作者： chenchen

写作能力是申请美本学位时的一个重要考虑因素。不论是申请时需要提交的个人陈述，还是期末论文，都需要展现学生的写作能力。如果你的写作能力出色且拥有获奖经历，那么必将为你的申请增添一道亮丽的加分项。

在申请过程中，写作能力往往被视为一种软实力。它不仅仅是对语法和拼写的熟练掌握，更重要的是能够清晰、有逻辑地表达观点，以及具备扎实的分析和阐述能力。一个优秀的申请文书能够展现出申请人的深思熟虑和个性特点，能够吸引招生官的注意并让他们对申请人留下深刻印象。

纽约时报个人叙事写作大赛影响力大、含金量高，不管文科生还是理科生，都可以免费参加的全球范围内的英语写作大赛。

竞赛时间轴

开始投稿日：2023年10月4日

截止投稿日：2023年11月1日

结果公布：截稿日两个月后

比赛要求

1）你的故事应该是一个简短的，有力的，关于有意义的生活经历的真实故事；

2）全文英文，用不多于100个单词来讲述，不包括标题；

3）作品应是未发表的原创文，你的文章必须是为这次比赛而写的，也就是说，在提交的时候你的文章不应该已经被发表过，无论是在学校的报纸上，还是在其他比赛或其他地方；

4）每个学生只能提交一个作品；

5）参赛者需以个人身份完成作品，不能进行团队小组合作；

6）参赛者可以寻求指导建议，但作品仍需遵循原创、独立完成的原则；

7）必须是初中生或高中生才能参加，美国、英国年龄限制为13-19岁，全球其他国家参加需要 16-19岁，纽约时报工作人员子女及相关人员不可参加比赛。

因为字数限制，对于学生的写作要求更高，而且还要展示出通过这段经历带来的收获以及故事背后的意义。

奖项设置

参赛作品将有机会在《纽约时报》的教育专栏The Learning Network上发表，并有可能登上该报的印刷版。

扫描下方二维码联系我们的老师，获取个性化的指导服务！

Winner
Ruby N. selected a piece from Tiny Love Stories called “I Never Saw My Parents Kiss” and wrote:

Dinner at my friend’s house was an alternative universe, surrounded by warm smiles and flowing chatter. At home, our dinner table was unused, left cold for the ghosts in the walls to occupy. My upbringing mirrored the author’s: “Their marriage, like my childhood, was steeped in sarcasm and silence.” In a Vietnamese immigrant household, exchanging love confessions and expressing emotions was unlikely. As a result of the cultural differences between my Western friends’ outbursts of “I love you” compared to my parents’ nods in acknowledgment, I struggled to understand the concept of love.

The author revealed a love story between their parents that lasted a lifetime, even if it wasn’t transparent to the modern eye. This story helped me reflect on my parents’ love language, from the washed strawberries left on the kitchen counter by my father to the Costco pack of Martinelli’s my mother bought (after I mentioned liking it once). Despite the empty dinner table, homemade food was on the stove, and groceries were in the pantry. As time passed, the grudge I held blossomed to a realization that love could be silent but still hold value.

Today, I continue to return my parents’ love in small services they were familiar with, a massage after a tiring day or translating at their doctor appointments. The author and I shared a discovery, which I hope can bring attention to hidden acts of love that could foster beautiful stories.

Winner
Jolie, from Long Island, N.Y., chose an article from the Health section headlined “How Teens Recovered From the ‘TikTok Tics’” and wrote:

As I learned of teens whose tics emerged and dissipated in about a year, I felt a sense of isolation as sharp as a jerk of my neck.

I’ve had Tourette’s syndrome for over three years. Like these individuals, my involuntary outbursts, physical and audible, arose during the pandemic. Despite my late-night thrashings and over-enunciated exclaims, despite classmates’ crass imitations and snide remarks, I overcame my initial insecurity. I’ve become more accustomed to my tics: they are simply an annoyance I tolerate. They are a new part of myself.

Though I’ve grown to accept them, my tics fuel an ardent quest to understand my condition. I attempt to draw meaning from erratic whistles, flailing limbs, and rapid-fire blinks. I want to clarify a disorder that is inherently senseless.

Obsessively rereading, I couldn’t help comparing myself to these teens, hoping to determine what made their tics slip away and mine continue. As I read about their short-lived “bout with tics,” I seethed with envy and resented myself for not outgrowing the diagnosis. That familiar self-consciousness pricked at my skin. I had not felt that way in years.

The article I scoured for answers only rehashed an old insecurity, leaving me more confused than I started. But more importantly, it withheld my reality and deprived readers of a full picture.

Like my Tourette’s syndrome, my ardent quest for answers persists.

Winner
Aaron Kim, 16, from Tacoma, Wash., chose an article from the Well section headlined “How to Make a Staycation Feel Like an Actual Break” and wrote:

It’s late July already. But, for so much of the summer, it felt like it had not even started. Each day of my break had been so much like the previous one — getting up at 9 a.m., working on college apps until 5 p.m., and then playing video games until sleep took me — it was as if there had been no summer at all, no time passing in a living world.

This is one of my last summers as a high schooler. I could not help but ask myself: What, if anything, could be done to make it special?

Reading Catherine Pearson’s article made me realize that the answer was right in front of me. She cites Dr. Lyubomirsky’s concept of the “three buckets” of happiness (social connections, meaningful contributions and personal growth) to recommend prioritizing activities in and around one’s immediate surroundings that fulfill one or more of these categories.

This weekend, I volunteered at my local church’s food drive. Never in the past would I have associated such activity with anything like a vacation. But I endeavored to think of it as one, enacting the “mental flip” Dr. Kurtz describes. And I did so not only to meaningfully connect with other volunteers and the people we served, but also in order to spend my time engaged in something that mattered to me. For the first time this summer, I felt alive. And yet so great a part of that vivacity came from the simple conviction that what I was doing was an end in itself, like going to the beach on vacation.