Personal statement help, I suck at writing this stuff

[Prncssbuttercup]

Hi Everybody!

Ok, so I am not a creative writer, I write SOPs, and lab reports, I am not right-brained in any sense. I can write grammatically correct, but things don't flow well... I am trying to write my personal statement, but I need help. Anyone out there willing to give it a look, or any advice posted here is helpful as well. I've asked some of the people who are supposedly willing to look at them on the personal statement threads, and they never respond... sooo... anyone willing? Any help sincerely appreciated...

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[PostHaste]

Hi Everybody!

Ok, so I am not a creative writer, I write SOPs, and lab reports, I am not right-brained in any sense. I can write grammatically correct, but things don't flow well... I am trying to write my personal statement, but I need help. Anyone out there willing to give it a look, or any advice posted here is helpful as well. I've asked some of the people who are supposedly willing to look at them on the personal statement threads, and they never respond... sooo... anyone willing? Any help sincerely appreciated...

I'd be happy to read it, though I'm probably much like you, more technical than creative. I can at least tell you if it sucks. 😉

Slightly off topic, but I actually found Essays That Will Get You Into Medical School helpful. There's a section of creative writing exercises that helped get me out of the "where do I start?" rut, and reading the 30+ essays at the end helped me get a sense of what sounds good and what doesn't.

 

[teddy bear doc]

I'll give it a read and give feedback if you PM it to me. 😳

I am pretty right-brained, actually, and a decent writer (IMHO), but the PS was hard for me too. I think it's a universal feeling of failure when you write those early drafts. 🙂

 

[TFS]

i'll read it - pm me.

 

[silas2642]

Hi Everybody!

Ok, so I am not a creative writer, I write SOPs, and lab reports, I am not right-brained in any sense. I can write grammatically correct, but things don't flow well... I am trying to write my personal statement, but I need help. Anyone out there willing to give it a look, or any advice posted here is helpful as well. I've asked some of the people who are supposedly willing to look at them on the personal statement threads, and they never respond... sooo... anyone willing? Any help sincerely appreciated...

PM it to me and I'd be happy to look at it.

 

[Prncssbuttercup]

I will as soon as I get home from work. Strangely, they frown upon SDN usage during working hours... Who knew!! 😉

Thanks a ton btw! I sincerely appreciate it...

 

[EdLongshanks]

I'd be happy to read it, though I'm probably much like you, more technical than creative. I can at least tell you if it sucks. 😉

Slightly off topic, but I actually found Essays That Will Get You Into Medical School helpful. There's a section of creative writing exercises that helped get me out of the "where do I start?" rut, and reading the 30+ essays at the end helped me get a sense of what sounds good and what doesn't.

Ugh and double-ugh. That has got to be the worst book ever written. When I first started down this path I read it and didn't understand how such bad writing got anyone into medical school - much less the top-rated schools these writers got into.

I posted a thread on this particular book - http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=695921 - and found that most people agreed with me. The essays in that book are cheesy. The reason that those people got into high-end schools is because they had great resumes, not because they wrote good essays, because they did not.

I haven't yet been accepted anywhere, so maybe my opinion isn't that valuable, but I believe that a personal statement ought to be the best representation of what kind of person you are. If it is a quiche essay and you are a ham-and-cheese person, your interview is going to be difficult.

 

[Lil Mick]

Although I don't have much time for creative writing (as opposed to analytical writing) these days, I think I'm still fairly competent. If you want another person to read through your draft, send me a message 🙂

 

[PostHaste]

Ugh and double-ugh. That has got to be the worst book ever written. When I first started down this path I read it and didn't understand how such bad writing got anyone into medical school - much less the top-rated schools these writers got into.

I posted a thread on this particular book - http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=695921 - and found that most people agreed with me. The essays in that book are cheesy. The reason that those people got into high-end schools is because they had great resumes, not because they wrote good essays, because they did not.

I haven't yet been accepted anywhere, so maybe my opinion isn't that valuable, but I believe that a personal statement ought to be the best representation of what kind of person you are. If it is a quiche essay and you are a ham-and-cheese person, your interview is going to be difficult.

Ed, I came to a lot of the same conclusions as you do in this post and in the other thread. However, there are some good (or at least not BAD) essays in that book. But even more than that, it was valuable for me to read some essays period, good or bad, to get an idea of what they look like. There aren't many other places you can go to compare and contrast thirty 500-word essays all trying to do the same thing. Even on here, people give a lot of advice (don't be cheesy, don't be cliche, write from the heart) but give no examples. I'm an example kind of person, even if it's an example of what NOT to do.

