Academic writing is not typically personalized to present your individuality, except in specific instances like personal statements. However, there are quite a number of instances where you can include your name and even the names of other people in your hook. This comprehensive guide will detail the instances when you can include a name in the hook of your essay and how to do it properly.
First, let’s examine the critical things you should keep in mind before writing a name-based hook.
Important Things You Should Know Before Writing a Name-Based Hook
Considering the seemingly out-of-the-ordinary nature of name-based hooks, you need to understand various foundational guidelines that you should follow.
Here’s what you should know.
Understand the Purpose of a Hook
A hook’s main purpose is to serve as an attention grabber and give readers some insight into the rest of the essay. Therefore, you shouldn’t just include your name in the hook if it won’t add some sort of intrigue or interest in readers to read your essay. Remember, you’re not just writing for your personal fulfillment.
Know Your Audience
Even if you’re writing an individualized essay like a personal statement or supplemental essay, you should consider the target audience (in this case, the admission board) and what they expect from you. Including your name in the hook may not necessarily achieve the effect you want if the college has contrary requirements.
It might help to check through previously successful essays (and maybe even the unsuccessful ones too) to see if a name-based hook would fit the purpose.
Types of Essays
Essays like scientific papers and lab reports tend to be very formal; hence, would not be suitable candidates for name-based hooks. On the other hand essays like personal statements, supplemental essays, and even expository science essays can be more personal.
However, including your name in the hook doesn’t necessarily make it informal. How you write it is what can make a difference.
So, let’s explore the different ways of writing such a hook.
The Various Types of Hooks Using Your Name
There are many waysto write a hook including featuring anecdotes, posing a question or giving a quote. For name-based hooks specifically, you can adapt such strategies to make them even more effective.
The Personal Story Hook
This is based on the anecdote strategy. By featuring your name, you’ll further personalize the story that can build a stronger connection with the reader. It can make the reader put themselves in your shoes and understand your unique story. This can be very useful for those crucial college application essays.
Check out this great example:
"Imagine a young Maya Angelou, a name etched in literary history, navigating the complex world of her upbringing. In a small Southern town, Maya's name became her refuge, a sanctuary for her thoughts, and the starting point of her remarkable literary journey."
The Inspirational Name Hook
You can start off your personal essay by stating the significance of your name if it has a uniquerelevance to your personal story. Apart from playing a role in delivering the message of your essay, it can be a nifty little tactic that will make the reader remember who you are. Who wouldn’t want to be remembered by the admission team, especially when colleges get thousands of applications every year.
Here’s a useful example to inspire your own ideas:
"Margaret, a name associated with strength and wisdom, has been my guiding light throughout my academic journey. Like Margaret Mead, I aim to make my mark in the world, driven by the values that my name represents."
The Identity Hook
When including your name, it should be based on providing specific value to your essay; otherwise, it will seem like an unnecessary addition. One way that it can be of value is if certain unique aspects of your name contribute to your identity. Maybe it shaped your character, choices in life or even helped you through challenging times.
All such aspects can be incredibly valuable in a personal statement.
Here’s a useful example:
"My name, Ayiana, like a title of a book, defines a significant part of my identity. It carries the weight of generations, a reflection of my cultural heritage and the experiences that have shaped me."
Now that you know how to write such a hook, you need to have a good reason to include it in your essay.
Reasons to Make a Hook for an Essay Using Your Name
The type of hook you use will depend greatly on the key objectives you have for your essay. You wouldn’t start a lab report in a personal tone just as you wouldn’t start a supplemental essay in a formal manner.
Here are some of the objectives you can fulfill with a name-based hook.
Personalization
Do you know that the 10 US colleges that received the highest number of student applications in 2020 had an average of 84,865 applicants? Therefore, any strategy that you can adopt to make your personal statement stand out would greatly advance your chances of success. Personalizing your essay by including your name in the hook can be a useful strategy to consider.
This can be especially useful if few other students are adopting the same strategy and you apply it effectively.
Memorable Impact
This can be a great tactic when writing name-based hooks for scientific papers. Referencing a well-known and respected professional in your area of study can give your essay a bit more credibility.
It can also show that you’ve done your research and taken into account established research in your content. You may find it useful when writing an argumentative essay where you need to prove a point that seems contrary to common perceptions. It lends to your argument to have supporting opinions from well-respected personalities.
That being said, you’ll need to know when to use name-based hooks and when not to.
