E-mail Instruction Sample 2
This sample is a medical residency application essay. The yellow box contains the draft and information the student, “Janet Doe,” submitted through our web site. The blue box that follows contains the response Janet received from one of our instructors. To the left is helpful information about how to use Email Instruction most effectively.
|
Your message will be collected from our server at 5:00 p.m. central time, and forwarded to one of our email instructors. If your due date is too soon, we may not be able to respond to your draft in time. We have a turn-around time of two business days, and we want to make sure you have time to revise your paper after getting our feedback. Our site also asks you to tell us a little about the kind of help you’d like, what you think your draft’s strengths and weaknesses may be. Again, the more specific your answers to these questions, the more we can help you. One thing to think about is what sorts of issues (positive and negative) your instructor identified on the last paper you turned in. |
Date:
Mon, 09 Sep 2002 07:07:19 -0500 A request for email
instruction from Janet Doe, The assignment is: Personal statement for residency program. I will complete medical school in May and will then begin a residency in family practice. My application (including personal statement) should be in ASAP; interviews will be in December. My major concerns about this paper are: Content -- would this make a residency program interested in me? how can I highlight my strengths? Style -- does not have a lot of form at this time. I keep using the same words over and over. The parts of my draft I think are working best and the ideas I find interesting are: The big ideas. I come from a farm. I like caring for others. My draft: Personal Statement--Janet Doe Last revised 9/3/02 My interest in rural family practice stems from my upbringing in southwest Wisconsin. I lived on a farm bordered on one side by rolling hills and on the other by the winding Kickapoo River. Early on that I took on the responsibility of caring for the health of our cattle. It was my responsibility to vaccinate new cattle coming on the farm, to treat "pink eye," to care for sick cattle, and to monitor pregnancies. It never felt like work to care for the animals because it was always a job that I enjoyed. My interest in medicine grew out of this experience caring for animals. I found it tremendously rewarding to keep our animals healthy and to watch them recover when they were ill. Then, as I began to consider possible careers, I knew that healing would be a part of my future. I also knew that I loved learning about the human body and how it worked. The human body was fascinating to me; the intricate details always got my attention and made me want to learn more. And, even more importantly, I knew that I needed a career that would allow me to make life better for other people. I was interested in a career where I could be a leader in improving the health and well-being of my community. Thus, it was only natural for me to synthesize my interests together in a career as a physician. As I went thorough college and medical school, I chose courses and activities with two goals in mind: I wanted to become the best physician that I could, while, at the same time, enriching my own life. I participated in research at the Harlow Primate Lab so that I could better understand where medical information comes from. I studied abroad for a semester so I could understand what it was like to be a foreigner in a strange land, and I took a class in patient advocacy so that I could be a better advocate for my patients. I spoke with and shadowed physicians in many fields to determine that medicine was what I wanted to do as a career. Since the time I first thought about becoming a physician, I have envisioned myself as a family doctor. My early role models were family doctors in my hometown. Throughout the years, I have been fortunate to work with mentors in family practice. My experiences with these mentors further strengthened my resolve that I wanted to be a family physician. I have enjoyed aspects of every specialty that I have encountered during my medical school rotations. But, I found that family practice offered some unique aspects that are particularly valuable to me such as continuity of care, diversity of patients and problems and the ability to practice in a rural community. Now, in my fourth year of medical school, I plan to become a rural family physician. My wonderful boyfriend of four years, who is currently a high school teacher in Madison, is interested in returning to graduate school so that he can try his hand at teaching college students. We are interested in moving to a community where he can attend graduate school while I complete a residency nearby. More than ever, I am excited about caring for the health of others in my community, and am eagerly looking forward to the start of my residency program. ---- |
| You’ll get an answer from us within two business days.
Your instructor’s response will begin with some directions on how to decipher her/his comments effectively. Please read these directions before looking at the feedback on your draft.
Some instructors put their global comment at the beginning of your draft, while others put it at the end. In this case, the global comment comes first. This is the most important of your instructor’s comments.
When it comes to application essays, get as much feedback from as many different types of readers as possible, especially from people in your field!
The comments your instructor weaves into your draft will address smaller issues, though they may also be important ones, as is the case here.
Notice that, as in the regular Writing Center, your instructor is likely to ask you questions to stimulate your thought process, rather than just tell you what to do.
