Read the section on “Drawing on Experience” from Chapter 18 – Developing Voice in the CEL (p. 541). Note especially how the example from Anne Marie Paulin includes her own “moment of revelation” about her own quest for thinness as a way of establishing the personal relevance of the topic she is writing about. 

Why is credibility important in essays about personal experience?
How do writers establish credibility when they are writing about events from their own lives?
What qualities in personal experience essays detract from the writer’s credibility?