#i only added characters i either felt were relevant or fit one of these categories

[thelasthalloween]

I did the ‘tag what you’re majoring in’ meme with MML characters but as a tier list

[dreadfutures]

aight let‘s talk ao3 tags again

the very nice tag wrangler I’ll be quoting from has given me permission to share their kind and thorough responses (all bolding/emphasis is mine) without identifying information. and we very nicely go through some of my own tags from my long fic Dead Pasts, Dread Futures. Many, many thanks to this wrangler for explaining so much to me.

Anyway. I present these discussions as a peacable offer of: these are many writers’ concerns, and they are valuable, and worth considering. don’t dismiss concerns about the tag limit off hand, and don’t insist that edge cases don’t matter.

tldr; at the moment, after all this discussion and back and forths and bullying, I still believe that having 75 tags, period, as the limit across ALLCharacters/Relationships/Fandoms/Additional Tags penalizes longfics. Period. If it were even a limit of 100 tags, or broken down by Tag Type, it would be a little more forgiving. For advertising and for content filtering purposes, it only helps writers and fic visibilty to be specific and thorough in tags. A limit like this just so clearly has the potential to negatively affect large fandom/large ensemble/long fics.

It feels like this decision is being very broadly based on a "for the majority" mindset, which has never been what AO3 is about, without actually physically looking at the kinds of fics it will affect. The tag system on AO3 has been able to give fic filtering and reader-judgement a nuance that no other platform has accomplished, and longfics and large ensemble fics still, I think, depend on that as both a courtesy and necessity. I saw the rough math someone did and know that almost all fics currently on AO3 are <25k or something like that, and sure, for the average oneshot, or for even a fic <100k, a tag limit that's very strict across all tag categories probably won't be felt at all. But it's clearly something that people who write certain types of fics, and take them very seriously, will feel. Like I genuinely don't want to have a million tags. I want to tag relevant content that allows potential readers to filter & include & exclude my fic as they so choose, but also, if it does show up in their search, I want to give them the information they want to be able to decide if they want to read my fic or not. I don't want to have to put all my content warnings into a giant summary, or into a giant author's note that grows and grows. The tags have been a very helpful way of accomplishing those. Being able to cut down on parallel/synned tags is great, but it still seems like longfics that deal with multiple fandom entries, large casts, and require content warnings will butt up against that limit very quickly.

tag limit discussions:

- long fic writers adding tags as they go

- writers of franchises with many installments and ensemble casts

- writers with extensive content warnings

- use of tags to clarify a filtered tag

- use of tags to demonstrate how content is handled

off the bat - stop being jerks

look, I know objectively fics don’t need to be tagged at all. I lived in the wild west, too, when “lemon” meant anything from the merest mention of arousal to an explicit vanilla sex scene to all out dead dove craziness. a large part of me still is of the opinion that readers should just read shit, and if they decide they don’t like it, just dip. but that’s not what we’re about here. tagging is a kindness that we voluntarily undertake, and it’s also a form of advertising.

tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes

(that’s one of the cruxes of the arguments both pro-shippers and antis make: you can filter things! But you can only filter things if they’re tagged.)

I also understand that a few asshole writers have ruined this for all of us by purposefully adding so many tags it slows down the site and makes pages fail to load and hides other fics because the tags take up 10 pages. i also am frustrated with kinkmemers who just have prompt fill fic dumping grounds that span multiple unrelated fandoms and are impossible to navigate.

...the answer is not to suggest to writers that we put all our content warnings and pairings and etc. in our summaries, or our A/Ns, or to insert a first chapter that is a placeholder summary/tags page/world state. tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes.

I also have been dealing with people being murderously angry, and super self-righteous and targeting and mean about my own tags, and tags in general. people who are anti-tag are being giant fucking dicks about it. like get over yourselves and let’s just talk about a website function lol. tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes.

THE ANSWER IS NOT TO GET RID OF TAGS.

Alright, so now that we’ve gotten that flippin’ straw argument aside.

The next thing anyone has been doing is going to my page and critiquing my tags. Let’s address redundant tags.