Occasionally your instructor may address sentence-level issues, such as punctuation or grammar, but email isn’t the best medium for that sort of instruction. For more help in those areas, make an appointment in the regular (face-to-face) Writing Center. |
Date:
Tue, 10 Sep 2002 23:05:40 -0500 Dear Janet, Thank you for your request for electronic instruction. My name is Elizabeth, and I’ll be working with you via email for this draft. Because reading on a computer screen is difficult and often headache-inducing, I recommend that you print out this message and keep it in front of you as you revise your draft. I’ll comment on your draft and respond to your concerns in two ways. First, I’ll write a general comment that addresses broader issues and the overall organization of your text. Second, I will interweave shorter comments on sections of your draft into your text. Please make sure to distinguish my comments from your original text—I’ll leave extra space around my own comments and put asterisks around them. These comments will focus on local issues (sentence or paragraph structure) and on my reader-based responses to sections of your text. Finally, I’d recommend that you address one set of comments at a time. *First,* you should read the general comment and consider revising your draft with respect to these observations. *Second,* you should go back and look at the interwoven comments. Because some of these refer to local issues, they may not be applicable after you’ve revised the global structure of your draft in response to my general comment. Still, some of them may be relevant, so make sure to read them carefully. >A request for
email instruction from Janet Doe, Janet, My overall impression is that this personal statement is already in pretty good shape. It helps immensely that you have a background in a rural community from which to draw and display a strong and genuine interest in practicing medicine in such a community. I did feel (as a layperson) that you succeeded in creating an interesting, unique voice in your essay, and that it does highlight your strengths and your future contributions to medicine. Of course, I also see some ways to make the essay still more effective. The paragraph where you discuss additional experiences could, in particular, use a more substantive and detailed approach to give your readers a better sense of how you have enhanced your interest in helping people. Also, I think you have some crucial opportunities to use your first-hand knowledge of rural communities to your advantage by showing more specifically what health care is like in such a context and how you want to contribute to rural health care. My comments below should help you to implement these general suggestions in terms of specific sections of the essay. If you haven't already done so, I certainly recommend showing this essay to a professor or advisor, so that you get "insider" advice as well. Best of luck with your applications this fall! Best, >My draft: Personal
Statement--Janet Doe Last revised 9/3/02 *Strong first paragraph! You tend to repeat the word "care" -- you could say "tending to the health of our cattle," for example. Try to think of other ways to rephrase. My only other comment here is that you might move the first two sentences of the next para to your first one, delete the current last sentence, and end the para on that note instead.* >I found it tremendously
rewarding to keep our animals healthy |
Janet’s Second Draft
We really encourage students to bring multiple drafts of each paper to the Writing Center, whether they use our in-person or email services. Janet chose to send in a revised draft for more Email Instruction.
|
Notice that Janet has very specific concerns about her second draft, and she lets Elizabeth know what they are. It’s not unusual for students to submit a second or even a third draft of their paper to the Online Writing Center. We really encourage that! In this case, Janet requested that Elizabeth again work with her on the essay, and Elizabeth was able to do so. If you request a particular instructor, we’ll certainly try to make it work; sometimes instructors are too busy to read drafts outside their regular shift, but often they are able to take on an extra one. Of course, some students like to receive feedback from different instructors, and that’s fine too.
You can see just from a quick read of Janet’s draft how effectively she’s used Elizabeth’s feedback in revising her draft! Her first paragraph is more concise, and she’s added more specifics throughout. |
Return-path:
<janetdoe@students.wisc.edu> Hi Elizabeth, This is my newest revision, there are some pretty big changes. Do I have too many paragraphs now? How can I make that last paragraph do a better job of summarizing? Draft: My interest in rural family practice stems from my upbringing in southwest Wisconsin. I was born and raised on a farm bordered on one side by rolling hills and on the other by the winding Kickapoo River. Early on, I took on the responsibility of caring for the health of our cattle. My responsibility was to vaccinate new cattle coming on the farm, to treat sick animals and to monitor pregnancies. I found the task to be tremendously rewarding because I enjoyed keeping our animals healthy and watching them recover when they were ill. This experience taught me that healing would be a part of my future. My formal education taught me the love of science and especially the human body which has always fascinated me and made me want to learn more. Above all, my family and friends taught me that some of the most important things in life are love, kindness, and compassion. Therefore, I knew that I needed to choose a career that would allow me to make life better for the people in my community. Thus, it was only natural for me to synthesize my interests together in a career as a physician. Since the time I first thought about becoming a physician, I have envisioned myself as a family doctor. My early role models were family doctors in my hometown. They were the physicians who cared for my grandmother's breast cancer, my