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How to Write an Essay Introduction
Five Parts
：
Sample Essay
Hooks
；
Hooking
Your Reader
；
Creating Your
Context
；
Presenting
Your
Thesis
；
Bringing
It All Together
；
Community Q&A
The
introduction of your essay serves two important
purposes. First, it gets your reader interested
in
the
topic
and
encourages
them
to
read
what
you
have
to
say
about
it.
Second,
it
gives
your
reader
a roadmap of what you're going to say and the
overarching point you're going to make
–
your
thesis
statement.
A
powerful
introduction
grabs
your
reader's
attention
and
keeps
them
reading.[1]
Quick Summary
To write an essay introduction, start
with a relevant anecdote, fun fact, or quote that
will entice
people
to
keep
reading.
Follow
your
opening
with
2-3
sentences
containing
background
information or
facts that give your essay context, such as
important dates, locations, or historical
moments.
Finally,
present
your
thesis
statement.
Write
a
specific
and
provable
statement
that
answers a question about your essay
topic.
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Part I: Sample Essay
插入图片
sample essay
插入图片
1.1
1.
Identify your
audience. The first sentence or two of your
introduction should pull the reader in.
You want anyone reading your essay to
be fascinated, intrigued, or even outraged. You
can't
do this if you don't know who
your likely readers are.[2]
If you're
writing a paper for a class, don't automatically
assume your instructor is your audience. If
you
write
directly
to
your
instructor,
you'll
end
up
glossing
over
some
information
that
is
necessary to show that
you properly understand the subject of your essay.
It can be helpful to reverse-engineer
your audience based on the subject matter of your
essay. For
example, if you're writing
an essay about a women's health issue for a
women's studies class, you
might
identify your audience as young women within the
age range most affected by the issue.
2.
Use the
element of surprise. A startling or shocking
statistic can grab your audience's attention
by immediately teaching them something
they didn't know. Having learned something new in
the first sentence, people will be
interested to see where you go next.[3]
For this hook to be effective, your
fact needs to be sufficiently surprising. If
you're not sure, test it
on a few
friends. If they react by expressing shock or
surprise, you know you've got something
good.
Use a fact or
statistic that sets up your essay, not something
you'll be using as evidence to prove
your thesis statement. Facts or
statistics that demonstrate why your topic is
important (or should
be important) to
your audience typically make good hooks.
3.
Tug at your
reader's heart-strings. Particularly with personal
or political essays, use your hook
to
get your reader emotionally involved in the
subject matter of your story. You can do this by
describing a related hardship or
tragedy.[4]
For example, if you were
writing an essay proposing a change to drunk
driving laws, you might
open with a
story of how the life of a victim was changed
forever after they were hit by a drunk
driver.
4.
Offer a relevant example or anecdote.
In your reading and research for your essay, you
may
have come across an entertaining or
interesting anecdote that, while related, didn't
really fit
into the body of your essay.
Such an anecdote can work great as a hook.[5]
For example, if you're writing an essay
about a public figure, you might include an
anecdote about
an odd personal habit
that cleverly relates back to your thesis
statement.
Particularly
with
less formal papers or personal essays,
humorous anecdotes can be particularly
effective hooks.
5.
Ask
a
thought-provoking
question.
If
you're
writing
a
persuasive
essay,
consider
using
a
relevant question to draw your reader
in and get them actively thinking about the
subject of
your essay.[6]
For
example:
would
you
do
if
you
could
play
God
for
a
day?
That's
exactly
what
the
leaders
of the tiny island nation of Guam tried to
answer.
If your essay prompt was a
question, don't just repeat it in your paper. Make
sure to come up with
your own
intriguing question.
6.
Avoid cliché
s and
generalizations. Generalizations and
cliché
s, even if presented to contrast
with your point, won't help your essay.
In most cases, they'll actually hurt by making you
look
like an unoriginal or lazy
writer.[7]
Broad, sweeping
generalizations may ring false with some readers
and alienate them from the start.
For
example,
wants
someone
to
love
would
alienate
someone
who
identified
as
aromantic or asexual.
Part
2: Creating Your Context
1.
Relate your hook to a larger topic. The
next part of your introduction explains to your
reader
how that hook connects to the
rest of your essay. Start with a broader, more
general scope to
explain your hook's
relevance.[8]
Use an appropriate
transitional word or phrase, such as
your specific anecdote back out to a
broader scope.
For example, if you
related a story about one individual, but your
essay isn't about them, you can
relate
the hook back to the larger topic with a sentence
like
were more than 200,000 dockworkers
affected by that union
strike.
2.
Provide
necessary
background
information.
While
you're
still
keeping
things
relatively
general, let
your readers know anything that will be
necessary for them
to understand your
main argument and the points you're
making in your essay.[9]
For
example,
if
your
thesis
relates
to
how
blackface
was
used
as
a
means
of
enforcing
racial
segregation, your introduction would
describe what blackface performances were, and
where and
when they occurred.
If you are writing an argumentative
paper, make sure to explain both sides of the
argument in a
neutral or objective
manner.
3.
Define
key terms for the purposes of your essay. Your
topic may include broad concepts or
terms of art that you will need to
define for your reader. Your introduction isn't
the place to
reiterate basic dictionary
definitions. However, if there is a key term that
may be interpreted
differently
depending on the context, let your readers know
how you're using that term.[10]
Definitions
would
be
particularly
important
if
your
essay
is
discussing
a
scientific
topic,
where
some scientific
terminology might not be understood by the average
layperson.
Definitions
also
come
in
handy
in
legal
or
political
essays,
where
a
term
may
have
different
meanings depending
on the context in which they are used.