By Space Coast Daily // December 14, 2022
Beginning an essay is tough… No, that’s too straightforward. What is the best way to begin an essay? Oh- that’s way too cheesy. The opening line of your essay, no matter whether you’re writing an synthesis essay, a TOK essay or any other type, is the most important line of all.
Not only is the first line important, but also the entire paragraph. Making sure the introduction is well crafted and fits all the requirements of a good essay makes this the most difficult part of the paper.
Like with most things there are ways to help make the writing of the introduction easier.
Your introductory paragraph can be improved by making sure it catches your reader’s attention, knowing what you want to say in the rest of the paper, and having a good introduction length.
Catch your reader’s attention. This is something that we were all taught in school. Begin your introduction with something impactful that will make your readers want to continue to listen to what you have to say.
Exclamations, quotes, personal stories, and jokes are ways we are told to make sure our paper is interesting from the very beginning, but let’s be honest. How many people just quickly Google a quote from Albert Einstein, copy it down, and call it good?
Attention grabbers like quotes or quips can be good but ensuring that they are used properly adds another level of difficulty to the paper.
Knowing what you want to say. Having the three points of your essay clearly thought out and presented well will keep your introduction relevant and accurate to what you want to say.
Too often the thesis statement, one that needs to be the backbone of a paper, is missing. Because of this, the introduction lacks direction and can begin to drag on with pointless information.
Having your three points and your thesis well-defined will let your readers know the information that will be presented later, and let them know that they should keep reading the paper to see your opinion or research.
The length of the introduction. We all know there are word counts traditionally assigned to papers, but to meet the given number the intro tends to suffer.
All too often the introduction is just a mumble of fancy words that one looked up on Thesaurus.com right before they typed them. If it’s a book report then references to the literature may be mentioned.
If it’s an opinion paper then a quote from someone related to your topic might make it in, all in an effort to make the paper just a little closer to the word count.
Because of this, the author’s voice is drowned out, and the intro becomes long and unreadable. Making sure your own words are being used in meaningful ways during the introduction is very important.
All in all, it’s when people don’t have a firm grasp on these that the intro becomes the hardest part of the essay.
By making sure to catch your reader’s attention, knowing what you want to say in the rest of the paper, and having a good introduction length, your introductory paragraph can be improved. This doesn’t mean the intro becomes easy by any means, but at least it can become more manageable.
