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CorkBoard wrote:This is all over the place, almost so much that it's incoherent.

californiauser wrote:

CorkBoard wrote:This is all over the place, almost so much that it's incoherent.

Seriously? It's chronological. The progression is logical.

CorkBoard wrote:

californiauser wrote:

CorkBoard wrote:This is all over the place, almost so much that it's incoherent.

Seriously? It's chronological. The progression is logical.

Your topics are all over the place, which leads me to this very important question that you should also ask yourself: what in the world are you trying to write about?

californiauser wrote:

CorkBoard wrote:

californiauser wrote:

CorkBoard wrote:This is all over the place, almost so much that it's incoherent.

Seriously? It's chronological. The progression is logical.

Your topics are all over the place, which leads me to this very important question that you should also ask yourself: what in the world are you trying to write about?

In short, the adversity I've faced in my life.

CorkBoard wrote:This is all over the place, almost so much that it's incoherent.

Out of breath, I rounded the corner into my court. What's a court? Courtroom, tennis court, residential cul de sac...?

I felt shaken and disheveled, but the only tangible feeling I had was total numbness. No, 'shaken' and 'disheveled' are also tangible feelings.

It would be a farce to say I didn’t have a normal family. We went to baseball games, ate out at restaurants, and watched fireworks together on the 4th of July. So... you did have a normal family? I don't think 'farce' is the best word. That implies a joke, not just an inaccuracy.

It would be deceitful to say my sister was an active part of our family. Stints in the mental hospital were normalized; continuation school was progress, and vocal and physical self-degradation became commonplace. I naturally avoided being at home to circumvent the inevitable tumult. Too many big words. And I don't really get what you're trying to say. Your family grew accustomed to the tumult surrounding your sister? Just say that, with fewer syllables.

Instead, I found my solstice (definitely use a different word--do you mean solace? Solstice has to do with the sun's distance from the equator) in sports—a convenient distraction from the calamity and toxicity at home. Football became a way for me to express myself, to channel my pent up energy and learn to work in coordination with a team. (what sports taught me and how they helped me)

I knew it had nothing to do with me, but I felt responsible for my mother losing her job. I was sixteen. It was two weeks before summer football camp officially started, my second and final season on varsity. I was the first one my mother told—while she sobbed in my arms—that she had been laid off. We weren’t poor, but with the economic uncertainty, my family had no idea how long it would take for my mother to find gainful employment. I walked away from my senior of football, opting instead to work—it was the only way I felt I could do my part and contribute to the betterment of our family. It was the hardest decision I had made up until that point in my life, and to this day I know it was the right one. There is absolutely no explanation of WHY you felt like her job loss was your fault. Explain why, or don't mention that bit.

My first two years of college were exhilarating. Being over five hundred miles from home represented a fresh start, for the first time in my life I felt that I finally had true stability. After the first semester of my second year, I was hitting my full-on academic stride. I was building personal relationships with my professors, had budding friendships, and was pleased to have earned my highest GPA in college, thus far. Things changed my second semester.

My mother started experiencing severe vertigo—an effect of Meniere’s disease, an enigmatic disease she had contracted. My mother became bed-ridden, sporadically, for up to ten days at a time and we were losing our house to foreclosure. To my dismay, it was no longer practical for me to attend an out-of-state college. The decision to move back home wasn’t difficult; I knew what had to be done.

The adjustment wasn’t easy, but it became manageable. I was fortunate enough to receive a partial academic scholarship, and by coupling that with living at home, continuing my education became feasible. The forty-minute commute, to and from home each way, became a way for me to self-reflect on my goals and ambitions. Working twenty plus hours, and at times two jobs, helped me learn to prioritize and maximize my efficiencies with my studies. Adversity hasn’t plagued my life; on the contrary, it has enriched it.

rinkrat19 wrote:

Out of breath, I rounded the corner into my court. What's a court? Courtroom, tennis court, residential cul de sac...?

I felt shaken and disheveled, but the only tangible feeling I had was total numbness. No, 'shaken' and 'disheveled' are also tangible feelings.

It would be a farce to say I didn’t have a normal family. We went to baseball games, ate out at restaurants, and watched fireworks together on the 4th of July. So... you did have a normal family? I don't think 'farce' is the best word. That implies a joke, not just an inaccuracy.

It would be deceitful to say my sister was an active part of our family. Stints in the mental hospital were normalized; continuation school was progress, and vocal and physical self-degradation became commonplace. I naturally avoided being at home to circumvent the inevitable tumult. Too many big words. And I don't really get what you're trying to say. Your family grew accustomed to the tumult surrounding your sister? Just say that, with fewer syllables.

Instead, I found my solstice (definitely use a different word--do you mean solace? Solstice has to do with the sun's distance from the equator) in sports—a convenient distraction from the calamity and toxicity at home. Football became a way for me to express myself, to channel my pent up energy and learn to work in coordination with a team. (what sports taught me and how they helped me)

I knew it had nothing to do with me, but I felt responsible for my mother losing her job. I was sixteen. It was two weeks before summer football camp officially started, my second and final season on varsity. I was the first one my mother told—while she sobbed in my arms—that she had been laid off. We weren’t poor, but with the economic uncertainty, my family had no idea how long it would take for my mother to find gainful employment. I walked away from my senior of football, opting instead to work—it was the only way I felt I could do my part and contribute to the betterment of our family. It was the hardest decision I had made up until that point in my life, and to this day I know it was the right one. There is absolutely no explanation of WHY you felt like her job loss was your fault. Explain why, or don't mention that bit.

