Keys to a Well-Written Nomination
The keys to a well-written nomination is providing the judges with specific information illustrating how
the individual’s or group’s achievements have had a positive impact. The number of examples is not as
important as ensuring that the nominee’s contributions match the award criteria (Online | PDF Pg. 4-7).
NOMINEE CITATION: The citation is a brief statement that describes accomplishment for which the
nominee should receive the award. You can find on the awards nomination form, this question:
“In 500 characters or less, what is the main reason behind you nominating this nominee for this award?”
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The citation should begin with “For outstanding” or “For exceptional.” They should NOT begin with
“In recognition of.”
The citation should not contain personal pronouns.
The citation must end with a period.
Common acronyms (e.g., ASTNA, AMPA, AAMS, CAMTS, etc.) may be used if the full name is
included in the justification, due to the character limitations. (Include the full name or the acronym,
but never both.)
NOMINEE JUSTIFICATION: Is your nomination’s cover letter. Even though the justification is concise, it
should not be vague. Avoid sweeping generalities and make every sentence count. Below is a
recommended format for writing a quality honor award nomination. Avoid using photos or graphics on
your nomination cover letter, save those visuals for nomination’s additional supporting documentation. All
first references of acronyms should be spelled out. Your nomination’s cover letter should be written in 3
parts: Opening Statement, Supporting Statement and Closing Statement.
1. OPENING STATEMENT: Start with a clear, direct, and specific statement of why the nominee
deserves recognition. Include enough information for the judges to become familiar with the
nominee’s specific challenges faced, actions taken, and results or goals met. List the most
important information in the first few sentences and then elaborate as necessary.
2. SUPPORTING STATEMENTS: Support the opening statement with specific examples that address
the award criteria (Online | PDF Pg. 4-7) and elaborate on why the nominee’s accomplishments are
worthy of the award. These examples should include outcomes, results, and/or activities “above
and beyond”. Include qualities that make this nominee outstanding, and that are clearly relevant
to the award criteria. Consider including the following evidence to answer the “who, what, when,
where, why” in your supporting statements:
o WHAT did the nominee do (e.g., projects, activities)?
 Projects and/or Activities above and beyond
 Any challenges or issues encountered and overcome
o HOW did they do it?
 Initiative and/or Leadership
 Teamwork
 Creativity and/or Innovation
 Behaviors and/or Attitudes (should not dominate write-up)
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o WHAT were the results and/or impact?
 What did the nominee’s efforts accomplish?
 Are there specific benefits that the critical care transport community or the local
community derived from those efforts?
3. CLOSING STATEMENT: Describe how others regard the nominee (e.g., recognized expert,
progressive leader, and exceptionally innovative program). Mentioning major non-AAMS awards
and/or the nominee’s other education, community, etc. efforts.
Additional Suggestions
Well-written nominations are more appealing to the panel of reviewers.
• Write short sentences that are concise and give specific detail.
• Support their nomination with your own observations, as well as qualitative and quantitative facts,
statistics, metrics, etc.
• Provide a complete overview of the nominee or team’s accomplishments. It is important to tell the
nominee’s story as you would to a stranger.
• Use an active voice when writing.
• AAMS provides worksheets for download in the awards nomination form’s directions, for those
who wish to work on a nomination and then come back to the online nomination form.
Read the criteria carefully.
• Make sure you are nominating the individual or team for the appropriate award.
• Identify at least one or more of the award criteria that the nominee exemplified, then explain how
the achievement was outstanding.
• Remember, nominations compete against the criteria for that award.
• Individual or teams should be nominated for acts that are “above and beyond” their duties, as
described in their day-to-day responsibilities.
In providing results, is the contribution an activity or project that is still being developed?
• If the project is still being developed or has not produced results, consider identifying major
milestones completed and the impact to the overall outcome. If this progress is not of substantial
impact, consider waiting to submit the nomination until after the results/impact can be
documented and supported.
• Be sure to include unusual challenges the nominee had to overcome.
• Describe the amount of time and resources spent on the project (e.g., if the project is on time or
early, at or under budget)
Create a unique verbal picture of your nominee.
• Solicit information from others to strengthen the nomination. Your nomination’s additional
supporting documentation can include letters of support for the nominee.
• Describe unique characteristics that are more than just that the nominee is a great or nice person.
• Award judges are relying on your words to give them a positive, factual picture of your nominee’s
accomplishments. Explaining detailed behaviors and giving specific examples will make it obvious
why someone deserves to be recognized.
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Keep it brief. Too much information that is not relative to the criteria can be harmful. Avoid giving
work history or job descriptions, unless it directly relates to the award criteria. The goal is quality,
not quantity.
Consult a thesaurus to find the best adjectives to describe your nominee’s unique traits and
achievements.
Verify all information in the nomination.
• Nominations should be checked carefully to verify that all information submitted is accurate.
• Ensure that all acronyms are spelled out and are correctly defined, except for common acronyms in
the Citation if the full name is included on your cover letter.
Know formatting requirements
• Nomination Form’s Citation (500 characters including spaces)
• Review all of the award nomination general policies: Online | PDF (Pg. 1-2)
Required Nomination’s Cover Letter:
• Shall not exceed 2 single-spaced pages or 7,100 characters with spaces
• Make it readable – DO NOT squeeze in text.
• Save your photos for your nomination’s supporting documents.
Optional Supporting Documents:
• Shall not exceed 1 page in length and no more than 3 letters of support/ testimonials will be
accepted per nomination.
• Examples of these documents are letters of support and/or testimonials.
• Make sure that these documents PDF files so that all judges will be able to read them.
Optional Visual or Document that demonstrates impact of effort(s) done by a nominee:
• Shall not exceed 5 pages (or slides) in length.
• Examples of these documents are resume, poster, PowerPoint Slides, PDF Document, Excel
Document, or document with YouTube Video links, etc.
• Be mindful of the file size of this document. For example, if any photo used is in a high resolution,
the document file size maybe significantly large. As a result, the document will take too long to
download for the judges.
• Instead of providing a visual document, you can provide links to YouTube videos (no more than 5
video links). You can do this by uploading a document with the video links, or you can utilize the
awards nomination form’s text box located in the “Upload Cover Letter & Supporting Document(s)”
section. When it comes to providing video(s) as your visual document – “less is more.” It is highly
recommend that any video provided should be short in length and quick to get to its purpose.
Please include reference to your nominee when naming your uploaded nomination’s documents.
• For example, "Smith_cover_letter" or "MEDSTAR_Cover_Letter."
Questions?
Contact AAMS Membership Manager Elena Sierra at [email protected]
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