<p>Feedback would be much appreciated! Thanks!!!</p>
<p>Have you ever had someone almost die in your arms? If you have, then you can understand why I chose this topic as my essay.
It was a nice, cloudless summer day last year when I and my girlfriend decided to enjoy a nice movie together down as our cities megaplex. We packed our stuff and met down at the theater only to be met with a closed sigh. Distraught that I didnt have the hind sight to call the theater first, I felt a little down for disappointing my girlfriend. We went to sit on top of the stairs to talk about our current situation. Another couple was close to us holding hands. When our conversation ended, I went to get up. That was when the event that changed my life occurred. I heard gasp as I turned around to see that a man had fallen backwards from the top of the stairs. His head smacked the corner on the stairs causing him to lie sideways. For what felt like minutes, nothing happened. Then the mans girlfriends rushed over to him. She held his head and everyone else could see blood rushing out. He began to shaking.</p>
<p>My thoughts turned to a day in AP Psychology class when my teacher taught us about the Bystander effect. The effect was that when a serious incident occurs, bystanders will look to other bystanders for signs of what to do. Since most bystanders will be doing this, the end result is no action. I personally experienced this when a student had a seizure at my Jr. High. I stood there watching her shake and convulse as did many other students. I did nothing. I vowed that day to never repeat that mistake.</p>
<p>I rushed over to the man and took his head in my arm. It was difficult because he was shaking so much. His girlfriend began screaming for someone call to 911. I looked at my left arm to see that is was soaked with blood. I had never seen such a horrific scene in my life. I rushed to grab my backpack and used it as a pillow. I turned around to look at my girlfriend if maybe something had happened to her. I needed some sign of reassurance. What I saw on her face spoke another story. Her hands were to her mouth, shocked, speechless. I turned back to the man. I began speaking to him, urging him to fight. I told his girlfriend to hold his hand firmly and to start talking to him.
His breathing began to slow and his body quelled but I then turned to his eyes. They began changing from black to white. Then all of a sudden, his body stopped and all life escaped. His girlfriend began screaming but my thought turned to myself. What just happened? Do I need to do CPR? But the darkest question came. Did a man just die in front of me? In my hands?</p>
<p>I started to check for his heartbeat when suddenly he began breathing again! Life flooded back into his eyes and he stabilized. The shock of his head hitting the stairs appeared over. That was when we could hear the ambulance churning in and EMTs poured out to assist him. I had done all I can. I pulled back to let the professionals do their jobs. He left in a stretcher with his girlfriends. Leaving me and my girlfriend to wonder what had exactly happened. I walked over to my love and gave her the most deep and personal hug I had ever given. I needed it, and so did she. I returned back to the scene to retrieve the blood soaked backpack used as a pillow. We then went on our way.
That day I learned a lot. I learned that a normal situation can turn into an extraordinary one in the blink of an eye. I also learned what it might have been like to have a person die in front of you but the most important thing I learned was that you should never take anything, especially life, for granted. Since that day my outlook has been changed. I find more joy in simple thing like reading or walking or even to just be with friends and family members. That day was not a traumatic experience, but rather a learning one that allowed me to evaluate my life. Im sure if I ever meet that man again, he would thank me but I would in turn, thank him.</p>
<p>Ok couple things.
First, don’t open with a rhetorical question, it is a cliche and makes you sound like a salesman. Use more powerful verbs rather than “went,” “met,” etc. Write everything in present tense so that the reader experiences everything as they are happening (sort of like movie [present] vs. documentary [past], which one do you prefer?). Use less verb to be i.e. was for it makes less impact on the reader, use more active verbs like I said earlier. The essay got better towards the end, you wrote down everything that was going through your mind, making the essay more “you” and more authentic. Even though the ending was nice and you tried to save a life, I feel that this essay has nothing to do with your personal hardship, but more to do with personal growth.</p>
<p>That’s just my two cents.</p>
<p>Wangtann</p>
<p>P.S. I think the first and last sentence are unnecessary.</p>
<p>Hmm I don’t like the first sentence but I like the last sentence.
It’s really good, I kept reading because I was curious about what you did and what happened afterward.
One thing though, the parts about your girlfriend, your “love,” were kind of distracting. (the part about you looking for her during the emergency is good though). Also you can probably improve your writing a bit
anyway its good</p>
<p>there are a lot of grammatical problems, when you say “my love” I just get a kind of negative reaction from it. I think you should relate it more to you rather than just telling the experience.</p>
<p>I do not like the the beginning and the use of a rhetorical question.
Be careful on grammar, you have to edit that over in one of your drafts and try to use better word choice.
Some examples:
“I and my girlfriend” should be “My girlfriend and I”
“He began to shaking.” It can be changed to “He began shaking” or, to add emphasis and drama you could delete the last two sentences of that paragraph and instead use "Violently the man lie shaking, his girlfriend clung to his side as the blood began to pool and arose the abundance of worry on the faces of those who were witnessing the tragic accident. "
It has great potential though! I can always help you revise more if you’d like.</p>
<p>Sorry if I sound negative–I’m only doing this to help you! </p>
<p>–The fourth through eighth sentences take all the momentum out of the opening. This is supposed to be about a horrific encounter, not your friend’s day at the mall. Trim them down to two sentences, at most. </p>
<p>–Too many idioms. “Felt a little down,” “die in your arms,” “all life escaped,” “for what felt like minutes,” “my thoughts turned” and other similar phrases need to be replaced with stronger, original phrases.</p>
<p>–Far too many grammatical errors for a college essay. Peruse the essay for grammatical errors, then get someone else to do the same.</p>
<p>–Too many short sentences, especially at the opening of the third paragraph. Make sure your essay has a variety of sentence lengths and styles.</p>
<p>–You need at least two or three short (2-3 sentence) paragraphs. Again, variety is the goal. </p>
<p>–Never take life for granted? Not only is that a common theme, hundreds of fellow applicants will be stating the exact same thing. Come up with a concluding message that’s unique and novel.</p>
<p>Your topic is excellent, but the essay needs some major reworking. I HOPE this helps, because that’s what I was intending to do. :-)</p>
<p>When you say “i vowed that day to never repeat that mistake” it makes me unsure whether you “did nothing” that day, or in a past day, or if your referring to your class. Also, if you’re saying you did nothing that specific day, it seems a little but contradictory because you “do all you can” for the man.</p>
<p>And for clarification, on that day in Jr. I did nothing. Later I found out why [Psychology Class] so when the same situation presented itself again. I knew what to do.</p>