Op-eds versus personal essays

What is the difference between a personal essay and an op-ed?
Personal essays and op-eds are both great ways to get your writing out in front of a general audience. They do differ in a couple of important ways. Op-eds are really focused around a strong argument and opinion that is then supported throughout the piece, with anecdotes and data and other evidence to support that opinion. It really should be something hard hitting, and it should be a new idea, something that has not been circulated widely before. That's what's really going to grab both an editor's attention and a reader's attention. Personal essays are a little different, and they don't need to include a strong argument. They can be more of a story or a narrative, and they also don't necessarily need data points within. These are really more of your personal experiences that hopefully readers can take something away from. Maybe they can relate to it in some way, but they don't necessarily come away needing to be persuaded of something the way they would when reading an op-ed.