I need help citing this in APA 7

https://training.fema.gov/emiweb/is/is242b/student%20manual/sm_03.pdf

hi could someone review/trade supps for colleges? Preferably within the next 2 days?

Will someone please please please review my essay (it’s kinda sad) I have to have it in by November 1st

Ok so I’m currently trying to finish my college essay draft and I have two different themes in it so it doesn’t fall in the stereotypical essay, but my counselor recommended me to just have 1 theme because it gets confusing.

Still I want to do the two of them because I already build my essay in based of it and I feel deeply connected to the two. So I need to know if I should try to get it so it focus in the two but choose one to be the principal or should I listen and just do one.

dm me

"Was it really worth it?" I ask myself, watching  the world spin around me rapidly as I plummet into the ground, the hard earth rushing up to give me my first kiss, and the jolt that rattles through me as I hit the ground. In that moment, unexpectedly, I felt pure excitement. Excitement that grew from me realizing that I had stepped far beyond my comfort zone, driven purely by curiosity. Next moment, staring up at the sky, with blood and dust in my mouth, wondering if this was really how I wanted to spend my weekends. It wasn’t my first wipeout, and it definitely wouldn’t be the last.

 I remember when I was a kid, sitting wide-eyed at the circus, watching the stunt riders do things that my mind couldn't comprehend. The crowd gasped, but I couldn’t look away, completely mesmerized by their daring ability to pull such thing off. Now, I realize that the same thing I saw at the circus, a sport for only those with the bravest of hearts, has become an inseparable part of my life, even if I hadn’t planned it this way, they say that life is unexpected, right? To others, dirt biking might seem like its just a hobby filled with adrenaline , speed and recklessness. But for me, it’s always been more, it was more of a lifestyle with lots of preparation, planning, and trying to understand what’s happening around me, and people never really understood that. I started riding because I loved the thrill of finding that sweet spot where you’re going fast enough to win, but smart enough to stay in grip, where I could truly feel like I was in control of my own life. It’s taught me so much more than I expected. I've had to make decisions in a split second and trust myself, even when my instincts scream to hold back. I’ve learned that sometimes, especially when you’re nervous, the best thing you can do is just go for it.

Not every jump ends well, and honestly, sometimes I’ve wondered if I should just quit. During a big race a couple years ago when I was just getting into this fun mess, I misjudged a turn and watched every rider I’d passed zip by me as I scrambled down. I could’ve given up right then—I knew my shot at winning had slipped through my fingers.  But for some reason, I kept going, racing harder than I had my entire life. As expected, I didn’t win, but rolling over the finish line felt like a win of its own. I realized then that it wasn’t just about first place; it was about proving to myself that I could stick it out, even when things didn’t go my way. What I learned from that race was that just like when sudden things happen in life, when there are unexpected turns on the track, I’ve learned that each shift in direction offers a chance to rethink, re-engage, adapt to the situation and react effectively.

Dirt biking has shaped the way I see challenges in life, too. When things get hard, I’ve learned not to back down or give up, but to face it head-on, with the same grit I need on the track. 

As I looked at the now-permanent scars through my body, I understood that the mistakes I make in life help me shape my identity. But every wipeout, every hard-won finish, every moment disconnected from the outer world, with my focused on nothing but the trail in front of me reminds me why I love it and why I keep coming back. This man-killing sport has become more than just a sport; it’s a part of who I am and a reminder that no matter how many times I fall, I will always have the will to get back up and hop back on the seat

so I recently have been diagnosed with ADHD and want to put that in my additional info to explain my grades. Can someone help me with that? Should I write a little paragraph or do it in bullet point format?

THANK YA

made the grave mistake of restarting my essay 2 days before the deadline (LOL) i'll read and comment on your essay if you help me with mine!!!

hello can someone pls review my common app essay super quick before i submit it wednesday😓

Is anyone able to help me review my essay for free?

Hi , I need someone to review my essay, my apps r due in 3 days ( i know) i gave my essay to someone a while ago and they haven’t responded. Is there anyone willing to help me for free?😭

almost finalized, a few words over on both, just looking for some unbiased opinion from a few folks who don’t know me.

