Going figurative in the intro if you are in the social sciences

[TheDude]

Is it acceptable to go figurative in the intro? I want to continue to study the cognitive processes that children use to monitor their own learning. I came to this realization, in large part, after I started teaching kids music. I have a funny/decent story of what I went through over 3 days in my quest to help myself become a good teacher. Should I use it as an intro or skip to the boring? It would be about a paragraph of straight narrative.

thoughts???

Edited September 3, 2010 by musicforfun

[tskinner]

If you're going to open with a narrative, it needs to be concise. Keep it to three or four sentences. I would not recommend devoting a whole paragraph to it, unless it is done in a way that demonstrates your knowledge of the field.

Here's how mine went:

On April 5th, 2009, I was watching the afternoon news with my host family in Japan when the anchor nervously reported that North Korea had just fired an Unha-2 aimed towards Japan. The looks of shock on my family’s faces at the announcement and subsequent relief at the revelation that the North Korean rocket landed safely in the Pacific Ocean are images I will never forget. While watching the evening news with my host family, I realized that embassy work would not be enough for me. Until that moment, I had always assumed I would enter the Foreign Service with a business degree and travel from country to country doing consular desk work, but wanting to know why North Korea, a country already shunned by the international community, would take such a risk, I immediately knew research was in my future. I thought back to my literature review for International Research Methods at the University of ***’s School of ***, on the effects of missile defense systems on the probability of interstate conflict. Before the attack, Japan did flex its defense muscles. But I knew that there were many variables, debates, and problems that I had yet to study--whether “rogue states” truly act recklessly, for example, or if economic sanctions are actually effective. I decided that doctoral work in political science was my best path to better comprehension of the nature of interstate interaction. Through a career in academic research, I hope to contribute to the ongoing quest to understand the nature of conflict and cooperation between states.

Only the first three sentences are pure narrative. The rest extrapolates on how it affected my career decision and analyzing it. If it's just story telling without relevant commentary, then the reader isn't going to be that interested. It's difficult to strike a balance (and I'm in no way saying that even I did it successfully), but it does need to be balanced, IMHO.

Good luck!

Edited September 3, 2010 by tskinner

[TheDude]

Thanks so much. I will definitely try to do that.

Also, can't believe I wrote "figurative." It was way to late when I posted last night.