6.8: Writing introductions, conclusions, and titles- A key to organizing

Orienting the reader: Writing an introduction

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Does this ring a bell? These are the opening words to every episode in the massive, culture-bending Star Wars franchise.

They shoot the white girl first, but the rest they can take their time.

Sit with that one for a minute. Shocking? Yes. Compelling? Yes. Does it make you want to know what’s going on? Absolutely. You might not recognize this as the first line from Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise, but it is a good first line. It not only sets a scene showing violence and a group of people (probably men) on a murder spree, killing another group of people (at least one white woman; the rest are not white, and we can guess that they’re probably women, too), but it also pulls out any number of emotional reactions. That is an incredible first line.

Now, these examples are pretty extreme. The first is from one of the most popular, if not THE most popular, series of films in American history, and the second is from the seventh novel by one of the greatest American authors alive today. Your introductions don’t need to be as earth-shattering, but they do need to do three things:

• Grab the reader's attention
• Give a sense of the direction of ideas in the essay
• Set up what the writing will be like in the essay (super formal, more informal, etc.)

No big deal, right? Actually, it can feel like a HUGE deal, and writing the introduction can be so scary for some writers that it stops any forward progress. So, here are the first two rules for writing introductions:

Two rules for writing introductions

Rule Number One: If you don’t have ideas for the introduction, skip it!

No, don’t skip it altogether—you need to have one!—but if it’s freaking you out and stopping you from getting going on your essay, start working with your body paragraphs first. Sometimes you need to play with the essay ideas for a while before an idea for the introduction alights on your shoulder and demands your attention.

Of course, sometimes ideas aren’t that cooperative and you need to work at pulling them out. Have you written the rest of the essay and now you are considering the virtues of skipping writing an introduction altogether rather than going through the torture of having to figure it out? First, relax. Don’t take it so seriously.

Rule Number Two: Consider audience!

This brings us to the second rule about introductions. Ask yourself: What will get my audience’s attention? Always consider the audience’s needs, interests and desires. If your audience is similar to you in any way, fabulous. Ask yourself: What would get my attention? Write an introduction that amuses or fascinates you. After all, if you’re genuinely delighted, that could rub off on the reader.

Types of introductions: Thesis statement, anecdote, asking questions, a contradiction, and starting in the middle

It might help if you had some ideas about the types of introductions out there:

• Thesis statement
• Anecdote
• Asking questions
• A contraction
• Starting in the middle

Thesis statement introductions are for the traditionalists. They also often work well in professional writing. They are typical in formal essays where it’s important to start broad to help create context for a topic before narrowing it in to land at the specific point of the essay, in the thesis statement, at the end of the introductory paragraph. Sometimes formal academic argument papers even start with the thesis statement, as in this example:

Parents are heroes because they work hard to show their children the difference between right and wrong, they teach their children compassion, and they help them to grow into stable, loving adults. Parents act as guides for their kids while allowing them to make mistakes, listening to them when their kids need to talk, pushing them along when they’re too shy to move on their own, and cheering the loudest when their kids achieve their dreams. It’s no easy task to be the steady, moral compass that kids need, as parents are people too, and people make mistakes. As a species, though, we manage more often than not to raise well-adjusted kids who turn into hardworking adults, giving us hope for the future.

As you can see, it’s a pretty general and generic introduction, but it firmly orients the reader into the topic.

Let’s say you want to stretch your creativity a bit, though. You might try an anecdotal introduction, where you tell a brief but complete story (real or fictional). This is using narration to catch the reader’s attention. Here’s an example of that using the same topic and thesis statement as above:

When my brother was little, he used to get into all sorts of trouble. Because he was just so curious about everything, his desire to check things out often overrode his good sense. This finally got the best of him when he was nine and got stuck in a tree. He climbed up there to look into a bird’s nest, and we found him after he started yelling for us. He was twenty feet up there, and before my mom and I knew what was happening, my dad jumped up and started climbing, which was amazing because my father isn’t too fond of heights. He got up to Jason and then helped him down, showing him where to put his hands and feet. When they were both safely on the ground, my parents scolded Jason while simultaneously hugging him. He was still terrified, and suddenly, I could see how terrified my dad was, too. I never forgot that moment, and I also came to a realization. Parents aren’t just heroes because they will put their lives on the line for their kids. Parents are heroes because they work hard to show their children the difference between right and wrong, they teach their children compassion, and they help them to grow into stable, loving adults.