(the wrangler has done this nicely! no ridicule necessary!)

using my fic as an example:

If you tag your fic Female Lavellan/Solas (only), it will show up in the following searches: Inqusitor/Solas, Female Inquisitor/Solas, Lavellan/Solas, Female Lavellan/Solas.  If you tag your fic Inquisitor/Solas (only), it will show up only in the Inquisitor/Solas search and in none of the others.  If you tag with the most specific version, it will show up in the more general versions, but not the other way around. So there's no real reason to tag with the more general tags.

Though I will point out that if you don't use the canonical tag      and tag your character or relationship with a custom name it will      be synned to the nongendered version, because at some point the DA      wranglers decided that they didn't want to make gender      assumptions.  So "Annabelle Lavellan" will be synned to "Lavellan      (Dragon Age)" rather than "Female Lavellan (Dragon Age)", and      someone searching for works with specifically "Female Lavellan"      won't see it.

Response: In the fanfic writers server I'm in, we've talked about how tags work and are supposed to work extensively in the past.  There's just always been a lot of confusion, which I think has been added to when people go and try to double-check for themselves and find instances where this treeing/synning is broken. Someone put out this guide (also here) for AO3 meta text this year, which has been referred to by multiple people in the server, and it says:

What if you wrote a fic for something where there's a movie based on a book, but the movie's really different, and you've used both things that are only in the movie and things that are only in the book? In that case you either tag your fic as both the movie and the book, or see if the fandom has an “all media types” tag and use that instead of the separate tags. If the fandom doesn't have an “all media types” tag yet, you can make one! Just type it in.

“All media types” fandom tags are also useful for cases where there are lots of inter-related series, like Star Wars; there are several tellings of the story in different media but they're interchangeable or overlap significantly, like The Witcher; or the fandom has about a zillion different versions so it's very hard, even impossible, to say which ones your fic does and doesn't fit, like Batman. Use your best judgement as to whether you need to include a more specific fandom tag such as “Batman (Movies 1989-1997)” alongside the “all media types” fandom tag, but try to avoid including very many. The point of the “all media types” tag is to let you leave off the specific tags for every version.

Which I believe is in direct contradiction to guidance to use the most specific tags, so that's definitely one source of confusion. The most recent ao3 meta text guide (https://archiveofourown.org/wrangling_guidelines/2 I think this one) doesn't present itself in a way that makes this clear for writers tagging their own works. The way authors usually go about tagging things (and what's in the FAQ) is to start typing into one of the boxes and look for what populates the drop down, which doesn't lend itself to knowing that there are trees, or knowing what tags are interrelated (it seems like a whole grab bag of tags get suggested, some in-fandom and some outside of fandom, some canon/parent/meta and some children/random freeform, in just about any field you start typing in).

I'm not sure what can really be done about this. Many of us have turned to ao3-comment-of-the-day and their posts about using Tags, and various sources on google, and have clearly come up with a whole load of conflicting advice.

Fundamentally, finding parent/meta tags for a tag as you’re tagging a fic is NOT clear to writers. The fact that a nested and a meta tag can both be suggested one after the other when filling in tags largely contributes to redundant tags.

Writing for Multiple Fandom Entries

Here’s what a tag wrangler had to say about my fandoms:

As with the relationship tree, you can look at the fandom tree  here:      https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Dragon%20Age%20-%20All%20Media%20Types  and see how the fandom tags are related. Going back to your story Rogasha'ghi'lan as an example, it's tagged with Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: The Last Court.  But as I said, you only need to tag with the lowest relevant level(s) on the tree in order for your fic to show up under the higher levels.  So if you tag with      Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Last Court, it will show up not just under those categories, but also under Dragon Age (Video Games) and Dragon Age - All Media Types.  And of course because you've tagged with the specific, if someone searches under, say, Dragon Age (Video Games), but doesn't want Inquisition or Last Court fic, they can use the exclude filter to show only the earlier games.

(So that's two more tags you can remove with no effect on searchability!)