My first two years of college were exhilarating. Being over five hundred miles from home represented a fresh start, for the first time in my life I felt that I finally had true stability. After the first semester of my second year, I was hitting my full-on academic stride. I was building personal relationships with my professors, had budding friendships, and was pleased to have earned my highest GPA in college, thus far. Things changed my second semester.

My mother started experiencing severe vertigo—an effect of Meniere’s disease, an enigmatic disease she had contracted. My mother became bed-ridden, sporadically, for up to ten days at a time and we were losing our house to foreclosure. To my dismay, it was no longer practical for me to attend an out-of-state college. The decision to move back home wasn’t difficult; I knew what had to be done.

The adjustment wasn’t easy, but it became manageable. I was fortunate enough to receive a partial academic scholarship, and by coupling that with living at home, continuing my education became feasible. The forty-minute commute, to and from home each way, became a way for me to self-reflect on my goals and ambitions. Working twenty plus hours, and at times two jobs, helped me learn to prioritize and maximize my efficiencies with my studies. Adversity hasn’t plagued my life; on the contrary, it has enriched it.

There are grammatical issues (missing hyphens and a semicolon, for instance), but it needs a broader re-write before worrying about the nitpicks. The language also veers from overly formal (big vocab words and awkward phrasing to too informal ("full on," "twenty plus," etc.)

Overall I agree that the topic needs to be tightened up a little. You clearly have plenty of topics to work with, but trying to cram it all in will make it less effective.

Eichörnchen wrote:

rinkrat19 wrote:

Out of breath, I rounded the corner into my court. What's a court? Courtroom, tennis court, residential cul de sac...?

I felt shaken and disheveled, but the only tangible feeling I had was total numbness. No, 'shaken' and 'disheveled' are also tangible feelings.

It would be a farce to say I didn’t have a normal family. We went to baseball games, ate out at restaurants, and watched fireworks together on the 4th of July. So... you did have a normal family? I don't think 'farce' is the best word. That implies a joke, not just an inaccuracy.

It would be deceitful to say my sister was an active part of our family. Stints in the mental hospital were normalized; continuation school was progress, and vocal and physical self-degradation became commonplace. I naturally avoided being at home to circumvent the inevitable tumult. Too many big words. And I don't really get what you're trying to say. Your family grew accustomed to the tumult surrounding your sister? Just say that, with fewer syllables.

Instead, I found my solstice (definitely use a different word--do you mean solace? Solstice has to do with the sun's distance from the equator) in sports—a convenient distraction from the calamity and toxicity at home. Football became a way for me to express myself, to channel my pent up energy and learn to work in coordination with a team. (what sports taught me and how they helped me)

I knew it had nothing to do with me, but I felt responsible for my mother losing her job. I was sixteen. It was two weeks before summer football camp officially started, my second and final season on varsity. I was the first one my mother told—while she sobbed in my arms—that she had been laid off. We weren’t poor, but with the economic uncertainty, my family had no idea how long it would take for my mother to find gainful employment. I walked away from my senior of football, opting instead to work—it was the only way I felt I could do my part and contribute to the betterment of our family. It was the hardest decision I had made up until that point in my life, and to this day I know it was the right one. There is absolutely no explanation of WHY you felt like her job loss was your fault. Explain why, or don't mention that bit.

My first two years of college were exhilarating. Being over five hundred miles from home represented a fresh start, for the first time in my life I felt that I finally had true stability. After the first semester of my second year, I was hitting my full-on academic stride. I was building personal relationships with my professors, had budding friendships, and was pleased to have earned my highest GPA in college, thus far. Things changed my second semester.

My mother started experiencing severe vertigo—an effect of Meniere’s disease, an enigmatic disease she had contracted. My mother became bed-ridden, sporadically, for up to ten days at a time and we were losing our house to foreclosure. To my dismay, it was no longer practical for me to attend an out-of-state college. The decision to move back home wasn’t difficult; I knew what had to be done.

The adjustment wasn’t easy, but it became manageable. I was fortunate enough to receive a partial academic scholarship, and by coupling that with living at home, continuing my education became feasible. The forty-minute commute, to and from home each way, became a way for me to self-reflect on my goals and ambitions. Working twenty plus hours, and at times two jobs, helped me learn to prioritize and maximize my efficiencies with my studies. Adversity hasn’t plagued my life; on the contrary, it has enriched it.

There are grammatical issues (missing hyphens and a semicolon, for instance), but it needs a broader re-write before worrying about the nitpicks. The language also veers from overly formal (big vocab words and awkward phrasing to too informal ("full on," "twenty plus," etc.)

Overall I agree that the topic needs to be tightened up a little. You clearly have plenty of topics to work with, but trying to cram it all in will make it less effective.

This critique says everything I was going to. Spot on rinkrat. I also agree with the others who say that you have too much going on. Be more selective, dig deeper and remember to relate back to you.