The Most Attention Grabbing Ways to Begin an Essay ...

1. You Don’t Have to Be Clever

Some students spend such a long time trying to find a way to create a clever opening. Instead, put yourself in the shoes of the reader and imagine what would interest you as an opener. The most effective ways to begin an essay are those that don’t get your marker rolling his/her eyes before the paragraph is over.

2. You Don’t Have to Be Controversial

Attention grabbing doesn’t mean controversial. Controversy is subjective and very time limited. By the time you have finished your essay, the controversial issue you have written about may be dead in the water. It may even be that people are sick of hearing about the controversial issue you have raised. Grab attention by appealing to your target reader.

3. Use Shock without Telling Lies

Let’s say you like Chris Hemsworth in the Thor movies. Would an essay-opening saying, “Chris hammers back against mail forwarding” (clever) get your interest? Or would an opening like, “Chris Hemsworth may lose his foot to diabetes” get your attention? The word “May” is very handy here.

4. Connect with the Reader and You Have a Great Opener

Being creative is okay if you are not being weird. Weird is relative to your reader. If your reader has never read Shakespeare, then all that funny-talk is going to appear weird. Being creative can help stop your essay and your essay opener from being stale, clinical or outright boring. Make sure you examine and understand your target audience before you start writing your creative opener i.e. what is your professor looking for in setting this essay?

5. State an Interesting Fact about Your Thesis

Just make sure it is interesting to the point of shocking, and make sure it isn’t a logical absurdity. For example, one student wrote, “Over 90% of the sea is dead,” which he thought was shocking, but it is not shocking if you have the capacity to think beyond a headline. Of course 90% of the sea is dead, just like 95% of your fish tank is dead if you have living goldfish in it. On the other hand, do not give a dull statistic such as, “Over 9 million people claim to have lied at least once last year.”

6. Don’t Give a Quote

Professors are SO SICK of reading quotes in essays. Unless your essay instructions expressly demand that you put a quote at the top of your essay, you really shouldn’t! Your professors and essay markers are humans too, and they get sick of things the same as you. No matter how clever, shocking or original you think your quote is, your marking professor will have either heard it (you can guarantee that he or she has), or will think it is lame (or both).

7. Make It Less Wordy

It makes for a better, easier to read introduction and means that if you do grab the reader’s attention, then you are not going to lose it quickly by being too wordy.

8. Stop Believing What You Read on the Internet

Reading articles on the Internet about ways to begin an essay is going to leave you puzzled. This is because the way you start an essay is pretty standard. You open with an explanation about your topic, you give your thesis (usually a question) and you explain what your essay is going to be about without taking up too much of your word count. Yet, when you read articles online about starting your essay, you see a quagmire of terrible ideas that look like they were conceived by morons and invented by idiots.

9. You do Not Have to Ask a Question

The best piece of worst advice is that you grab your reader with a question. Posing a question is the standard manner of writing an essay introduction and is not attention grabbing! It is the same as saying that great car driving is all about putting your foot on the gas pedal.

Something to remember is to not settle on just one of the attention grabbing ways to begin an essay. Don’t get stuck in a rut. If you become formulaic, you lose the effectiveness. What’s the best essay writing tip you’ve ever been given?