In my (but not only my) own case, I am indeed writing for Origins, DA2, Inquisition, and Last Court extensively within the same fic, so I should be tagging for all of those, specifically, still. In order to make sure my fic is seen by the correct fans, I need multiple specific tags.

Longfic Tag Bloat (adding tags as you write a fic)

And like many other longfic writers, even if I narrow down my character tags only to those with dedicated character arcs longer than 5 chapters, I still have Loads & Loads of Characters (including Dalish from the Chargers!).

A lot of longfic writers I know add characters, relationships, and content warnings as they go along.

At 170 chapters/580k words, Dead Pasts had a ton of important relationships (for example, like Vivienne & Lavellan), and as a story it's nowhere near done. I found myself planning an arc from 171 onward that would introduce a very important relationship (Felassan & Lavellan). This is how longfics end up with so many, many, many character tags and relationship tags, which is another major criticism people seem to have about "people who abuse tags."

A solution that people propose online is "split your fic." Which is actually what I ended up doing...but the old relationships and fandoms from DPDF still apply to Rogasha'ghi'lan, so Rogasha'ghi'lan will have the same number and more tags than DPDF.

If I hadn't split the fic, I would have just kept adding tags to Dead Pasts...and still had the same problem of continually adding tags. They're not superfluous tags: someone who wants to see a plot that is deeply influenced by Vivienne & Lavellan will find that in my fic; someone who is looking to see a major Felassan & Lavellan friendship grow and drive plot will also find that in my fic.

My fic is long; there are other fics that are longer, or are going to be longer, with casts that are just as large or larger, with many relationships, and that's not even talking about content warnings.

Polycule / Relationship Tags

"Tagging a polycule like Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan requires four      tags: Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, Bull/Dorian, Bull/Lavellan,      Lavellan/Dorian"

This assumes that people who like Lavellan/Dorian will want to read Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, which is often not the case.  If your story Is Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, tag it that way!  It doesn't make any sense to me to tag with the pairs as well unless the story would be of interest to people who read for that pair, or unless that pair relationship is a big step in the story (like, if you have established Lavellan/Dorian, and then they bring in Bull, you might tag for both that pair and the trio). I mean, you can tag how you like, there's no requirement that tags correspond to content. But for me, personally, if I search on Dagna/Lace Harding (I am weak for dwarf women!) I do not want to get a Dagna/Lace Harding/Sera fic.

My personal tastes don't include poly fics, but several writers I know who write poly fics are adamant that: tons of readers will not know of the possibility of the poly fic until it shows up in a search result, and the individual relationships often are significant to the fics, especially in fics that are not oneshots. For example, a great number of "fav fics" are stumbled-across! We aren't interested in the Sera/Dagna/Lace polycule ourselves, but someone might not have considered it, found it, and said, "Hey! That's my new favorite." But if polycules are segregated and only searchable by the polycule itself, alas, what's the option for visibility at all if not tagging it as Lace/Dagna in addition?

Additional Tags

Knowing when something is a "character" and when something is "additional"

Knowing that "Warrior Lavellan" (or the [Name] Mahariel) would be more useful in an Additional Tag vs. a Character Tag is also something I'm not sure how we're supposed to know? Like, I'm glad to know it now, but it's definitely not at all obvious without you telling me why it would be more useful in Additional vs in Character. Especially when to me: Warrior Lavellan is a character, and the fact that it populated the Character tag for me says that it's a Character. Because like I said, the guidance has been: start typing, and if it appears in the drop down, use it. Or, for example, my friend has the Well of Sorrows personified as a Character. Like an actual character. Does that have to go under Additional Tags, or as a Character? How do I know?

