Here are some of the proven ways to open personal essays effectively:

1. Describe a person or setting.  Doing this focuses the reader’s attention on a specific object quickly, allowing you to use that same attention for introducing the rest of your essay.
2. Describe a scene that involves the senses.  Be careful with this, though, as doing so risks slowing down the beginning of the essay considerably.  The tradeoff, however, is that it hooks the reader with a potentially involving description that sets the stage vividly.
3. Ask a question.   Specifically, one that’s piercing enough to get the attention of someone interested in the subject of your essay.
4. Throw in a remarkable but fitting quotation.  If you’re going to use a quotation to open, it has to be both special (as in, it’s wittier or more sensational than anything you can come up with yourself) and appropriate to the subject (lest confuse the reader).
5. A controversial statement.  An always reliable strategy, people tend to read as soon as their intrigue is piqued.
6. A straightforward statement that will either be supported or disputed in the essay.    It’s rarely the best option.  But if you’re stuck at finding a better opening, it will do.

1. Plan.  Read the assignment brief and make a detailed list of things you’ll need to do.  Are you supposed to investigate, analyze, compare, review or perform some other action? Define your work clearly.  Then, make a list of possible sources you will se for your research.   This bit of planning will help you push through the rest of the steps without having to reconsider at every turn.
2. Schedule.  Create a timetable .  Assign more time to preparation (research, outlining) than the actual writing and revision stages.  Getting those crucial first steps right will make the actual writing part go much smoother.
3. Gather data.  When it comes to research data, you want to gather as much as you can.  That way, you won’t end up short on information right when you need it.  Make sure to highlight key data, so you can quickly find them later.
4. Outline.  Organize your data and write down a list of main points in the order you believe they should be presented in the essay.  Refer to your research to find pertinent information.
5. Draft.  Write your first draft, following the pattern and structure you defined in the outline.
6. Revise.  After the first draft, put it down for some time (ideally a day) before returning to it for review and revision.  Make a few passes, starting with big picture changes (e.g. overall structure) before drilling down to the nitty-gritty (e.g. word choice).
7. Put finishing touches.    Once you’re satisfied with the rewrites, time to put the essay through the final phases: run it through your grammar software, double-check facts and numbers, and tidy up the presentation.

Reasoning errors may be intentional. Some authors will engage in it as a way to trick readers when their argument can’t actually hold on its own. Most of the time, though, these types of problems arise unintentionally, either as a result of carelessness or just faulty thinking.

Common logical fallacies you might end up writing include:

1. Hasty generalizations. This is when you come up with a generalization based on too little evidence.
2. False choice. Here, you frame a situation as having only two choices when there are, in fact, a lot more possible options.
3. Non-sequitur. This is when the conclusion isn’t directly in line with the premise.
4. False Analogy. Here, you wrongly assume that similarities in two things make them similar in every other way, too.
5. Ad Hominem. Instead of arguing against the issue, this faulty approach attacks the personalities that support the opposing view.
6. Red Herring. This is when you cite an unrelated issue instead of addressing the issue directly.

Choosing Quotations

Any quotation you use should complement the subject of the essay, not create an entirely new tangent for it.  Keep that as your primary criteria for choosing a quotation.   Those that don’t serve your points shouldn’t even be in consideration.

You should stop there, though.  Good quotations need to make a strong impact, not just add to the noise.  As such, you should pick ones that can add credibility to your arguments, inject some humor or give it an interesting angle.  If a quotation doesn’t serve those, there’s really little point in using them.  Do note that you want quotations to add impact, not steal the show.

Keep It Small

Quotations are meant to reinforce your message, not overpower it.  An essay is supposed to relay your thoughts, not other people’s ideas.  When you keep your quotations at a low number, the essay’s voice remains your own, instead of being drowned up by the sources you’re drawing from.

Avoiding Self-References

Do not make self-references unless it’s absolutely the only way to accurately write a sentence.  Saying “I think that…” is unnecessary, when there are plenty of other ways you can structure the same sentence.  Doing so explicitly tells the reader that your statements are merely someone’s opinion, rather than a logical resolution drawn from evidence and reasoning.

An Exception To The Rule

Self-referencing can be useful when you’re giving an account of something you actually did.  For instance, if you’re writing a scientific paper and giving a narrative of the experiments you performed, then saying “When I mixed the…” and “I then proceeded to…” could both be viable constructions.

Support Your Opinions

Any opinion you express should be duly supported by evidence and illustration.  You can’t make a statement and have it stand on its own — that’s unreasonable.  Instead, you need to show the reader what led you to such a conclusion by detailing the supporting points that build your case.  Make sure the reader understands the relationship between those points and your interpretations, as well.

