Use These Sentence Starter Tips to Strengthen Your Writing,Ways to Start an Essay
WebMost of the time, first sentences set the stage for the paper by showing the context, or the conversation into which the paper is entering. You can do this by establishing the current Web3 rows · Sep 15, · The first few words of a sentence can help kickstart an engaging sentence. The following are WebFeb 4, · Your first sentence sets the tone for the whole essay, so spend some time on writing an effective hook. Avoid long, dense sentences—start with something clear, WebBegin each of the following sentences like this: "The next thing my reader needs to know is" Once again, say why, and name some evidence. Continue until you've mapped out ... read more
It allows your readers to understand your essay within a larger context. In answering "why", your essay explains its own significance. Although you might gesture at this question in your introduction, the fullest answer to it properly belongs at your essay's end. If you leave it out, your readers will experience your essay as unfinished—or, worse, as pointless or insular. Mapping an Essay. Structuring your essay according to a reader's logic means examining your thesis and anticipating what a reader needs to know, and in what sequence, in order to grasp and be convinced by your argument as it unfolds.
The easiest way to do this is to map the essay's ideas via a written narrative. Such an account will give you a preliminary record of your ideas, and will allow you to remind yourself at every turn of the reader's needs in understanding your idea. Essay maps ask you to predict where your reader will expect background information, counterargument, close analysis of a primary source, or a turn to secondary source material. Essay maps are not concerned with paragraphs so much as with sections of an essay. They anticipate the major argumentative moves you expect your essay to make. Try making your map like this:. Your map should naturally take you through some preliminary answers to the basic questions of what, how, and why. It is not a contract, though—the order in which the ideas appear is not a rigid one.
Essay maps are flexible; they evolve with your ideas. Signs of Trouble. A common structural flaw in college essays is the "walk-through" also labeled "summary" or "description". Walk-through essays follow the structure of their sources rather than establishing their own. Such essays generally have a descriptive thesis rather than an argumentative one. Be wary of paragraph openers that lead off with "time" words "first," "next," "after," "then" or "listing" words "also," "another," "in addition". Although they don't always signal trouble, these paragraph openers often indicate that an essay's thesis and structure need work: they suggest that the essay simply reproduces the chronology of the source text in the case of time words: first this happens, then that, and afterwards another thing.
or simply lists example after example "In addition, the use of color indicates another way that the painting differentiates between good and evil". Copyright , Elizabeth Abrams, for the Writing Center at Harvard University. How to Start Writing By Creating the Daily Writing Habit. He prided himself on understanding criminals. This one, with his glassy eyes and unerasable smirk, was the first to humble him. This was the seventh parcel to arrive for her with nothing for a return address but a dried blossom under a square of packing tape. Her first love lay on the table in a neat, familiar arrangement, while her second love waited for her to come read them.
He quietly rolled the car back down the driveway and into the street before pausing for one last look at my bedroom window. The first time I remember him looking at me with anything like pride was when I screamed in his face. Everyone assumed Jack the Ripper was a man. It was the perfect cover for the family business. We had an understanding, Jefferson and I. He promised me freedom for my unborn children. Booth was drinking in the same saloon. But it beat going back to an orphanage. Too bad for him my job would probably kill me first. There were four of us left. They were in bad shape — frostbitten, bleeding, and barely able to walk. and Nazi Germany were still at peace. Even one sentence in quotation marks can be enough. Example: "'I don't know where you get those ideas! I was drawing and explaining my latest, perhaps my craziest, back-of-the-placemat 'invention' A short, striking sentence.
Readers often appreciate writers who can pack a punch and then mellow out. You can be dramatic without being melodramatic. Example: "I held my gun firmly. The paintball field was covered in blue, yellow, and red splotches A leisurely introduction. If the essay isn't action-packed but instead paints a beautiful picture for the reader, let the opening suggest a pleasant experience.
For an introduction to writing the first sentence of an essay, see "The First Sentence" under Academic Essays. For an introduction to the different kinds of paths your essay might follow, see "Take Your Reader on a Trip" on the same page. The first draft of your first sentence should be just enough to get you started as you begin to write. Later, after you have a good command of your topic and have a good sense of the overall tone of your essay--this may not be until after you have written several drafts--you can spend time focusing on the first sentence. This point in your writing is a good time to go back to sample essays to see what they accomplish in the first sentence.
Does one of them provide a model for a sentence that would work well in your essay? If you are having trouble structuring your essay, one good strategy is to look through everything you have written for the one best or most moving line. Try putting that sentence at the start and forming the rest of the essay around that primary idea. Note that this line might be the last point chronologically in your narrative--putting it first would give the whole essay an interesting "flashback" structure. Dialogue usually gets a reader's attention. This is because dialogue gives a sense of present action.
Even one sentence in quotation marks can be enough. Example: "'I don't know where you get those ideas! I was drawing and explaining my latest, perhaps my craziest, back-of-the-placemat 'invention' A short, striking sentence. Readers often appreciate writers who can pack a punch and then mellow out. You can be dramatic without being melodramatic. Example: "I held my gun firmly. The paintball field was covered in blue, yellow, and red splotches A leisurely introduction. If the essay isn't action-packed but instead paints a beautiful picture for the reader, let the opening suggest a pleasant experience. Example: "Rowing out to the island on Lake Bled, dwarfed by the Slovenian Alps to the north and by an ancient castle high on the eastern hill, I was enjoying the best day of my summer vacation.
A challenge. You can draw the reader into your argument if you advertise that you have learned something that goes against common knowledge. Perhaps you figured out that cats actually love to be petted the "wrong" way, back to front. Example: "Although my parents had warned me never to pet a cat from back to front, I recently discovered that Stitches can't get enough of my 'backward' attentions. Note that this kind of opening frequently starts out with the common knowledge but adds a challenging word such as although, but, while, or even though somewhere in the first clause, and then suggests the content of the challenge in the second clause.
A warning. A reader will pay attention when there is something to be concerned about. Examples: "I wish someone had told me two years ago that sometimes a pool of water on the road is really a mirage! Remember me. Forgot your password?
First Line Generator: 101 Sentences To Get You Started Writing,Writing the Essay: The First Sentence
Web3 rows · Sep 15, · The first few words of a sentence can help kickstart an engaging sentence. The following are WebFeb 4, · Your first sentence sets the tone for the whole essay, so spend some time on writing an effective hook. Avoid long, dense sentences—start with something clear, WebBegin each of the following sentences like this: "The next thing my reader needs to know is" Once again, say why, and name some evidence. Continue until you've mapped out WebMost of the time, first sentences set the stage for the paper by showing the context, or the conversation into which the paper is entering. You can do this by establishing the current ... read more
The first sentence is a dry fact; the second sentence is more interesting, making a bold claim about exactly why the topic is important. Even short essays perform several different operations: introducing the argument, analyzing data, raising counterarguments, concluding. Upgrade to Premium to add all these features to your account! Paragraph Starters for Narrative Essays Narrative essays tell stories. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use.
Enrolling in a course lets you earn progress by passing quizzes and exams. Narrative essays tell stories. Grace Fleming, M. In a well-constructed first paragraph, that first sentence leads into three or four sentences that provide details about the subject you address in the body of your essay. Examples of Great Introductory Essay first sentence.
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