Additional tags as tone/content indicators

A lot of writers / readers have approached the Additional Tags as a surface-level overview of understanding how an author is approaching many topics concerned in the fic. Like, Vivienne is a character in my fic, but specifically I am Vivienne-positive, which I feel is important to denote because she's important to my fic, and she's a divisive character. Mood/tone/theme indicators like "Pro-Vivienne" or "we are Vivienne-positive in this house" (or like Male-Female Friendship, or "Expansive Lore" vs "Lore - Freeform" which denote different things to me) in tags (which in the comments section on the ao3 blog post get derided as "chatty tags") are still important to me, though they're useless or far less likely to be used for filtering. (I had the thesis of the conflict of my fic: “empathy is the enemy of free will” “but hope is a choice” as “chatty tags,” among some that were more mundane but important: “sera shows up late in fic”)

More seriously, there are fics that have content warning tags for filtering purposes but also clarify those content warnings to give context to readers and allow them to make a decision whether or not the content actually fits their preferences, ie, one that specifies domestic abuse as a tag (which would be in the Additional Tags) for filtering purposes but also specifies "domestic abuse not present in x relationship" (which would also be in the Additional Tags, but is useless for filtering purposes, but is immensely helpful and demonstrably used by readers to decide if they're going to even bother reading the author's note of that fic).

People are also nervous that not being able to thoroughly tag content warnings is going to end up with unhappy readers amid all the purity culture flaming that's going on lately.

Like, personally I err on the side of "suck it up, reader, and just read and find out," for a lot of things (not talking about content warnings, but talking about mood/tone additional tags), but also, given that there is already a venue here to let readers know what they're in for...taking that away sucks.

I hate a giant fic summary as much as people hate 10 pages of tags, but at least one can hide tags in their preferences, and likewise the thought of starting a fic up front with a giant author's note that gets continually updated with content warnings also isn't super appealing. Leading with a giant author's note that lays out: this is my world state and this is my character's spec and this is my character's background so you know how I'm going to approach this and these are all of the content warnings for the fic as a whole, just feels like getting into "My Immortal" territory. There's definitely a balance to be had between the art of writing a summary, what to include in an author's note, and what to include in tags, but this still seems like it's going to be fairly limiting for writers in these large franchises, especially for longfics that span a lot of topics.

It feels like this decision is being very broadly based on a "for the majority" mindset, which has never been what AO3 is about, without actually physically looking at the kinds of fics it will affect. The tag system on AO3 has been able to give fic filtering and reader-judgement a nuance that no other platform has accomplished, and longfics and large ensemble fics still, I think, depend on that as both a courtesy and necessity. I saw the rough math someone did and know that almost all fics currently on AO3 are <25k or something like that, and sure, for the average oneshot, or for even a fic <100k, a tag limit that's very strict across all tag categories probably won't be felt at all. But it's clearly something that people who write certain types of fics, and take them very seriously, will feel.

Like I genuinely don't want to have a million tags. I want to tag relevant content that allows potential readers to filter & include & exclude my fic as they so choose, but also, if it does show up in their search, I want to give them the information they want to be able to decide if they want to read my fic or not. I don't want to have to put all my content warnings into a giant summary, or into a giant author's note that grows and grows. The tags have been a very helpful way of accomplishing those. Being able to cut down on parallel/synned tags is great, but it still seems like longfics that deal with multiple fandom entries, large casts, and require content warnings will butt up against that limit very quickly.

[graciecatfamilyband]

To the reviewer of Just A Little of that Human Touch on AO3 who wrote:

YES YES YES to your portrayal of Alderaan as a liberal feminist society with sex education and Leia being a crusader of that! THIS feels real. THIS feels like the kind of society Breha Organa and Leia by extension would have cultivated. 

I already thanked you for your review, but I wanted to add (and the comment box on AO3 didn’t feel like it was the right place to do so)-

A lot of time we fanfic authors borrow from Earth and its history as we conceptualize societies in the GFFA. There's a lot of fun royal customs that people like to explore in relation to Alderaan. A lot of us grew up reading about the British monarchy and other European monarchies (what can I say, a lot of us are nerds! Raise your hands if you read those Royal Diaries books growing up? Other historical fiction dealing with this stuff? How many we got in the house?), and that seems to have inspired a lot of Alderaanian customs in fic, which is cool!  

