personal statement for medical school

Why Being Part of the School Paper Pays Off When Writing Your Personal Statement for Medical School

There are several reasons why being part of the school paper pays off when writing your personal statement for medical school.  One of the ways to attract the attention of admissions officials is to have an impressive curriculum vitae.  Students who have exemplary records, both in their academic performance and extracurricular activities during their college years will have a better chance of being noticed than those who have sparse entries in their CVs.  One of these extracurricular activities that can help you is being part of the school paper.

Benefits of school paper experience for medical school application

One extracurricular activity that will get you some attention is previous experience working for the school paper.  Aside from the fact that it will paint a picture of you as someone who did not limit himself or herself to the four corners of the classroom while in college, experience with the school paper will also expose you to different kinds of people, give you an experience handling various kinds of responsibilities, and help you improve your ability to express yourself through writing, all of which you can use to your advantage, whether its applying for medical school or practicing as a full-fledged doctor.

Many experts agree that a personal statement for medical school should reflect the student and should show good written communication skills.  There is no better way to hone these skills than to be part of a school paper way before you apply for medical school, and especially in a setting where good communication skills is the primary requirement.  Working for the school newspaper will also allow you to use your critical thinking skills and creativity in order to solve problems, the same kind of skills that will prove useful in the hospital and any other medical setting.

Another way through which experience with the school paper can help you with your application to medical school is that the job will give you plenty of opportunities to accept correction for your mistakes.  When writing a personal statement for medical school, you are expected to revise, revise, and revise some more before handing your essay to the panel.  Previous experience with the school newspaper, where due diligence, expertise in checking out the facts, a willingness to accept correction for your work, and the willingness to revise your pieces as often as needed will make the revision of your personal statement come naturally for you.

Indeed, previous experience with the school newspaper, whether you worked for the high school organ or the college publication, will provide nothing but benefits for you, especially if you are applying for medical school.  Aside from helping paint a picture of you as someone who has diverse interests and is willing to pursue them, the fact that you worked for a newspaper will help you persuade the admissions panel that you have the qualities and characteristics, such as the ability to think creatively and critically and the willingness to learn, that make a good candidate for medical school.

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The field of medicine also has venues for publishing articles, scientific papers, and other resource material that can be used to advance knowledge on medical conditions and treatments. To regulate and standardize formats, the American Medical Association has developed a set of guidelines for the proper citation of references that are used in the text of research papers. These research papers can be about the latest developments in the fields of medicine, science, and even health care. The AMA style is used by medical practitioners, journalists, professors, and even students in the medical field when citing references in their papers.

General guidelines in AMA style

When writing scientific papers to be published in medical journals and reviews, proper citation should be used. All of the sources are listed at the end of the article according to their order of use or appearance in the paper. Making use of numbers instead of bullets, each source must be listed at the end of the text. The elements such as book title, author’s name, date it was published, among others, should be separated by periods.

Book citations
Include page numbers if the specific pages are quoted in the article. Use the <last name>,<first name>, <middle initial> format when citing the author of the book. Below is the order or chronology of the items when citing from book sources.

Chronology for book citations:
* author’s name
* chapter title
* editor’s name/translator’s name
* book title
* volume number
* book edition
* place of publication
* book publisher
* copyright year
* page numbers

Journal citations

If book citations require you to mention the full first name of the writer, journal citations only require the last name to be spelled out in full. The format for writing author’s name would then be <last name>,<first name initial>,<middle initial>.

Chronology for journal articles:
* article title and subtitle
* abbreviated name of journal
* year of publication
* volume number
* supplement number
* page numbers

Internet citations

Internet sources are now credited by the AMA; just be sure to use information from reputable sources. Cite what kind of Internet material was used as a reference and enclose it in brackets.

Chronology for Internet sources:
* author’s name
* article or webpage name
* URL source
* date accessed

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