There are essentially three main approaches to personal statements: narrative essays, mundane essays, and montage essays. If you read hundreds of these every year like I do, you figure out fairly quickly how students tend to approach these and the mistakes they love to make. It's late in the game for this with ED/EA right around the corner, but I wanted to share this in case it helps someone.

I love narrative essays. Storytelling has been the primary way humans have related to each other for millennia, and it's still just as powerful as ever. I also find them coachable and effective, even for students who aren't naturally talented writers. If you need help with how to do this well, check out the A2C wiki on essays.

Mundane essays are ok. These describe an event, process, or story that is, in itself, uninteresting. Famous examples include a trip to Costco or peeling an orange. The essay layers in personal insights, revealing descriptions, and wit that make the otherwise insignificant much more meaningful. If the writer is amazing, they can be awesome - super high ceiling here. But if your writing isn't amazing, poignant, and insightful, the essay will feel...mundane. Proceed with caution.

Montage essays are my least favorite. They usually pull several mini-anecdotes together and centralize them on a common theme or "golden thread." I can count on one hand every year the number of these I see that I actually like. They often seem lazy, uninspired, and shallow. They're the "I couldn't think of anything, so I just threw this together" of college essays. They're easy to do poorly and hard to do well. They're also what you tend to get if you feed your resume or even some more personal ideas to an AI and ask it to help you write an essay. Here be dragons.

#Montage Pitfalls

A montage approach can still work if you do everything right, so below are a few tips to help those of you who are lazycrazy enough to try.

1. Montage essays significantly raise the bar on how strong of a writer you need to be to pull them off. If your writing is lame, generic, predictable, or even just average, the essay will feel weaker than most narrative driven essays. The quality, personality, and craft of your writing has to keep the reader engaged. But even more than that, the writing/voice itself has to convey personality because the content probably won't.

2. Montage essays are almost always less engaging because there’s no story driving them forward. The connecting thread between your points/paragraphs/sections usually feels somewhat predictable. It’s a lot easier to just start skimming - and honestly, that’s what I start doing without even realizing it the first time I read most montage essays. I go back and re-read more carefully, but that’s still not a good sign, and definitely NOT what you want your AO to do. One of the challenges with this is that usually the actual connections between your resume bullet points and burrito ingredients actually don't matter at all. So it's easy to skim one of these and get the gist of it. That might be a shallower understanding of the applicant, and a bit lazy, but turnabout is fair play - lazy writing often inspires lazy reading.

3. The theme or extended metaphor almost always feels contrived. It’s like when a company announces a new corporate strategy and it’s some sort of acronym (e.g. the six “pillars” of the strategy spell GROWTH, and the H is for something like “Help Each Other”). That always feels like they picked words that fit the acronym rather than saying what they actually want their strategy to be. Do we really want helping each other to be part of our company strategy, or did we just pick it because Growt isn’t a word? Whatever you pick for your extended metaphor or connecting thread has to be personal to you, important or meaningful in some way, and sincere. Students love to get too cute with these. They also seem to love the same themes - items in their room, recipe ingredients, colors of the rainbow, etc. If you want a distinctive montage essay, you need a distinctive way of tying your various pieces together.

4. Montage essays SO often devolve into long form resumes. It’s just too easy to pick out things from your activities and award lists to showcase and highlight. So if you go with a montage essay, you need to keep the examples to real-life events, actual human interactions, moments of growth/learning/insight, etc. You really don’t want to have anything that gestures broadly at one of your activities and claims it was related or meaningful by association. Remember that the essay needs to be about who you ARE, not what you’ve done or a list of random accomplishments. You aren't trying to impress the reviewer with how sweaty you are, how smart you are, or how little you sleep - you're trying to convince them to invite you to join their community by showing them personal insights about yourself. If you find yourself defaulting back to resume entries, remember to focus less (or not at all!) on WHAT you did and more on SO WHAT and WHY. Why did you do those things, and why do they matter so much to you? How have they shaped who you are?

