46 Profile Essay Guidelines

What Is a Profile?

Profiles . . .

• Are based on a writer’s newly acquired observations.
• Take readers behind the scenes of familiar places or introduce readers to unusual places and people or everyday people with interesting viewpoints or stories
• Provide information while at the same time arousing readers’ curiosity. Consider yourself as simply holding the mirror and reporting what this person is saying. That said, not everything is important to share so share only the most captivating details and organize/order that information in a compelling way.
• Present scenes and people vividly and concretely through description, action, and dialogue. That detail comes from observation and is not manufactured or exaggerated. This is non-fiction and not a fictional (made-up) story.
• Create a dominant impression of the subject. In other words, what is the lasting impression you would like the reader, your audience, to get from reading and learning about this person.

The Guidelines

• You will write 2 profile essays. These should be 2 separate essays/papers (don’t combine into one paper). However, you will submit both for the Profile Essay (preferably as two different attachments)
• Base each profile essay on the group/team questionnaire responses for the 2 people you interviewed. You should/should have interviewed 2 different people who have something to say about your community change topic
• Each profile should be at least 2 pages long.
• Write in third person (you’re the mirror/the recorder of information) but you can include first person as part of direct quotes OR as part of your observation as an interviewer (i.e. I noticed her wipe away a tear as . . .). The empathy maps will come in handy as you include any observations on your part.
• You will probably use a combination of past and present tense
• Your essay should NOT read like a question and answer. The information does NOT have to follow the same order of the questions/answers in the questionnaire. Instead, you should weave the information you gather from this person via the questionnaire/interview in a way that makes sense.
• Ensure that your profile hits on a considerable number of answers to the common questions from your community change team (and not just the questions individual to your sub-topic of interest)
• Include first and last name of the people, some demographic information (age, gender, race/ethnicity, location, job title/student, etc.) that is relevant [this should be the only information outside of the questionnaire that would be used].
  • Use pseudonyms ONLY if the information is of a confidential nature and they request this anonymity to protect their privacy.
• Cite your interviewees on a Works Cited/Reference page

Schedule/Due Dates

• Today – Profile Guidelines & discuss empathy maps
• Monday 9/25 – Mandatory attendance day–teams create a common questionnaire (can include additional questions related to individual sub-topics); interview someone using questionnaire for next class
• Wednesday 9/27 – Come to class with questionnaire and empathy map filled out for Interviewee #1. We will do Live Drafting in class.
• Rest of the week/weekend–Interview a second person; fill out questionnaire and empathy map for Interviewee #2 and use same method we used during Live Drafting for draft of Profile 2. Bring both Profiles in for Peer Review on Monday, 10/2.
• Final versions due Sunday, 10/4 by midnight