Just follow these simple tips when writing your story and be sure to read the Official Rules more than once to familiarize yourself with the entry requirements:

1. Don’t use, mention or show any copyrighted materials.
   • Don’t use any copyrighted material in your entry.
   • Before you submit your entry look at your photo or essay and make sure there are no logos, no brand names, no mentions of famous people – take all of that out.
2. Keep it clean.
   Make sure that your photo or essay are not obscene, pornographic, hateful, indecent, threatening, discriminatory, etc. Leave anything that is personal or best not told to the world out of your entry.
3. Follow the entry limitations.
   It is important that you follow all the limitations as described in the rules such as but not limited to age, entry, business revenue or country, etc. Do not submit an entry if you or your small business does not meet these limitations. You will be disqualified once it is discovered that you don’t meet the contest criteria.
4. Be mindful of file sizes, type and word count.
   Review the rules for specific file size or type requirements, word limit on an essay. Make sure you check your submission yourself before you submit it.
5. Be original and answer the questions posed.
   • Judges don’t want to see the same thing over and over. When they read a thousand entries and they see “I should win because I work hard and I deserve it” plus there is nothing else to the entry, and it looks the same as everyone else’, it won’t be noticeable.
   • Write your winning entry from the heart and tell us why you stand out!
6. Be light-hearted.
   Although you may have suffered terribly and deserve the prize, the best way to appeal to the judges is to show how tragedy didn’t break you or pull you down! Be inspiring. Tell the world how you overcame whatever you went through or how you plan to make it better.

Follow these basic guidelines and you should be well on your way to creating a compelling contest entry.