In Which Situations Would You Need to Write a Hook Using Your Name?
Understandably, you may not adopt this type of attention-grabber in every essay you write. Even with essays where you can use such a hook, you shouldn’t always use it.
Here are few cases where you can use it and how to do it.
Personal Essays
Since personal essays are focused on sharing your personal story, featuring your name comes naturally.
However, you have to do it in a way that actually adds value to your story – not just including it randomly. When you include your name, there has to be something about it that makes the narration more impactful for the reader. Maybe the choice of your name was based on a significant event in history that also reflects in your personal experiences. This could give even more intrigue to your experiences.
Scholarship Applications
In various requirements forscholarship application essays, your name should be included at the beginning.
The scholarship essay questions may not explicitly state that you have to include your name at the beginning, but checking through various sample responses you would see that applicants include their name at the start. If there are multiple essay prompts, you would only feature your name in the first response only.
Having your identity clear from the start would definitely help the selection committee to keep in mind who they are evaluating while reading through the rest of your content.
Narrative Essays
Narrative essays are much like conversational stories of personal experiences.
Therefore, featuring your name in the hook can make it even more valuable. But remember that the point of the hook is to excite the reader about the story. So, you shouldn’t make a boring or irrelevant beginning just so you can fit in your name. Also, the hook should be based on the main focus of the narration. Anything that you include in it should further advance that objective.
Reflective Essays
A reflective essay is based on your personal experiences, ranging from attending an event to simply a text you read.
The fact that such content is designed to reveal your individual perspective means that a personalized hook would fit right in. You only need to ensure that the focus of the essay is telling about your experiences and the perceptions you have concerning such experiences. It’s not really about who you are but what you did.
So, if you include a name-based hook, you should ensure that it helps in presenting your experiences.
In Which Situations Should You Not Write a Hook Using Your Name?
Many academic writing assignments would not do well with personalized hooks. But then, you don’t necessarily have to include your name to write a name-based hook.
Here’s how you can handle these types of essays.
Formal Research Papers like Lab Reports
Lab reports have a strict structured format that doesn’t give much room for any creative writing.
Such content involves an accurate record of an experiment that you perform. Therefore, your personal perspectives are not required, meaning that a personalized hook would not be the right fit.
Moreover, you’ll have to write this type of content in a formal tone unlike the more informal tone adopted by other essays like personal statements.
Compare and Contrast Essays
A compare and contrast essay analyzes similarities and differences between two or more things.
The issue under investigation is the main focus; therefore, it wouldn’t be appropriate to divert the reader’s attention to yourself. However, in such an essay, just like an argumentative essay, you can quote and mention the perspective of a notable personality related to the topic in discussion. This can be a strategy to highlight views that support your argument or strengthen your case.
Here are a few examples:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” These words of Nick Carraway (Fitzgerald, 1922) perfectly describe…
“Learn to laugh” were the first words from my kindergarten teacher, Ralph Thorsen, uttered after I spilled paint on my daffodil picture.
Rules of Writing Name-Based Hooks
The University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine provides some guidelines in writing personal statements, which can be useful when writing this type of essay hooks.
Here are the guidelines to keep in mind:
· Don't use clichés: Make the hook sound original and special. If there’s one place you want your essay to truly stand out, it has to be the beginning sentence; otherwise, it might seem to the reader that the rest of the content is just as mundane as the beginning.
· Be interesting: When you make your hook original, it will likely be interesting too. So, you don’t have to worry too much about this if you take care of the first rule.
· Show, don't tell: This works the same way that a demonstration can be more impactful than hearing second-hand narration about an issue. You want to give the reader the experience of reliving the events that you’re talking about.
· Be concise: Say what you need to say in as few words as possible. However, don’t leave out critical details just to make it short.
· Stay focused: Your hook should further support the overall theme of your essay. Don’t add a hook just for the sake of writing something interesting without any significance to the overall content.
· Edit and proofread: You certainly don’t want the first words that readers find to be full of typos or any other mistakes. Sometimes, you may need to get a second pair of eyes to check through your writing, especially if it’s as crucial as an application to get into your dream college.
Conclusion
Name-based hooks can be a useful tool to add to the array of content strategies that you can deploy in various situations. If used effectively, it can definitely improve reader’s perception of your essay, or at least grab their attention long enough to go through the rest of your content. That means your content should be just as valuable to actually deliver on what your hook promises.
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