Learning Objectives
Identify successful strategies for writing introductions
The beginning and the ending of any communication event, studies show, provide the best opportunities to speak to any audience when their attention is the highest and most focused on what you have to say. Something about our species pays special attention to the way things start and the way they end. We should use this to our advantage as writers.
Goals of an Introduction
- The introduction needs to alert the reader to what the central issue of the paper is.
- The introduction is where you provide any important background information the reader should have before getting to the thesis.
- The introduction tells why you have written the paper and what the reader should understand about your topic and your perspective.
- The introduction tells the reader what to expect and what to look for in your essay.
- The thesis statement (often located at the end of the introduction) should clearly state the claim, question, or point of view the writer is putting forth in the paper.
The Hook
Compare the following two sentences:
- This year the Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to Bob Dylan.
- Bob Dylan did not show up to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The first sentence is ho-hum. Unless we are already interested in the Nobel Prize or Bob Dylan, we will not read on. The second sentence may leave us wondering, “What’s up with Dylan? Was he being rude? Was he trying to make a point? If so, what was it? Why did the Nobel Committee give the prize in literature to someone known primarily as a songwriter? Was the committee trying to make a point? If so, what was it?”
Introductions should begin with an engaging lead or opener (sometimes called a “hook”) that is devised to evoke readers’ interest. Capturing readers’ attention motivates them to continue reading. Writers can garner a reader’s interest by doing the following:
- Beginning by quoting an expert on the respective topic or an inspirational individual.
- Beginning by offering some statistical evidence that is both informative and intriguing.
- Opening with a striking mental image.
- Appealing to the reader’s emotions.
- Raising a question or series of questions.
- Presenting an explanation or rationalization for the essay.
- Including a personal anecdote.
- Stating in the middle of a story with the conclusion of the story existing as the first sentence in the conclusion paragraph.
Set the Table/Turn the Tables
One tried-and-true introductory strategy is to state an expected condition, then explain why the opposite case is actually true. This style of opening can be a great way to get an essay off the ground. First you state the status quo condition, the thing that everyone thinks is true (“Set the table”). Then you unexpectedly overturn this idea by showing how it’s not true, or at least more complicated than the reader might think. (“Turn the tables”).
For example, let’s say we’re starting an essay about Donna Haraway’s famous essay “A Cyborg Manifesto.” Here’s how this strategy can help us get started:
- Status quo condition (in this case, the idea that we’ve all been turned into cyborgs is a dystopian science-fiction nightmare):
- In “A Cyborg Manifesto,” Donna Haraway describes a world in which the technological extension of our senses has made us all into “cyborgs.” This may sound at first like a dystopian nightmare vision, …
- Unexpected turn (in this case, the claim that Haraway suggests that this is a good thing):
- … but in fact Haraway embraces this new way of being, finding in “cyborg” culture a new space for agency and empowerment.
Try It
