifies my existence."
This part of Murray's essay particularly stuck out to me. Writing about yourself is going to outline your differences to others. When people are reading personal essays, I think it is a natural reaction to compare the text that your reading to your personal thoughts. For example, when someone describes something they do, you would question yourself do I do that? Murray uses the word celebrates which adds an influencing idea to the statement. It supplements a positive attitude about writing without hiding your differences in a personal essay. The author is clearly comfortable with the idea of personal essays and expressing his personal thoughts. It is important to convey your own ideas and not be afraid to share your thoughts. When I write I never usually think about the aspect that I am learning things about my self. When I write I look at it as a test of my knowledge to see what I know. The more easy it is to write, the more knowledgable I am about the subject. However when it comes to personal essays, it is hard not to be knowledgable about yourself. I write whatever comes to my mind, but I always try to make sure it would sound good to others. After reading this article for the next time I go to write a personal essay I am going to try to not think about what other peoples opinions are. Murray taught me that I should just express my personal thoughts and show what I stand for. I have never really been the type of person to not speak my mind or show for what I stand. But when it comes to writing sometimes I would try to accommodate both the author and the reader so that both sides are happy. Next time I go to write my personal essay I am only going to think about myself.
I too had the same reason for writing a personal essay. I agree with how you see personal essays as a outline of how you are different from other people. I could also add to that, that it also shows comparisons that you have with other people. There something you might read in someones personal essay that you complete get and can relate to.
ReplyDeleteI liked the point you talked about and your final idea to write your personal essay without worrying about the opinions others and just think about yourself.I feel like that is an important part of personal writing especially because we get so caught up in making sure we adhere to any guidelines, the audience understands what we mean and if they enjoy it. When we worry about all these other things it makes writing more difficult on us and perhaps we wont write as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree, thetis the point of a personal essay to express yourself and what you may be thinking. I think for a personal essay a great way to write it is to read it out loud to yourself. If you think it is entertaining chances are other people will too.
ReplyDeleteThe comparison between my person thoughts and what I am reading is natural. I always find myself possibly critiquing my own writing to be better while reading or listening to someone else’s piece. Even when giving advice to someone, I feel like personal experience helps us tell them the better thing to do. I completely agree about being yourself in your writing. No one is judging you based on what you write, so your ideas and thoughts should make a proud statement. Even if you don’t necessarily think about the reader while you write, you are essentially pleasing the reader anyway. I think a reader enjoys when a writing piece makes a statement with no shame. It makes the reader either second guess their own opinion because of confidence in the author’s writing or simply reassuring them of what they already knew.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said. While i'm writing a personal essay i never think to really read it how my reader would because i assume that i know my self since i wrote it. You don't really expect to learn something about yourself by reading something of your own.
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