英文日记和汉语日记一样，是用来记叙一天中所发生的有意义的事情或对将来的打算等。日记可分为记事、议论、描写及抒情等。
记事型是用英语记述当天自己生活学习中发生的事情。
议论型是对生活中的某一事情或情况现象谈自己的看法，发表议论。
描写型或抒情型，则是对某人物事物的特征做细致的描述，或针对某事物抒发自己的感情。
1.格式：一般是在左上角记上当天日期，星期，时间的排列法与书信一致，星期写在日期之后;右上角写上当天的天气情况，表示天气情况的词一般是形容词，如：fine (晴朗的)，cold (寒冷的)，snowy(下雪)，sunny(阳光充足的)，rainy(下雨的)，cloudy(阴天的)等。日记的小标题写在下一行，也可省略不写。
2.时态：写日记的时间一般是在下午、晚上，有时也可以在第二天补写。因此，日记中所记述的事情通常发生在过去，常用一般过去时;但当记述天气、描写景色或展望未来时，可以用一般现在时或一般将来时。写法大致和写汉语日记相同，都是在正文之前有日期、星期几及当天的天气情况。注意内容表达要清楚连贯、准确。
下面是一篇关于英语日记范文。
January 18, 2011 Friday Sunny
I am free now as I am spending my winter holiday.
Although we have some homework, we can finish them in several days. And the rest time we can make good use of. My god! We have been very tired after hard studying. In winter holidays, I want to have full sleep and eat good food in order to replenish myself. Last but not the least, I will have a good rest.
I have rested for a week. I began to feel bored. So I went out with my friends. They are my best friends in the middle school. We didn’t go to someplace special. We just saw the other. We had lunch together. While we were having lunch, we were still talking about the new school and new friends. Yes! A year later, we have grown riper. And we learned much more things and got new life. We haven’t enough time to play, to waste and to lose the way. We only have two years. Two years to go, we will get the real life which belongs to us.