Personally I'm interested in how Alderaan as a matriarchal planet with at least a traditionally female power structure (although I like headcanons that Alderaan moved long ago towards a real gender equality model rather than actually denying men opportunities, including to rule!) might differ from a lot of the patriarchal monarchies in our Western history. Virginity and female-centered sexual purity focus makes a lot more sense when the heir of the throne needs to be related to the King (and the heir of any given family needs to be related to the father); much less so when traditionally the heir needs to be related to the Queen (and the heir of any given family related to the mother- if Alderaan even has such a concept of family heirs!). And then of course with Leia's open adoption (in the sense that the people know about it- and I think they must because she is not the same ethnicity as her parents, although I've seen some takes on it where its like an open/fake secret that work well), that seems to indicate modern-day Alderaan may not give an F about biological lineage anyway. Which I think also says some things about the society and how it views sex and reproduction. 

That, combined with our knowledge of Alderaan as a place that puts such a high degree of value on education (and a good sexual education is an important part of ensuring people have access to all those other kinds of higher education, as babies too early really can make that so much harder) as well as the value the society places on art and, in my head canon at least, the well-being of children (parents having children too early is also associated with very poor outcomes for children; parents having unstable or abusive relationships also is associated with very poor outcomes for children)- well, it just makes sense to me that Alderaan would care deeply about good sexual education that involves, as Leia said, not just contraception but things like healthy relationship skills. Important elements that are too often left out of a discussion of practices that take place in the context of relationships! 

So yes, I agree that this approach seems to fit Bail and Breha’s personalities well (and Leia’s for that matter!), but also think that this is the kind of society that likely shaped those personalities, you know? 

And of course Leia never shies away from pushing envelopes galaxy-wide, and supporting such an organization would (hopefully- although fascist regimes get weird about this sort of thing!) be a way for her to advocate for something she believes in that is valuable, and, while pushing the envelope, actually do-able (as opposed to openly advocating for overthrowing the Empire).

I received an anon message about how I was ruining Star Wars and Star Wars fanfiction with my naked sociopolitical agenda, and how its absurd to apply Earth morality to Star Wars in- any? such a?- way. At the time I didn’t want to post it, but it seems relevant to mention here. Honestly, what “hurts”- other than the fact that someone felt the need to go out of their way to share this opinion with me without signing their name- is that it implies I have no “legitimate” thought process behind this choice for the story. I believe that I have sound reasons why I think Alderaan was this way. Sure, it’s in line with my own points of view- but that’s in part because I think Alderaan is intended by George Lucas to be a beacon of democratic values under a repressive regime, and a symbol of all that is nurturing in the Galaxy, and to me that fits with these ideas. Other people may disagree with my interpretation of Alderaan, as well as how democratic values and a value placed on life would translate into sexual mores. Other people do disagree, and write it differently! That’s fine. But I don’t feel that I’m drawing it out of nowhere. And as usual, this is only a critique when the Earth morality we’re drawing from is “progressive”- no one feels the need to go into the inbox of authors who wrIte about Alderaanian courtiers planning to check Leia’s hymen before her wedding night to tell them not to project specific Earth cultural practices onto the GFFA.  Their incorporation of Earth history is seen as well thought-out, valuable, and detailed world-building; mine is considered a cheap trick. 

And no one should go bother those writers either! Their stories have something to offer, just as I believe mine does. (And I know fanfiction is free, amateur authors, blah blah blah- but honestly, fanfiction being free isn’t the primary reason to behave supportively and decently toward people who make themselves available on the internet. Sure, you can post a negative review of Claudia Gray’s books on your own blog- and sure, you really should not do that with fanfiction, because its unnecessarily mean for people who hare having fun in their free time and doing what’s meaningful to them- but its still rude to go to Claudia Gray directly and tell her she’s ruining Han and Leia, or Star Wars, or how much you hated her stuff! Direct-to-author contact should always be polite, whatever the context.) I believe strongly that everyone should be able to bring whats interesting and meaningful to them to the stories they want to tell in fanfiction, and I personally think there should be room for both approaches!