This is a great strategy to try because it gives a specific example of your topic, and it’s human nature to enjoy hearing stories. The reader won’t be able to help being pulled into your essay when you use narration.

Another strategy writers employ when writing introductions is asking a question or questions to catch the reader’s attention. You might have heard the adage, “There are no dumb questions, only dumb answers.” While that’s often true, when it comes to introductions, you need to be smart about the types of questions you ask, always keeping your audience in mind:

• DON'T ask yes or no questions
• DON’T ask questions that will cause the reader to tune out.
• DO ask questions that get the reader thinking in the direction you’re planning on going in within your essay.

Here’s an example of a question that will stop your reader in his or her tracks:

Have you ever wondered about how Einstein’s String Theory applies to old growth forests?

Why is this a bad question? Simple: what if the reader answers that and says “Uh…no.” You’ve just lost the reader.

Instead, consider your audience: what questions might they actually have about your topic? For example:

When you were a kid, who were your heroes? Was it Luke Skywalker? The President of the United States? An astronaut? A firefighter? Heroes come from all walks of life…

This series of questions begins with an open-ended question that frames the topic (childhood heroes) and gets readers thinking, but not too much—the follow-up questions keep readers from floating off into la-la land with their own ideas.

Another strategy that can work well is considering the contradictions in your topic, playing Devil's Advocate, and bringing them up right away in the introduction. When it comes to your topic, what clichés are out there about it? What misunderstandings do people have? Those ideas can make for a great introduction. For example:

When kids think about heroes, they often think about Superman or Spiderman in all of their comic book glory. These superheroes fight the bad guys, restoring order in the chaos that the villains create in the comics. They always win in the end because they are the good ones and because they have amazing abilities. What kid hasn’t thought about how cool it would be to have super powers? What kids often miss, however, and don’t understand until they’re older, is that their parents are the real superheroes in their lives. The super powers that parents have may not be bionic vision or super strength, but they have powers that are much more important. Parents are heroes because they work hard to show their children the difference between right and wrong, they teach their children compassion, and they help them to grow into stable, loving adults.

Note that in this sample, there’s a contradiction: the cliché idea of heroes as cartoon superheroes, but there’s also a rhetorical question. Often, strategies for writing introductions can be combined to great effect.

Finally, an introductory strategy worth noting is similar to an anecdote, but instead of starting at the beginning of a story, you start in the middle of the action. For example, instead of setting the scene by starting in the cafeteria on a normal school day, you would start like this:

A wad of spaghetti smacked the side of my face, and one of the noodles ricocheted off my cheek and swung into my mouth. I nearly inhaled it, but before I started choking, I managed to fling a handful of fries in Jose’s direction. I saw Amy running over to dump her milkshake on Anthony’s head before I ducked under the table. It was full-on pandemonium in the cafeteria, boys versus girls, a spark of rage finally igniting after weeks of classroom tension.

Starting an essay right in the middle of action immediately piques the reader’s interest and creates a tension that can, admittedly, be difficult to come down from, but it sure makes for an exciting start.

These strategies can serve to enliven your essay topic, not just for the reader, but for you. When you can build an introduction that you can be proud of, it can give you creative ideas for the rest of your piece. Consider trying several different strategies for your introduction and choose what works best. Perhaps even combine a few to customize. It’s also worth noting that, though introductions are traditionally one paragraph with the thesis statement as the last sentence, there’s nothing saying an introduction can’t be more than one paragraph. It’s all about what’s going to work for your topic and for your audience.

Making your mark: Writing a conclusion

Let’s be honest. When you’ve spent so much time working out the ideas of your essay, organizing them, and writing an awesome, eye-catching introduction, by the time you get to the conclusion, you might have run out of steam. It can feel impossible to maintain the creative momentum through the most boring of paragraphs: the conclusion. So what do writers do? Easy: they start by writing, “In conclusion…” and sum up what the reader just got done reading.

