Personal Statements

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jattmalva

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Is there any way to indent paragraphs without losing the 5 spaces? (Too much to wish for?) Also, my English 3 (Intro to Comp) Professor says you use "him" to refer to the subject ("an individual can.... or, he), but my English 4 Professor says to use "they" on AMCAS to avoid offending anyone. How did you future physicians write your personal statement? Thanks for the help!
 
jattmalva said:
Is there any way to indent paragraphs without losing the 5 spaces? (Too much to wish for?) Also, my English 3 (Intro to Comp) Professor says you use "him" to refer to the subject ("an individual can.... or, he), but my English 4 Professor says to use "they" on AMCAS to avoid offending anyone. How did you future physicians write your personal statement? Thanks for the help!

For indenting I used two spaces. It is not aesthetically pleasing, but the quality of the writing is more important than the appearance (as long as you have some basic paragraph separation).

As far as the appropriate pronouns to use - the convention I have to take in about 90% of my History papers is to address both the male and female individually. Here's an example straight out of my personal statement:

"When one is sick, he or she will rush..."

A lot of people don't care, but some do. Ever since I switched to this convention - I haven't had any complaints from professors.
 
I had a professor who encouraged us to use "She" when we are refering to collective entities, instead of "He."

I still use he, I'm not PC. I'm not walking that line. It's me. The mailman is the mailman, not postal delivery..blah, blah.
 
You could separate each paragraph with a hard return. I believe that only takes up two spaces. Check the AMCAS website to make sure.
 
thanks for the help!
 
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