From my perspective, there has been a lot of handwringing lately about fanfic being ruined by “overly political” agendas and about authors (mis?)using Han and Leia to work out “ideas about female empowerment.” (Although perhaps that perspective is colored by the anon message!) I’d be lying if I said that didn’t dull my enthusiasm about writing Han and Leia, period- no matter how light or fluffy or smutty or “divorced from real-life”. Because even if my past pieces are not considered to fall into that category, that atmosphere makes me feel stifled, like I’m no longer writing for me but like I’m writing to prove that I am still valuable in this community by coloring in the right lines. So while the entire bones of the story were written in August, as I “colored it in”, it did come to include more sociopolitical elements than I originally conceived of it having. I only did so in ways, however, that I felt enhanced the human story at the core, rather than took away from it. They came to me naturally, organically, as the story unfolded, rather than me sitting back and trying to find places to jam them in. Another kind reviewer whose words are etched in my heart noted that “it's all the details that really make it, that tell the story,” and while she was referring to things like body language, I like to think that these details were no less a part of that, and added to rather than drew from the story. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have included them. People may of disagree about whether or not I succeeded, and its possible that my own skill deficit was part of that! But, while I may have failed, I don’t like the idea that they couldn’t have been included in such a story in a way that was relevant. 

I do affectionately like to think of this- even if I am being somewhat tongue-in-cheek/ironic- as my “political screed” fic, because a) I recognized upfront that I was powerless to stop it from being taken that way, even if I took out every possibly “political” element, simply because it involved Leia having previous partners; b) it’s as “political” as I think I’m capable of getting, which is to say (to me)- not very!  its a story about the characters above everything, so it gave me a chuckle to call it political; c) it was a way to prepare myself for a comment like the one I received, which I thought was probably inevitable; and d) it was my way of proving to myself that I did not need to live in fear of writing a “wrong” fic and being tossed out on my ass. I can continue to write whatever is meaningful to me and take whatever response I get. If many people don't want to read it but are still down to read my other stuff, that’s great! If some people don’t want a voice like mine around at all, its better that I know that now rather than worrying about it for the next eight months before finally gathering the courage to publish a prompt I promised to write for a friend, and having my heart broken all over again after spending a lot of time and energy mending it.

And honestly, the overall response has just been so heartening. So many people have recognized it as fundamentally a story about Han and Leia connecting with each other and it just warms me to my toes to hear that it resonated. The recipient who it was for was thrilled to see some of her own headcanons included too, so I feel like I’ve done my job and gained a meaningful writing experience (that prompt- “and we never talked after that”- was really hard to right a nice, hopeful Han/Leia story for!).

So thanks, dear reviewer(s), and I hope I added something interesting to your comments about Alderaan!  💚💙💚💙

[ratthewrodent]