It's a library read, for sure, but it was definitely helpful for me.

 

[familyaerospace]

Ed, I came to a lot of the same conclusions as you do in this post and in the other thread. However, there are some good (or at least not BAD) essays in that book. But even more than that, it was valuable for me to read some essays period, good or bad, to get an idea of what they look like. There aren't many other places you can go to compare and contrast thirty 500-word essays all trying to do the same thing. Even on here, people give a lot of advice (don't be cheesy, don't be cliche, write from the heart) but give no examples. I'm an example kind of person, even if it's an example of what NOT to do.

It's a library read, for sure, but it was definitely helpful for me.

Read 300 medical school personal statements and oh my god do you become an expert on what to do or what not to do or what has been done to death. As much as I hate to say this, I'm convinced 75% of the applicants on here (at least from the personal statements I've read) need to sit in on an English class and learn how to write.

I try to point out details about what doesn't work to writers but when you are having to zip through as many as I did at one point, you just get tired of repeating the same old thing and going into excessive detail on each essay. I also certainly don't want to send out links to my personal statement or my other essays unless they really want examples of how you can be very diverse in your writing (even breaking many rules) and still write a good statement.

 

[EdLongshanks]

Read 300 medical school personal statements and oh my god do you become an expert on what to do or what not to do or what has been done to death. As much as I hate to say this, I'm convinced 75% of the applicants on here (at least from the personal statements I've read) need to sit in on an English class and learn how to write.

I agree with you that there is a lot of bad writing out there. I don't think that most English classes will cure it though. There are even more bad English teachers. My daughter's Comp I teacher wanted her to write more "descriptively" which she described as using more adjectives and adverbs. I was amazed to realize that the teacher did not know that a plethora of adverbs only reveals the weakness of the verbs.

There are 2 issues in Personal statements: what to write and how to write it. For those who cannot think what to write, I suggest an exercise. Write nonsense for 2 weeks. "I am fascinated by bones. I always nibble all the meat off of my fried chicken so that I can study the bone structure." "Adipose tissue has plagued my life." After 2 weeks, something magical happens and you know what you want to say. This is similar to a professional lyricist's method for writing songs. The original lyrics for "These are a few of my favorite things" included the phrase "Sweet little babies that fall out of swings, these are a few of my favorite things."

The second issue is how to write. One of the best books that I have ever read is "The first five pages." http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_s...rst+5+pages&x=0&y=0&sprefix=the+first+5+pages . It is written for the professional writers who are trying to get editors to read their work, but it attempts to correct the most common mistakes that bad writers make.

 

[familyaerospace]

I have a similar exercise, I freewrite for every essay. About 15 minutes in, I can't stop and usually have some good stuff. When it ends, it ends. Then I edit the heck out of it. We were taught this in English and also Drama class and one other. We were given a prompt and told to write on it.

I love the book "If you can talk, you can write." I think a book like that should be required reading.

 

[PostHaste]

I love the book "If you can talk, you can write." I think a book like that should be required reading.

Heh, I don't tend to talk much, either.

The free-writing exercises were one of the things in the "Bad" book that I thought were useful. As an engineer who attended engineer school and whose writing courses were centered on writing an undergrad thesis, I've never done that before. Mildly painful, but I feel like I got some good results from it.

 

[Eik Ooc]

1) I think EdLongshanks has given great advice in this thread.

2) If you have access to a premed advisor, could s/he review your personal statement and provide constructive feedback? I'm not sure if those advisors provide that service.

 

[Dianyla]

2) If you have access to a premed advisor, could s/he review your personal statement and provide constructive feedback? I'm not sure if those advisors provide that service.

Some might, but at my school they're more likely to turf you over to the writing
center. I'd only ask a premed advisor for tone/content check, make sure you don't burden them with the rougher stages of writing composition/grammar.

 

[DoctorRock25]

Ugh and double-ugh. That has got to be the worst book ever written. When I first started down this path I read it and didn't understand how such bad writing got anyone into medical school - much less the top-rated schools these writers got into.

I posted a thread on this particular book - http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=695921 - and found that most people agreed with me. The essays in that book are cheesy. The reason that those people got into high-end schools is because they had great resumes, not because they wrote good essays, because they did not.

I haven't yet been accepted anywhere, so maybe my opinion isn't that valuable, but I believe that a personal statement ought to be the best representation of what kind of person you are. If it is a quiche essay and you are a ham-and-cheese person, your interview is going to be difficult.

In bold, I thought I was the only one who thought that. I didn't like that book at all. Good for ideas on a few (The Indian Dance one was interesting), but that's it.