Similar to a well-wrapped gift, an alluring introduction will get your reader yearning to unpack the claims within your essay. Unfortunately, there isn’t a universal fit for academic essay introductions.
Your essay beginnings are determined by the nature of the topic and your target audience. Often, students struggle with the introduction, with many getting stuck and others writing introductions that don’t capture their paper’s essence.
This article will tackle some interesting ways to start an essay and motivate your readers to interact with your paper further. We will also tackle various tips to guide you toward writing a quality essay introduction.
How to start an introduction for an essay
So, what’s the best way to start an essay?
- Statistics/ facts
Statistics and factual information are great ways to highlight the magnitude of a subject matter. The facts selected for your essay should show the seriousness of the matter under discussion and evoke the reader’s curiosity about the topic.
Also, select facts should be relevant to the topic and with necessary referencing to allow for the counterchecking of the validity of the claims. You could use facts within your essay as:
e.g., According to the addiction center (2022), 80% of college students have abused alcohol within the course of their studies. This statistic highlights a startling truth of the rampant drug abuse within colleges. What promotes such levels of drug abuse in colleges? Is it possible to control drug abuse in colleges? This study will analyze the cause of drug abuse in college and seek mitigations to curb the abuse of drugs by students.
- Ask rhetorical questions
Rhetorical questions are a staple for various academic papers. These questions can be used to lay emphasis on your research questions and to challenge a reader’s point of view, amplifying their itch to read your paper in pursuit of various answers.
These questions are conversational and thus a great way to start persuasive essays, argumentative papers, and expository essays. The rhetorical questions used should be open-ended and build upon each other to highlight the specific questions that are of interest to your essay.
e.g., How efficient are the traditional methods of teaching? Does our persistence to sustain the familiar lecture method hinder the capacity to address the needs of varying types of readers? Should teachers embrace technology to assess each reader’s progress and facilitate lessons? The number of debates on teaching-learning approaches heralds the importance of a technological shift in teaching-learning. This paper will analyze the relevance of tech within the class and also gauge various ways in which technology can be adopted in the teaching-learning process.
- Quotes
Quotes are a great way to start personal essays. These beginnings reduce the struggle of packaging your ideas and sounding like a megalomaniac in an attempt to explain a personal experience.
Quotes highlight the person/idea that shaped your belief and also helps you to escape the humdrum ‘I am’, openings. If you settle to start your essay with a quote, select a relevant quote that applies to your topic.
Insight from authority figures gives a sense of authority to your arguments, serving as a platform for various claims.
e.g., In the words of Nitin Namdeo, poverty stems, not from the lack of higher education, but rather, from poor primary education. However, many countries have their focus attached to higher education in developing skills essential for their economy as opposed to primary education. This has resulted in many jobless graduates owing to their dependence on employment. This paper will look at various education reforms that can be put in place to ensure more efficient results from an education system.
- Narrate a scenario
Storytelling is yet another powerful way to hook your reader into reading a personal essay. For this, you could tease readers with a portion of your essay, inspiring curiosity as to how various scenarios panned out.
Also, be keen to appeal to a reader’s emotion by highlighting details and painting an image that shows the seriousness of a given issue.
e.g., I hate him. How could he walk away so easily? How could he walk away without a tear after his dispassionate goodbye? Were his promises genuine? Why would he promise to stay and wind up leaving? All questions I struggled with as I struggled to come to terms with the bitter truth.
- Stating your thesis as it is
A direct statement of your thesis is among the simpler ways to start an essay. This approach is great for handling academic topics based on topics such as health and engineering. This opening also reduces the challenge of selecting an introduction that captures your paper’s essence.
e.g., The use of diverse teaching-learning approaches is a great way to ensure high performance among students due to the diverse learning methods for students within various classrooms. This research aims to investigate the impact of diversifying teaching-learning methods and adopting technology for the dissemination of academic information.
Tips for beginning an essay
The above-discussed methods on how to start off an essay should inspire you to develop an introduction for your paper. In addition to these methods, consider the following tips for an easy time with your essay introduction.
- Ensure that your introduction clearly states your thesis to avoid ambiguity and confusion among your readers.
- Always use a relevant hook that captures the essence of your topic to build a platform from which you can introduce your arguments.
- Where possible, offer background information to show a reader the extent to which an idea has been investigated. This also allows you to highlight various knowledge gaps and inform your reader about the issues that you intend to address in your paper.
- Be precise in your introduction. Avoid overexplaining issues as this may impair the effectiveness of your hook, pulling in lower traffic.
- Write your introduction last to have a better understanding of your key arguments, therefore, highlighting the key items addressed in your paper.