Obviously we are in the midst of the 2019-2020 cycle, but there are early birds out there who want to get started on their personal statements and have requested some guidelines now. I will keep updating this with your ideas (and what I pick up along the way), so feel free to make suggestions! If you're not ready to tune into this just yet, no worries - I will post it again in a few months.The PS is like the first chapter of a novel...you want to engage the reader so that they want to continue on. It doesn't need to be some kind of masterpiece - it's your whole app that counts, but it is a first impression. You don't want it to stand out in a bad way, where the adcoms just want to close the book and be done. So rule #1 is not to put anything that could be off-putting: don't put yourself down, don't sound arrogant, and don't get into controversial subjects (more on all this below). Your goal is to sound reasonable and compelling.What are you trying to answer? Here are the official prompts: https://ift.tt/2F0t9Gg. (please note that for the 2020 cycle, the DO character limit is now the same as the MD one - 5300 characters.) Basically, you are sharing your story of how you became interested in medicine. You want to explain why you want to become a doctor out of all the possible choices that's out there for you. What sparked your interest? How did it develop? What confirmed this for you? What makes you ready? How is medicine a fit for your goals? It's your chance to describe your journey to medicine (and becoming a doctor specifically).An adcom on SDN said that 92 percent of personal statements are decent enough to move on, 1 percent are amazing, and 7 percent are awful - with your job being to avoid the awful category. That sounds about right! Very few are outstanding - they either involved an extraordinary circumstance or there was something deeply moving and meaningful that's hard to replicate. Basically, you want yours to Pass Go and not make ad-coms roll their eyes. If you're not a creative writer, this isn't the time to start. Write clearly and thoughtfully - show you are reasonable. Be careful of humor, too - it could really fall flat.You only have room for a few personal stories and this is what takes time - deciding which ones you want to use. This is where you play around and experiment. The same person can create multiple personal statements using different anecdotes and they would all be fine - it is a matter of seeing what works best to highlight your story and your positive attributes. I think 2-3 stories that go into depth seems to fit the best - any more than this, it begins to read like a resume. If you're lost, forget about an opening and conclusion for the time being; try out one "background" paragraph along with 2 fairly current experience paragraphs (one nonclinical and one clinical) as a guideline.You don't need one "aha" moment. Instead, you can build up your narrative step by step, to the point where at the end you have shown that medicine is the right path for you. It is often hard to get started, but just begin writing. Some people say open up a bottle of wine (or whatever), loosen up, and just get down some thoughts. Maybe something inspired you early on, or maybe you were involved in an activity that eventually paved the way for medicine. Maybe you have a family story/background that was meaningful. There is no right or wrong on how to start, but you should eventually describe some kind of clinical experience to lend validity to the idea that you want to be a doctor.Your PS can include your life's experiences before college (some people have said their advisors have told them only to include life after HS). Your background is something that makes you unique and not interchangeable with a zillion applicants. If it's relevant to your "why medicine" story, you can include it, and then move forward to include more recent experiences. What you shouldn't include is a childlike idea based on fantasy notions of becoming a doctor...your ideas should have substance.Try to keep it in chronological order and not jump around - it creates too much extra work for the reader. You can start the opening at any point in time, but then starting in the second paragraph go back in time and move forward (or just keep moving forward from the beginning).Think about what qualities you want to show - you can look at the AAMC Core Competencies for ideas and pull a few from there: https://ift.tt/2ZDoL9B. Some forward thinking premed-redditors have gone through this list and have highlighted for their LOR writers the areas they want emphasized. (See point below: Coordinate your PS with the rest of your app.)"Show, don't tell." You may have heard this before, but what does it mean? It is fundamentally about tone. Telling is when you are instructing/teaching the reader. For example, saying "Being an empathic person is important in medicine" is telling. "I showed a lot of empathy when I talked to the patient" is telling. Instead, you want to describe a story and share your thoughts along the way. Here's an example (which actually happened when I was an intern!): "Mr B tearfully explained to me that none of his 7 siblings were a compatible bone marrow match. As I pulled a chair over to talk with him, I thought about the trust he placed in me with something so personal. I felt compelled to make this better - and frustrated that I couldn't. However, spending time with Mr B, I learned that medicine is not always about cures, or even finding the right words to say; listening and presence can also be powerful forces." With this, I am setting the scene and giving you my thoughts/realizations. I'm sharing an experience that shows reflection and growth. You can do some telling, but get those stories in! (And you can definitely tell in the conclusion - more on that later.) Here's more on this idea expressed in a very direct way by u/aspiringsocialepi: https://ift.tt/37m5Pia that you can connect with people - this is the humanistic side of medicine. They will read your stats