Introduction+Help

The Introduction **Purpose of the First Paragraph of Any Paper** To attract the reader’s attention—get him/her interested in reading the paper. To provide necessary or helpful background information about the topic—to create a context or “set the stage” for the essay so a reader can understand or appreciate your main point. To give the reader a sense of why you’re writing about this particular subject. To state the core idea (thesis) of the essay. Some people also like to indicate the main points of the paper, but this step is optional. **Some Ways to Lead into a Paper** Begin with a short narrative (about 125 words), either personal or objective, one that leads smoothly and logically to the thesis. Define a key term. If you do this, you may want to start with an “official” definition (from a dictionary or other authoritative source), which you should identify for the reader. You may also want to supplement it with your personal definition of the term. Make a “shocking statement” or start with a series of “shocking” statistics relevant to the topic. Use a short, appropriate quotation—taken from any published source, whether fiction or non-fiction, prose or poetry. Identify the person or source you are quoting from. Ask a “leading” question, one that will start the reader thinking. Provide a detailed list or description of things relevant to the topic to create a picture of objects or scenes that will make good background for the idea you wish to focus on. **Remember that there is no single all-purpose formula for successful introductions.** You can use any strategy that you wish as long as you prepare the reader fully for what follows in the body of the paper. **Warming Up vs. Writing an Introduction** While an introduction is the first thing we read in an essay, it is not necessarily the first thing you will write. (Many student writers get stuck when they try to write the “perfect” introduction before writing anything else. You need to know what your paper is going to say before you can introduce it to your readers.) The first thing you write in a draft might be simply “warming up” to the topic, which is fine for a draft, but does not do much for a larger group of readers. Often, students write first drafts that have the makings of great introductions and thesis statements //at the very end of the draft// because that’s when the writer finally figures out what she or he wants to say. The trick is to recognize this phenomenon in your own writing, and to revise the paper so that it begins with and focuses on presenting the point you wrote your way into. Like your thesis statement, the introduction may be one of the last aspects of the paper that you polish up once you have a solid draft that says what you want it to say. Try skipping the introduction at first: write whatever you need to write initially to get yourself into the heart of the paper, and assume you’ll go back and polish the introduction once you’ve produced the paper that you will be introducing. You’ll then find writing the introduction a lot less grueling. **Questions to Ask Yourself When Trying to Write an Introduction** Why am I writing about this subject? What am I writing in response to? (What have I experienced or read that leads me to want to address this subject?) How does my main point relate to anything going on in the world? Do I need to explain why I think this subject is significant? Do I need to supply any background information (including information about myself)? Can I appeal to the reader’s self interest?

**Types of Introductions to Avoid:** //The Generic// (an introduction that could be stuck onto any essay about any subject) “In this modern, complex world, we all face many daily problems....” //The Mechanical// “In this essay, I am going to explain...” (Note: This kind of introduction is not favored in most humanities courses, but may be encouraged in business or science courses.) //The Melodramatic// “Oh no,” she screamed, blood running down her pale face, “please don’t, please don’t...” **Other Introduction Issues** Introductions are not always just one paragraph long. Longer, more complex papers might require introductory sections since you will need to explain more in order to lead up to your main point. In a paper under 10 pages long, the introduction usually should not exceed one page. Although an introduction may be more than one paragraph long, it generally won’t start to develop or give support to the paper’s main point because that’s what the body of the paper is for. An introduction //leads up to// the main point whereas the body of the paper //develops// and //supports// the main point. ** Sample Introductions ** What is “dreaming”? Is it a shadow-play, meaningless and fragmentary? Or a variant of the fortuneteller’s crystal? Or a delicate diagnostic convenience for the doctors? Through the centuries, dreaming has been looked upon in all three of these ways, now one, now another, coming into fashion or falling into disuse. Our own generation has added a fourth, a strictly scientific and physiological approach. And beyond all these, stranger than any of them, lies a fifth possibility, now beginning to emerge for the first time in human history. Sometimes I wonder why there are so many teenage pregnancies, especially now when sex education starts early in grammar school and Planned Parenthood agencies are available for birth control information. Each year one million teenagers become pregnant; nine out of ten teenage mothers keep their babies; girls aged 14-17 form the only group of women in which birth rates have not declined; two-thirds of teenage pregnancies are unintended. Even though our schools offer sex education programs, and public agencies dispense birth control education, there are many deeper reasons why these children are becoming pregnant. Have you ever tried fitting a square peg into a round hole? It’s almost impossible. And that’s how I often felt about my lifestyle—it didn’t comply with that which was “American.” It didn’t fit. You see, I was raised as a whole-hearted German: I thought German, I spoke German, I felt German. It has taken me quite a few years to recognize what the effects of my upbringing have been, and to integrate the two diverse cultural back-grounds, American and German, into one, instead of feeling that they were two separate conflicting parts. But until I was able to do that, I had to deal with the psychological problems that came up because I was “different.” “Jobless Rate Up, Producers’ Prices Down”; “Consumer Prices Up”; “Auto Manufacturers’ Woes Persist”; “General Motors Slumps in Sales”; “Ford Motor Co. Troubles,” and “Small Businesses Go Bankrupt” were some of the headlines Americans read in January, 1982. It was a time when Americans tightened their budgets or found themselves, like me, among the unemployed. The prospects for my immediate future did not look bright with the job market flooded and employers offering low wages, so I decided I needed a vacation. It was winter, so I headed south to the warmest spot I could imagine—Cancun, Mexico. To my surprise, that vacation virtually transformed my life, giving me the opportunity to take a long, hard look at my values and the way I’d been living.