Basic Features of a Profile Essay

1. Basic Features of a Profile Essay

2. Basic Features: Writing Profiles Detailed Information About the Subject • The essay should include: • Vivid descriptions, lively anecdotes, and quotations from the profile subject • Details about what people look like, how they dress, gesture, and talk • Descriptions of the observer’s experience from all five senses • Quotations, summaries, or paraphrases from the people interviewed

3. Basic Features: Writing Profiles A Clear Organizational Plan • A narrative plan that interweaves the information with elements of a story OR • A topical plan that groups the information into topics and moves from one topic to another

4. Basic Features: Writing Profiles A Role for the Writer • As a spectator or detached observer, the writer’s position is like that of the reader, an outsider looking in on the people and their activities. • As a participant observer, the writer participates in the activity being profiled and acquires insider knowledge.

5. Basic Features: Writing Profiles A Perspective on the Subject • All of the previous features support the writer’s perspective on the subject: the main idea or cultural significance that the writer wants readers to understand from the profile. • Profiles convey a thesis by creating a dominant impression using the descriptive details and other information, together with the writers’ thoughts and comments.