Effective Introductions
Grab your readers' interest immediately
Effective introductions grab your reader's interest immediately and make them want to read more of what you have written. They tell your readers the topic of your writing and show the order of your observations. Effective introductions are like bait you dangle in front of your audience. Once hooked, readers will probably keep reading. There are several ways to formulate effective introductions
- Start with an interesting fact, related to the thesis, that catches the reader's attention
- Use an anecdote from your personal experience or personal knowledge that sets up your topic or illustrates your thesis
- Use a quotation relevant to your thesis from a leading authority or related figure in the news
- Use some compelling remark to pull the reader into the essay
- Begin with a question that your essay can answer
- Start with an illustration of the problem or situation that your topic addresses
- Start with general information about the topic leading down to the thesis statement as the last sentence of the opening paragraph
- Boldly state your thesis
Adapted from Truscott, Robert. The Essentials of College ∓ University Writing. Piscataway, NJ: Research and Education Association, 1995. 35.
The standard form of an introduction is called "The Five W and One H Lead" used by newspapers—Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. Example:
| During his first administration [<--When], Ronald Reagan [<--Who] initiated supply-side economics [<--What]), in part to end deficit spending [<--Why], but by 1986, the mid-point of his second term in office [<--Where], deficit spending exceeded [<--What, again] 200 million per year. [How is missing, but could be used as an effective transition into the next paragraph.] |
Some examples of specific types of effective introductions are shown below.
The Argumentative Introduction
The claim you make, along with the three reasons to support it, make up your argument. Example:
| Last year in the USA, 3871 persons were killed with handguns. Another 16,547 were maimed or injured. A staggering 62% of these deaths and injuries were inflicted by convicted felons. [Here's the claim --->] If handguns were outlawed, crimes against persons would be significantly reduced for three reasons. [Here are the reasons or, supporting details --->] First, the easy concealment afforded by handguns makes certain kinds of crimes—armed robbery and air piracy, for example—virtually unpreventable. Second, domestic violence has dramatically increased with handgun ownership. And third, in 7 out of 10 cases where self-defense is a justification for homicide, the evidence doesn't agree. [And here's the transition sentence to a fuller discussion of reason #1 --->] First, the concealment of weapons in relation to crime will be considered. |
The Provocative Introduction
A bold, provocative introduction may be the easiest way to grab your reader's attention. Example:
| The women's liberation movement was a spectacular failure. Instead of freeing women to find the best qualities in themselves, it condemned them to adopt the very worst qualities found in men. |
The Contrast or Conflict Introduction
Human nature is attracted to conflict or contrast (cops and robbers, for example). Here's a contrast/conflict lead written by Aldous Huxley for his book, Brave New World Revisited.
| The most distressing thing that can happen to a prophet is to be proved wrong; the next most distressing thing is to be proved right. In the twenty-five years that have elapsed since Brave New World was written, I have undergone both these experiences. Events have proved me distressingly wrong; and events have proved me distressingly right. |
The Question Introduction
A truly thoughtful question introduction avoids a rhetorical question which can be answered simply yes or no ("Can human beings live without love?" for example) and asks instead a question that stimulates the reader's values, beliefs, or whatever. Example:
| In 1974 the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from its category of mental illness. The ruling came after extensive gay lobbying. The new official definition uses the term "sexual orientation disturbances." But the action of the APA raises serious questions about psychiatry as a so-called science. Can the difference between illness and social deviation be determined by a vote instead of by empirically gathered evidence? If medical doctors decided to vote that a ruptured appendix is not an illness, would we accept the decision? And if psychiatrists have no more sound method for determining mental illness than by voting on it, how can we accept their testimony in, say, a trial for murder in which the accused has pleaded innocent by way of insanity? Can psychiatry really be called a science if we know that, through lobbying and organized pressure, psychologists can so easily redefine the nature or abnormality? |
The Cumulative Interest Introduction
The cumulative-interest introduction attempts to overwhelm the reader with facts, sometimes without attaching the facts to any specific subject until several sentences into the essay. Such dramaticism seems to generate a reader's interest automatically. Example:
| Seven dead of wounds. A twenty-one-year-old woman paralyzed from the neck down. Four windows. Twelve children left without fathers. Over $158,000 in medical and funeral expenses. Two hundred and six robberies. There were the statistics for one city—Los Angeles—during a single month without gun-control legislation. |
The Descriptive Introduction
This introduction presents a story in miniature and is one of the most popular and most effective means of concretely involving your reader. Example:
| For more than a half an hour thirty-eight respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens. Twice the sound of their voices and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead. |
These examples adapted from:
Rackham, Jeff and Olivia Bertagnoli. From Sight to Insight: Stages in the Writing Process. Fort Worth,TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1991.
For more examples see:
Ensign, Geogianne. Great Beginning and Endings: Opening and Closing Lines of Great Novels. New York: HarperPerennial, 1996.