5. Montage essays are naturally shallow. The approach is, by definition, spread across multiple anecdotes, insights, or mini-stories, and that means each of them has more limited depth. The total word limit is still 650. So lots of times, I see montage essays that dutifully connect each anecdote to the "golden thread" or theme (which is structurally important, but otherwise has little value). BUT they fail to connect the anecdote to a personal insight, or fail to provide analysis, reflection, interpretation, or other explanation of the meaning and value behind it - and that's the most important part, because that's what gives them an understanding of who you are and how your strengths/values might contribute to the community they're curating. These are the statements that get read out loud in committee.

#So how do I write a good montage essay?

1. You don't. You abandon ship and switch to a narrative essay because that's a lot easier to write well and share meaningful things about yourself. Consider zooming in on one of the items you were going to include in your montage. Maybe one of those has enough value and insight to be the only story you share. If not, check out this post, or others like it in the A2C wiki that help with brainstorming good ideas.

2. Ok, fine - if you're determined to make fetch happen, or you're panicked because the deadlines are so close, stay small. Don't have a section or montage element from every aspect of your life or every year of your upbringing. Stick to three, with an absolute maximum of five. I had a student who got into Columbia a couple years ago with an incredibly well-written montage essay about his relationships with various members of his debate team. Even with the high quality of his writing, Justin and Ana still got sacrificed to the word count gods, and one of them ended up getting the "movie-version-of-the-book" treatment and had elements combined into one of the remaining characters.

3. Consider not having a theme or "golden thread" at all. What if you took out the contrived extended metaphor entirely and just focused on expressing yourself? Taking away that crutch is often helpful because it forces you to think more critically about what you're saying with each individual piece of your montage. I've even had students do this, then realize afterward that an entirely different thread/theme would work brilliantly, feel natural, and add distinction, so they add that in after the fact.

4. Be relentless about efficiency. Every word you waste is one you can't use to add depth and meaning to your essay. Kurt Vonnegut once said, "Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action." You need depth and your format makes that harder, so be prepared to revise, edit, rewrite, and make sacrifices. The word count gods are not appeased.

5. Be relentless about expression. Your montage won't include real personal insight unless you grab the reins and show it who's boss. If you merely let the pieces fall into place and loosely connect them with your weak metaphor, your AO will probably end up skimming and may even use the word "disappointed" in their notes/comments. Remember that statements of value are almost always worth including in essays and that your montage needs reflection, analysis, and interpretation, not just information. Take every chance you can to layer in and express your core values, personal strengths, motivations, aspirations, character traits, foundational beliefs, and more. You want them to finish the essay and think, "Wow, I really want this kid in our class." Not, "You know, now that you mention it, I could go for a burrito today."

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments and I can roast explain the montage approach further.

i need some brutally honest feedback on my common app essay asap, please don't hold back

hii! i was reaching out to see if there’s anyone available to give my essay some feedback and criticism? i’m around 30 words over word count and i feel as though my paper isn’t very personal enough and that it’s extremely redundant!

hello I need to submit in a day and need my personal statement reviewed ASAP!! please dm me if you can give good and honest feedback, thank you so so much

DM if you are willing to review it!

Would anyone care to help review my college essay? I have been over about 10 versions of it and I’m still not happy with it- need someone else’s thoughts :’)

would someone want to review my commonapp essay and/or trade for feedback? feel free to be harsh and be critical, i’d prefer that!

Does anyone know what writing format(like spacing and margin) to use in the common app slot to paste the essay and can they send an example of how it looks like in common app(if they can)?, thanks:)

Helloooo!!!

Could anyone please review my college essay?? I just feel very shaky about it and would like some advice before I submit it! ( in 2 days :0)

36 peopel viewed, and should i rewrite it ? anyway it took only 3 hours.

I honestly don't like my personal statement but I lit only have like 3 days left so can someone please review/edit my personal statement I've been working on this for months I can't😭😭😭😭😭😭

can someone pls read my common app essay and give me advice/edit? im trying to submit my college apps by wednesday

pm for link!

Someone tell me what I should fix, I'm on the 7th draft and losing my mind

I don’t care about the fluff, just get me to tears if it means making my essays the best. Thanks.

Can someone review my essay pretty please? I'll love you forever if you do