Profile essays are typically designed to provide as much information about a person, topic, or place as possible. Personal profile essays, as the name implies, seek to describe a person with enough relevant details.
Thorough research on examples of a profile essay on a person will reveal some crucial steps that must be followed to write the perfect essay. Profile essay examples on a person strictly adhere to these steps, and they are outlined below.
A Personal Profile Essay Example on a Person: Steps
Consider the following example of a profile on a person. The sample profile essay person will be Dr. Ben Carson.
Step 1: Set Up and Prepare for An Interview with Dr. Ben Carson
Before meeting with the person, have a list of possible questions. Personal profile examples often follow the pattern of “who, what, when, where and why”. The who (person), what (topic) , when (place and time), where (venue), and why (reason) are usually answered first. The question of appearance and conduct can come later.
More than a few personality profile essay examples will emphasize that you pay close attention to the person’s appearance and conduct.
Step 2: Delve into Research About the Person
Read about the individual’s achievements, extraordinary interests, etc. Knowing what trait to zero in on will help you during the meeting. However, be willing to learn new things about them.
Step 3: Draft an Outline
Your free layout of the interview exclusively depends on your article. Create three headings:
· Introduction
Here, you’ll focus on the potential questions to ask during the interview.
Using the previously mentioned profile essay sample of Dr. Ben Carson, this segment could include a hint at his achievement, career, family, etc.
Be sure to open with a captivating line.
· Body
Here, you’ll focus on and develop the points hinted at in the first segment. Ask questions about his story, his role models, etc. Try to get the scoop from his perspective and make each point a paragraph.
· Conclusion
This is the second point I’d like to emphasize in this profile essay on a person example. The first is the introduction. Use your conclusion to conceptualize strong closure points.
Summarize your main points and provide a new angle where possible.
Step 4: Conduct the Interview in a Serene Place.
Establish a good rapport from the get-go. This will ease whatever tension there is, and make the interviewee feel great, which will produce a more useful meeting. Agree on the timeframe required, and ensure you get consent first if you want to record the meeting.
Step 5: Take Notes and Review Them
If there’s one thing this personal profile essay example should teach you, it’s that observational skills are important. Jot down points and observe nonverbal cues. Often, nonverbal cues are more resonating than verbal cues.
Watch out for signs of hesitation from your interviewee and rephrase or redirect the question. Otherwise, your interview may be cut short.
When you’re done, thank the person and end the meeting. Later, read through your points and listen to your recording to see if there were any points that you may have missed. Read your essay out loud and in front of someone so they can help you check for errors.
Example of Personality Profile Essay
In simple terms, a personality profile essay is one that describes a person’s professional qualifications. They are used to measure a person’s personality, education, as well as their personal, and professional background.
Personality profile essay examples are slightly different from profile essay examples on a person. Personality profile essays almost exclusively focus on the person’s professional life and their contribution to the workplace. On the other hand, a profile of a person essay example usually includes details outside the workplace. E.g., the person’s interests, character, etc.
Some common points that can be seen regardless of whether it is an example of personal profile essay are:
- Time is given to research. Going for an interview without researching is like going to work without clothes. It’s unthinkable.
- Observation is key. Pick up on verbal cues and use nonverbal cues to augment your findings. Watch the person in action.
- Be honest in your review. If you feel strongly about something, express it politically rather than rudely.
- Rein in the facts. You’ve done your research, so make subtle references while reading the room. You don’t want to come off as a stalker. Remember to stick to your outline.
Agreed, finding the perfect example personal profile essay can be a herculean task, but once you do, the pieces will all fall into place. Here is a sample you should check out:
My Mother the Survivor
Sometimes life takes you by surprise. An illness like cancer changes everything, it can even take a life. We were in El Paso, and the year was 2005. The seasons had just changed, summer turning into fall, the mornings turning crisp and the evenings cool, lots of sun in between. Life had been mostly the same as it always had been, the usual, school, family life, chores, each day filled with routine things that keep life on course. Then my mother got sick, eventually diagnosed with primary paritaeal carcinamatosis, and life as we knew it changed. She had not been feeling well, but no one ever thinks it’ll be cancer, and when she got the diagnosis I think we were more afraid than she was.
Mom was born in Massachusetts and lived a pretty normal life. She married my father when she was 32, a career army man. She was ready to travel around and be committed to being an army wife. The kids came and the responsibilities, too. She’s one of those people that carries stress so well. You’d never know from her disposition all the responsibilities and burdens she was carrying when we were small. She always handled it all so well. When she became ill, I think her spirit grew even stronger. She’s a person with character, someone that rises to meet challenges when they present themselves.
Cancer, it’s such a terrible word. It evokes so many images in a person’s mind, and those pictures are attached to a million different emotions. For me, the connotations were simple: diagnosis and symptoms and frailty and eventually death. I didn’t think there was much in between. But I was wrong. My mom was stronger than cancer and stronger than any of us around her. But the battle was long. We watched our mother’s body be pushed and pulled and injected and stretched as she underwent treatment.
Cancer’s effect on a person is very obvious. It literally eats away at you. This type of cancer affected her female organs and she was ill a lot. Often in her bed for days at a time. Sometimes I thought the treatment for the cancer was worse than the illness itself, but the doctors told me a disease like cancer took a really big weapon to conquer.
My mother. I learned a lot from her at this time. I always knew she had character, I always knew she was strong, and I always knew that she had a sunny outlook on life, but I didn’t know the depths of her soul. She’s a survivor. Not once but twice. It was almost like she made a conscious decision to not be defined by the disease and to most certainly not be eradicated by it.
She won her first battle and her recovery took a while but it was triumphant. We watched her get sick and then we watched her get even sicker from the treatment, and then we watcher her slowly regain her vitality, the color coming back to her cheeks as the spring put the leaves back on the trees. She never gave up, and she never stopped looking out for us, even when she was barely strong enough to keep her own head up.
After that we thought we could put the C word behind us, we thought that once you got it and beat it that it would never rear its ugly head again. We were wrong. In 2014 my mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer, a hard and painful version of the disease, one that made her even sicker than before and required more extensive and intensive treatment.
My family was older and wiser; we’d already been through the journey before and weren’t surprised by the treatment. But this time was different – my mother’s body was older and weaker – and we were older, too, and a little more suspicious of the outcome. Could someone actually beat cancer twice?
My mother has taught me something about what it means to survive. It means so much more than seeking treatment for a disease, it’s a mindset. No, it’s even more than that. It’s a spiritual quality. When my mother was undergoing treatment a second time, getting injected with chemicals to kill the bad cells, her body was so sick, but something else about her stayed steady and strong. It was in her mind, it was in her soul: she would not lose this battle or any other. She is now in remission and is living a good and healthy life.
I think we learn the most about ourselves not when we are well and going about our usual life, but when life presents a challenge, especially one that could end it all for an individual. I don’t know that mom ever faltered. Even when we were sad or feeling uncertain about how things would end up, she never let it get to her. I don’t know what it was like for her in bed at night right before she drifted off to sleep, but when never saw real fear in her eyes. She never questioned her ability to survive a terrible disease, she was so committed to life, its essence, and to us. Her soul decided to survive and that’s just what she did. Not once but twice.
Hint
When writing a personal profile essay, try to hint at something that implies the talents or hidden charms of the person. This will keep your readers more interested in your content and endear them to the person.
