How to Write an Essay on Important Decisions

Writing an essay on important decisions is daunting. It is difficult to know how to explain your personal decision-making process. Crafting the essay in a descriptive or narrative essay format makes the task simpler because you can focus on your personal experiences and insights into the topic. When beginning the essay, start with a personal account or an example of a decision-making process and its outcome.

Create a graphic organizer. Draw a box at the top of the page. Label the box "Introduction." Beneath the first box, connect with the three lines to three smaller boxes, labeled "Main Idea 1," "Main Idea 2" and "Main Idea 3." Beneath these three boxes, draw three boxes. Label each of these boxes "Supporting Details 1, 2 and 3."

Fill in the graphic organizer. Skip the introduction for now. Begin with the main ideas. These will be the main points you discuss in your paper. Instead of anecdotes or examples, fill the main idea portion with adjectives or descriptive terms on which you would like to elaborate in the paper. For instance, write "confidence," "discipline" and "imagination."

Fill in the "Supporting Details" section. In this section, enter experiences, short narratives and details descriptions on how you, or someone you know, makes important decisions. Using the example from Step 2, if you wrote "confidence," in the detail box, you may write "When I make decisions crucial to my life and ambitions, I stay confident so that I stay in control of the situation and can make decisions soundly and proudly." You may include an example, such as which college you chose, where you chose to live after high school, whether or not to accept a job in another country, or whether to stay near your family when a family member was sick.

Write the introduction. Introduce the topic with a grabber sentence, a line that lures the reader to read your essay from beginning to end. An intriguing line may read "When me make decisions, we put life on pause." Or, "The day I boarded the plane with a one-way ticket to Tanzania, I knew I had made an important decision that would change the rest of my life." Write two or three more sentences that narrow your essay to the points you will discuss, such as the use of confidence, discipline and imagination in making big decisions.

Write the conclusion. Wrap the essay up by summarizing the areas you covered in your essay. For example, if you wrote about your decision to accept a job overseas, which meant leaving your fiance, your family and friends, include in the conclusion how that decision made you understand yourself better, and the goals you find most powerful in your life.