Power-Packed Introductions

Power-Packed Introductions

There are several ways to write a good introduction or opening to your paper.

Thesis Statement Opening
This is the traditional style of opening a paper. This is a "mini-summary" of your paper.

For example:
Gallaudet University, the only liberal arts college for deaf students in the world, is world-renowned in the field of deafness and education of the deaf. Gallaudet's charter was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Gallaudet owes its rich history and fame to two men: Amos Kendall and Edward Miner Gallaudet.


Opening with a Story (Anecdote)
A good way of catching your reader's attention is by sharing a story that sets up your paper. Sharing a story gives a paper a more personal feel and helps make your reader comfortable.

This example was borrowed from Jack Gannon's The Week the World Heard Gallaudet (1989):
Astrid Goodstein, a Gallaudet faculty member, entered the beauty salon for her regular appointment proudly wearing her DPN button. ("I was married to that button that week!" she later confided.) When Sandy, her regular hairdresser, saw the button, he spoke and gestured, "Never! Never! Never!" Offended, Astrid turned around and headed for the door, but stopped short of leaving. She decided to keep her appointment, confessing later that at that moment her sense of principles had lost out to her vanity. Later she realized that her hairdresser had thought she was pushing for a deaf U.S. President.


Specific Detail Opening
Giving specific details about your subject appeals to your reader's curiosity and helps establish a visual picture of what your paper is about.

For example:
Hands flying, green eyes flashing, and spittle spraying Jenny howled at her younger sister Emma. People walk by gawking at the spectacle as Jenny's grunts emanate through the mall. Emma sucks at her thumb trying to appear nonchalant. Jenny's blond hair stands almost on end. Her hands seemed to fly so fast that her signs could barely be understood. Jenny was angry. Very angry.


Open with a Quotation
Another method of writing an introduction is to open with a quotation. This method makes your introduction more interactive and more appealing to your reader.

For example:
"Deaf people can do anything except hear," President I. King Jordan stated in his acceptance speech as thousands of deaf students and staff of Gallaudet University cheered. President Jordan's selection as the first deaf president of a university proved to be a monumental event for Gallaudet University and for deaf people all over the world.


Open with an Interesting Statistic
Statistics that grab the reader help to make an effective introduction.

For example:
American Sign Language is the second most preferred foreign language in the United States. 50% of all deaf and hard of hearing people use ASL. ASL is beginning to be provided under the Foreign Language Department in many universities and high schools around the nation.*
*The statistics are not accurate. They were invented as an example.


Question Openings
Possibly the easiest opening is one that presents one or more questions to be answered in the paper. This is effective because questions are usually what the reader has in mind when he or she sees your topic.

For example:
Is ASL a language? Can ASL be written? Do you have to be born deaf to understand ASL completely? To answer these questions, one must first understand exactly what ASL is. In this paper, I attempt to explain this as well as answer my own questions.


(The above examples come from English Works! http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/writing/introconslu.html)




More Introduction Examples


1. Introduction to the Foreword of Living Well With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia, written by Mary J. Shomon:

Chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia unnecessarily cripple an estimated 6-12 million Americans. Characterized by exhaustion, "brain fog," insomnia, and, in those with fibromyalgia, widespread pain, these illnesses have been poorly understood by both the medical profession and patients. This has resulted in much unnecessary frustration and suffering.



2. Introduction to Thomas Paine's Common Sense

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.



3. Introduction of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

1801.--I have just returned from a visit to my landlord--the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven--and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.



4. Introduction to Forward of Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft by Tony Hoagland

My friend Paul once said to me, "Scholars look things up; poets make things up." Though I would not justify ignorance in such a blithe, prideful way, there's something true and Emersonian about what he says, about finding out for yourself. This collection of essays about poetry, neither academic nor exactly for the reader off the street, is in fact a mostly homemade set of geographies, jerry-rigged descriptions, and taxonomies. They are intended for the reader who loves poems and likes to think about them. My hope is that these pieces show one person trying to think through certain topics, and that the step-by-step process of that thinking will be helpful to both readers and writers--in part because the essays are rudimentary, feeling their way. It's not the spirit of ignorance I feel loyal to, but the spirit of amateurism.



5. Introduction to "Jones Beach Reverie," by Whitney Scott, from South Loop Review

The smooth waters of Ellison Bay, Wisconsin, barely lap against this beach of rock, not sand, a rock beach formed by the repeated force of water against the cliff face. Eventually the limestone resistance crumbles so that chunks and boulders land haphazardly on top of each other to be broken down, pounded relentlessly by the surf.