Why?  Examples are like story breaks in essays.  Instead of generalized descriptions and endless discussions, you break the monotony with a scene that shows the concept at work.  You tell a brief story, one that the reader can actually watch unfold in their minds.

Fact is, people love stories.  When given the choice between watching some dude discussing the finer points of quantum mechanics or a TV show about scientists whose fields of expertise lie in quantum mechanics, the latter will always get more viewers.   There’s something about stories that makes ideas more tangible, more interesting and, ultimately, more likely to stick with the reader.

As a test, pick any essay that uses brilliant discussion and excellent examples.  Then, have a friend read it.  After one day, ask them what they remember the best about the paper.  More likely than not, they’ll tell you about all the different examples they got from it.

When we look at a subject as something to dissect and study, it’s boring.  It takes a lot of effort to sit through a paper that discusses hard numbers, theories and concepts.  Spice the same thing with examples, though, and you’ll feel the difference immediately.  It’s just a whole lot easier to keep our attention focused when we’re reading something that moves through time with active events unfolding and interesting characters involved.

First Paragraph

In this format, you start with a conclusion first.   State your position and your primary reasons for supporting it clearly.  You can throw in your best evidence or compelling illustrations to help drive the point, but keep the whole thing concise enough to fit in one paragraph.

Second, Third and Fourth Paragraphs

For the next three paragraphs, your job is to present three main points that argue for the incorrectness of your conclusion.  Basically, you will present a series of counter-arguments that go against your main idea.  The goal here is not to create imaginary arguments that you can counter later; instead, you want to give the reader a complete view of the issues at hand and this accomplishes that rather well.

Last Paragraph

In the final paragraph, you make the case for why you’re maintaining your position, despite the existence of the counter-argument in the previous three paragraphs.   Discuss the various reasons that the original conclusion stands, giving additional evidence and illustrations for the decision.

The most common type of multi-subject essays are comparison and contrast papers.   You’re probably familiar with them.  You’re given two (or more) different topics, which you’ll then compare and contrast on your way to fleshing out a conclusion.

The Mini-Essay

When doing these types of writing, the first pitfall to avoid is to turn the whole thing into separate mini-essays.  That means one section of the essay focuses on one topic, while another section focuses on another, almost like they’re two standalone discussions.   While valid, this puts focus away from the relationship between subjects, which is what multi-subject essays usually attempt to develop.

Organization

The ideal way to organize multi-subject writing is to isolate several issues that are relevant to both topics.  Then, you discuss these issues one by one, comparing and contrasting how each main subject relates to it.  When going this route, try to stick to issues that are closely linked together, as it keeps your discussions more focused and coherent.

The One Constant

Like all types of writing, multi-subject essays will benefit from the use of a powerful grammar software.   More than correcting syntax, these tools will help shape your essays into a clearer, better-reading piece – regardless of how many subjects you intend to cover.

1. Start by brainstorming your topic.  What do you already know about it?  Separating what you know from what you don’t can help you streamline the necessary research.
2. Draw up an outline.  This will help you define the structure of the piece, without having to worry about the actual writing at the same time.
3. If you’re like most people, you can start drafting directly from the outline.   Don’t bother adjusting the structure or revising the outline during drafting.  Follow it as you created it.  Worry about corrections later.
4. In case you still find it hard to draft from the outline, you take an extra step.  Take each item in your outline and come up with one or two sentences for it.  Once you’ve gone through the list, start piecing them together as your draft.
5. Editing is where the real magic of writing happens.   This is where you read through the piece, identify weak points and revise them to your satisfaction.  Good editing often makes the difference between a C paper and an A, so don’t skip it.  Unless, of course, you’re too pressed for time.  In that case, going to the next step will often suffice.
6. Use the best English writing software money can buy.  Seriously.  Most of the advanced ones are so good that you can earnestly rely on it to do more than fix spelling and grammar, going so far as to help your writing achieve better readability and more elegant style.

While not a popular approach for writing class essays, this is actually a very valid structure.  In fact, when students ask me to recommend simple essay formats, this is  among the ones I suggest.

The inverted pyramid works great for different types of essays, from character profiles to descriptive essays to reviews.  However, it is far from being the most creative approach.  Neither will it make for the most compelling reading.  For the most part, this is a great approach if you’re short on time.

How so?  News writers tend to write pieces very fast – that’s because this structure lends itself very well to that.  Because you’ve already spent the starting paragraphs filling in the general details, it saves you from having to introduce major elements in the body.  As such, writing becomes very straightforward and factual.  Pair it with a high-quality writing software and you’re golden.   Similarly, this also allows for faster editing.  You can literally shave multiple sentences from the trunk down and retain the essence of the piece, since the pertinent details are all laid out at or near the head.