and accomplishments in the app; they need to know you are trustworthy and care about people. I feel that one of your anecdotes needs to show connection. If you're talking about a patient, do not use their real name (due to privacy/HIPAA concerns). Say, the patient, who I will call...., or put a name in quotes, or just say the patient.Showing your ability to care about people is super important, but also think about other doctor qualities to add to your story. Remember you are building the case for "why physician," not simply "why healthcare professional" (or other position). Again, you can review the AAMC core competencies list. Some attributes to consider are scientific curiosity, depth of knowledge, problem solving, teamwork, leadership, teaching, and research. Don't simply say you've observed these qualities and that's what you want to do - think about something that shows these traits in yourself. For example, if you say that you saw leadership in Dr. X and you value leadership in becoming a doctor, you can support that idea with some kind of personal leadership example.Have a strong conclusion - this is where you can be more direct. You can point out the role of a physician. You can "tell" now - you can say what qualities physicians have and how your experiences make you feel ready. You can say what you'd like for your future. Stylistically, you can bring in the theme from the opening paragraph and make a quick reference to it. Don't say how great you will be (yes, I have seen this) - keep this about service to others. Think of the conclusion as your TL;DR of the personal statement - make it easy for them to understand your whole why medicine story.Coordinate your PS with the rest of your application. You will need to write 3 "most meaningful" essays as part of the primary; you'll have secondary essays; you'll be getting LORs. Think about the activities you're highlighting and build that theme. For example, if global health is important in your why medicine story, have that in the PS, add a most meaningful essay that doesn't repeat but complements the PS, talk about it in the secondaries/interviews. Having an angle (without being repetitive in content) can help to set yourself apart. If you don't have a unique aspect - no worries. Think along the lines of personal qualities - maybe you're a good communicator or a good teacher, for example. Know your strengths and let that come through. For more on this, read u/LuccaSDN's advice: https://ift.tt/36917nQ word about form: Don't have 1-2 long, drawn out paragraphs or 9+ mini-paragraphs. I think around 5-6 work best (including opening and concluding paragraphs). Don't make the opening paragraph overpowering, leaving the following paragraphs with less substance. It should just be an opener, and it doesn't need to be overly dramatic - just something engaging. Don't put in anything too graphic...you don't need that. That story about how the blood was oozing all over as the transplant surgeon grabbed the heart doesn't work (yes, I have seen this). Be thoughtful - it's not an adrenaline race. Your "regular" stories are interesting - get into them! Explain why you did xyz, describe something absorbing, and reflect back your thoughts/meaning.Try not to view this as drudgery. Have a little fun with it. Have people read it through along the way and stay open to suggestions, but in the end go with what feels right for you. In the end, you should feel proud of your story - you are amazing for getting to this place! Own that (humbly, of course).Remember these are just guidelines to give you a framework - you do you! I recently read a PS with a long intro paragraph, which I typically don't suggest. If it's taking me awhile to slog through the intro, I can only imagine how the adcoms feel after reading so many. But this one worked - it was totally absorbing and would have lost something had it been broken up into another paragraph. These tips aren't set in stone.ADDITIONAL THINGS TO AVOID (will keep adding to this as the issues come up):Be careful when criticizing doctors or medical care in the US - you don't want to come off as judgmental or that you're wiser than the people who have been part of the system for years. If you want to talk about ways to change healthcare, make sure you have demonstrated background knowledge in the area you're discussing. Avoid getting too political.Just as with politics, use caution when discussing religion. You don't know who is reading your PS and what their beliefs are. Don't offend anyone.Don't bring up issues of serious mental illness - keep in mind adcoms view themselves as the gatekeepers, wanting to make sure that you'll be able to make it through the hardships of an intense workload and stressful clinical situations. They don't want it on their heads that they put someone in a pressure cooker and the person got sick as a result.Make sure that the humanitarian trip you've discussed is a legitimate one and doesn't represent "voluntourism" (where the programs end up not benefiting, and even exploiting, the people they are trying to assist). Here is a guideline by the AAMC: https://ift.tt/36917US bring up bad grades - there will be other places in the app to discuss academic inconsistencies. This is your story of why you want to become a doctor - show your background, your interest, and your readiness for medicine. If it's important to you to describe an academic struggle, keep the emphasis on how you have grown and are now ready. Don't get into specific grades.ADDITIONAL INFO (links):Here are u/Arnold_Liftaburger's thoughts on writing the PS (from r/premed FAQs): https://ift.tt/36918rU are u/holythesea's ideas on how to write a narrative: https://ift.tt/2EZAqGr out the advice from u/word_doc73: https://ift.tt/2rGIOYm here is a helpful thread from SDN: https://ift.tt/37kH8D4 thread on finding online personal statements: https://ift.tt/2sjAzSp PS advice: https://ift.tt/39hppy9 are more examples of of personal statements provided by u/HeyHiHello99: https://ift.tt/2tbpHWM via /r/premed