making the PS more fun

[nick_carraway]

My writing style is usually really formal and can become dry if I'm not careful.

For my PS, I'm trying to avoid boring the reader to death and so I'm seeking suggestions on writing styles that could help.

So far I've got shorter phrasing and trying to start off with an anecdotal story (which is much harder than I thought it'd be).

Thanks in advance for any advice y'all can give!

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[OncoCaP]

My writing style is usually really formal and can become dry if I'm not careful.

For my PS, I'm trying to avoid boring the reader to death and so I'm seeking suggestions on writing styles that could help.

So far I've got shorter phrasing and trying to start off with an anecdotal story (which is much harder than I thought it'd be).

Thanks in advance for any advice y'all can give!

Have people you know and trust review your statement once you get fairly far along. Your school may have a writing tutor who can help and there are other paid services for this kind of thing. Finally, you might want to pick up a book of PS's to see how other people did it.

 

[EBI831]

i'm gonna have to advise you to stop trying to be creative. boring is better than insanely off the wall. from my PS experience, i've found that a creative PS can hurt you. just play the game like every other premed and write why you want to be a doctor with some kind of anecdote etc w/o getting too michael crichtonish. if you wanna be creative, wear a sweet tie to the interview(keep it professional though) or if you are a girl wear a fun colored shirt. seriously.

 

[etsuprinthead]

you can be somewhat creative with your PS. follow the "normal" format, but make your story interesting. in my ps, i either started the story, wrote the "why i want to be a doctor" in the middle, and finished the story at the end, or i told 1 story at the beginning and another at the end (i story was medically-related, and the other was social-justice-related). i can't remember which version i went with.

you can be more creative on some of your secondary essays. on my back-up schools, i got tired of writing boring essays, so i wrote a couple of "funny" essays for them. in response to the "challenge you've overcome" question, i wrote about riding the greyhound to west virginia for an alternative-spring break that involved an outhouse and no showers. i got in.

 

[notdeadyet]

in my ps, i either started the story, wrote the "why i want to be a doctor" in the middle, and finished the story at the end,

This is sort of the tried and true format. You can definitely deviate from it.

I think originally, applicants probably followed a Why I Want to Be A Doctor essay that bored adcoms to tears. Someone probably started the "No $hit, there I was..." beginning, launched into a brief bio, and ended with the conclusion of the No $hit story. This was probably novel and new.

But it's done to death now. I think if you deviate from that format and do it well, it will be a lot more attention getting. The problem is the "do it well" format. It seems that most premeds have very little experience writing.