The Premed Playbook
As I work hard on the second installment of The Premed Playbook series of books (the first one was the Guide to the Medical School Interview), one geared towards the medical school personal statement, I was reminded of a great service that is an absolute necessity for premed students as they write their primary and secondary application essays.
Poor Grammar
Grammatical errors are on my list of “must avoid” when writing your personal statement. The problem is, in our current Twitter and Facebook culture, we don’t really “write” anymore. We tweet, snap and post.
This is where Grammarly comes in. Grammarly is an online (or off, using their desktop apps) proofreading tool that checks for grammar, punctuation, and style. It also has a contextual spell checker, meaning even if the word you typed is spelled right, it might be the wrong won. You see what I did there! Check out how Grammarly caught it:
This isn’t just a tool for essays. This is a great tool for writing emails to your professors for letters of recommendations or to physicians for shadowing opportunities. Poor grammar and typos can kill any chance you may have. Grammarly will be there to save you!
What Does it Cost?
Nothing! You can download extensions for your browser and use it for free with an account. They do have a premium version that I recommend at least during the several months you’ll be writing your personal statement and secondary essays. Right now they have a 20% off sale (as of 11/20/2016) for about $20/month when you pay quarterly.
Check it out at https://grammarly.go2cloud.org/SHo7
