First Impressions
Contributed by Janette Siu on 10 October 2008 at 13:47The opening paragraph of your paper holds a commanding position. Your reader begins to form an opinion about your writing starting from the first words that they see on the page... and as the axiom goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. So what's the secret to that captivating opening paragraph that will grip your reader's attention and give them a good impression of your paper from the start?
In high school, teachers often instruct their students in the "upside-down triangle" means of writing an opening paragraph. In this method, you start with a very broad statement, and gradually narrow the focus down, sentence by sentence, until you get to the thesis at the end of the paragraph. For example, the first sentence might be, "For countless centuries, mankind has used animals for many different purposes," and the thesis might be, "Although cows are considered useful animals, the public should oppose animal cruelty by refusing to purchase products that come from cows." (For tips on writing a thesis, look here.)
While this method is good for high school papers, college professors are often looking for an introduction that draws in the reader much more quickly. Try to start with a sentence that is more specific to your topic. For example, you could say, "Recently, vegan groups have been attracting more and more followers."
Another bit of advice that teachers often give is, "Start with an anecdote." This is not a bad idea, but be careful that you don't start with an anecdote that takes a paragraph or so to write; you don't want to leave your reader wondering for too long what the point of your story is. If you want to start with an anecdote, try to find one that you can summarize in a sentence or two. If you have a longer story that you want to include, you could put it in the body of your paper; otherwise, if you summarize it in the opening paragraph, you could expand on it later in the paper.
A good opening anecdote might be, "On July 25, 2008, a group of vegans staged a protest outside of Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in downtown Seattle. The group quickly drew support from passersby, until the crowd of protesters was obstructing traffic for a full block in every direction from the restaurant." (I don't know of any such event actually happening, but if it did, it would make a good story.) From there, you could explain that this event demonstrated the growing support for vegan ideals.
An opening paragraph is also a good place to give any definitions or background information that the reader might need to know to understand your thesis. In our example, you could explain what it means to be a vegan, when the first vegan group in the world was formed, who the founding vegans in America were, or what causes brought about the vegan movement.
Some professors like to have you write highlights of the paper's main points in the opening paragraph. If you want to incorporate a "road map" like this, one of the more graceful methods is to include it in your thesis sentence. For example, you could adjust your thesis to say, "The public should refuse to purchase products that come from cows, because of the social, moral, and economic ramifications of animal cruelty." Then the reader knows that you will talk about the social, moral, and economic consequences of buying cow products.
Typically, you would put your thesis at the end of your opening paragraph. The reader will probably be expecting it to be there, but if you feel compelled to put it somewhere else in the opening paragraph, there is no law against that.
Also, you shouldn't feel that it is necessary to have a really long opening paragraph. If you can do it in three or four sentences, that's good! Your reader gets to the thesis quickly, and then they can jump right into your argument.
Finally, you don't have to write your opening paragraph first. Often, it is more helpful to write the body of your paper before you write the opening paragraph, because then you know exactly what your argument is and what you want to prove in the paper. That knowledge can guide your opening paragraph so that it becomes a faithful introduction of your ideas.
That's the end of this blog entry, but hopefully you have a good idea now of how to begin your next paper.
Diane said
On 13 November 2008 at 07:29Excellent work describing how to begin writing! The inverted triangle method is not only used for high school; it's more appropriate for journalism & news stories. Any kind of feature story would be better off using your approach, drawing the reader in from the opening line.