father's high cholesterol and my fractured wrist. Our family doctors are people who my family and community respect and genuinely appreciate. I hope to someday be like those physicians as both a healer and a leader in my own community. Throughout the years, I have also been fortunate to work with mentors in family practice. My experiences with these mentors further strengthened my resolve to become a family physician. The diversity of patients and problems that family doctors get to see is enlivening. I enjoy working with everyone from newborns to elderly persons because each age group has its own joys and challenges. It is especially exciting to have the opportunity to work with whole families: to see people in the context of their lives, and to watch them as their lives change and as their health changes. It is quite rewarding to care for people both during their acute illnesses and between them, when they are feeling better. In addition, family practice will allow me to pursue some of my specific interests in medicine such as preventative medicine and health education. More than ever, I am excited about caring for the health of others in my community, and am eagerly looking forward to the start of my residency program. I am interested in a residency in family practice which will provide the training that I need to provide excellent care to my patients as a rural family physician. I am looking for a program that will allow me to learn and further develop my knowledge base as well as my technical skills. It is also important to me to find a residency program that fosters care and respect for patients and provides a supportive work environment. I plan to move to residency with my boyfriend, John Doe, who is currently a high school teacher in Madison. John is applying to graduate schools to pursue graduate education in the field of mechanical engineering. We look forward to being part of a community where he can attend graduate school while I complete a residency nearby. ---- |
|
Even though Janet has done an excellent job revising her essay, Elizabeth still has plenty of feedback to offer on the new draft.
Notice how Elizabeth responds to specific concerns Janet has raised about her draft. That’s part of the reason why we really need you to give us detailed information about your instructional needs: without that information, we may not focus on the questions that concern you most.
As you may remember, the slightly incorrect use of the word “synthesize” appeared in Janet’s initial draft as well. One of the benefits of bring multiple drafts to the WC—either online or in person—is that your instructor will have more opportunities to give you instruction. Since we focus first on the biggest issues, details like this little vocabulary issue might not get addressed until the second draft. |
Return-path:
<wcemail@facstaff.wisc.edu> Dear Janet, You have made some great revisions to this essay, and I think it's already a much stronger and tighter statement of your background, interests, and goals. I particularly like the new detail you provide about what it means to you to be a family doctor in a rural community; this version of the essay really helped me to understand your potential contributions in a community context. As I say below, I don't think you have too many paragraphs, but your third and fourth could easily be one para, a move that might make sense (see comments below). I noticed that you deleted the discussion of your study abroad and patient advocacy program; I do think these were worth mentioning, but I understand that word limits might have forced you to get rid of them. On balance, it seems to make more sense to say more about your central theme; but if you can trim a sentence here or there, it would be great to re-insert a few sentences on your other experiences, which reinforce your well-rounded background. It would be ideal if you could tie such experiences into your suitability for the kind of residency you want. As for your conclusion, I would not worry too much about summarizing your previous points, as long as you continue to hit your major themes. But I would definitely add a more resonant final sentence -- see my suggestions below about this. I think that you've done most of the hard work with this essay. What remains is mostly fine-tuning. Best of luck! Elizabeth >Date: Sun, 15
Sep 2002 14:11:40 -0500 *I like the shape of your first paragraph now -- it's simple and yet poignant.* >This experience
taught me that healing would be a part of my *Comma after "body" in the second sentence. "Made me want to learn more" is a bit vague -- more about what? Try for a smoother transition between second and third sentences, e.g. "I also gained an informal education from family and friends," or something else to make the link clearer. You don't need the word "together" in final sentence; "synthesize" includes the sense of "together.* >Since the time
I first thought about becoming a physician, I have *Though I don't think it's a problem to have five paras, you might want to combine these two because they seem to be on roughly the same topic. If you do this, you could take last sentence of para above ("I hope to someday...") and place somewhere else, perhaps in your concluding para or at end of mentoring section.* >Throughout the
years, I have also been fortunate to work with *Awkward end to sentence above; change phrasing so the times of health don't sound negative, like mere interludes between illnesses!* >In addition,
family practice will allow me to pursue some of my *By knowledge base, do you mean the "specific interests" you mention above? This wasn't entirely clear to me as a reader. Maybe you should move the sentence about these interests after sentence above; it's kind of isolated where it is anyway.* >It is also important
to me to find a residency program that fosters -- |
Interested in checking out a sample paper of a different level and style? Check out Sample 1, an introductory-level literature paper. Or, press the button below to return to the Email Instruction submission page to send us your draft.