If that feels off to you, good. It should. Unless you’ve written a long essay, a summary-style conclusion isn’t appropriate and can even be insulting to the reader: why would you think readers need to be reminded of what they just read? Have more faith in them and in your own writing. If you’ve done your job in the essay, your ideas will be etched in readers’ brains.

You still need to have a conclusion, though. So what’s a conscientious writer to do?

The goal of a conclusion is to leave the reader with the final impression of your take on the topic. You don’t need to try to have the final, be-all, end-all word on the topic, case closed, no more discussion. Readers will reject this. And again, don’t worry about summarizing what you’ve just written.

Think about a boring conclusion being like the end of a class period. Your classmates are putting their books away, packing their bags, glancing at their phones—their minds are already floating away from the topics in the class. An effective teacher will keep student attention until she is ready to dismiss the class, and an effective conclusion will not just keep the reader's attention until the end but will make them want to go back to the beginning and re-read—to see what they might have missed.

Types of conclusions: Mirroring the introduction, predicting the future, humor

The easiest way to write a conclusion, especially after you’ve written a stellar introduction, is to mirror the introduction. So, if you’ve started by setting the scene in the cafeteria mid-food fight, go back to the cafeteria in the conclusion, perhaps just as the fight is over and it’s dawned on all the kids that this was a bad idea. If you spent your introduction bringing up a contradiction and dispelling it, allude to that contradiction again in your conclusion. If you asked a question in the introduction, you’d better be sure to answer it in the conclusion.

Mirroring is the easiest way of thinking about an appropriate concluding strategy. You might also consider looking into the crystal ball and predicting the future. Let’s say you’re arguing for increased sales taxes to help improve your city’s crumbling roads in your essay. In your conclusion, paint a picture of what the future roads would look like (or feel like when driving on them!) if you got your way. This idyllic, concrete scene would remain in readers’ minds, increasing the chances that they’ll remember your point of view.

Another option that helps to endear you one more time to the reader is ending with something funny or catchy. When readers feel good because you utilized the strategy of a humorous conclusion, they’ll remember that feeling and your take on the topic. You don’t need to be a comedian to be funny, either. You can utilize jokes made in popular culture to make your reader smile: from the classic “Where’s the beef?” catchphrase the fast-food chain Wendy’s utilized in the 80’s to the more current “double rainbow” YouTube video to the most cutting-edge memes, these jokes can be utilized for an impactful conclusion. The key, however (and warning!), is to consider your audience. Choose something that will amuse your audience, because although you don’t need to be a comedian to write a humorous conclusion, like a comedian, if the joke falls flat, you’ll leave readers with crickets chirping and awkward silence that all comedians face one time or another.

Another great option is one encouraged by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in his books on Rhetoric: use a maxim, or proverb. These are like folk-wisdom, or quotes by famous people who really know how to turn a phrase.

For example, in writing a paper arguing about nursery rhymes and the gender roles in them, you could end by quoting a portion of the ending nursery rhyme:

Snip, snap, snout,

This tale’s told out.

Of course, this strategy could fail, too, by hitting the wrong note or not being quite on-topic. This is where an extra pair of eyes (or two or three) helps: test your conclusion out on others before you call it your final draft.

Name the game: Writing a gripping title

Some people have no problem coming up with titles for their essays. The struggle is NOT real for them, and they don’t understand why the rest of us have difficulties with this relatively small part of the essay, at least small words-wise. These same people should probably go out and play the lottery because they’re lucky. For the rest of us, however, we need to work at it.

Titles are scary because they’re short, yet they must do a lot of work: they state the topic, a direction for the topic, and grab attention. You might note that these are basically the same tasks of the introduction, but at least with that, you have a whole paragraph. Not so with a title (unless you’re going for something absurd, which your supervisor or writing teacher will likely not appreciate).

Yes, writing a title requires some creativity. In this case, though, there’s a strategy you can use to think about title creation.

Step One: Write down your topic

Hank Aaron, baseball legend

Step Two: Think about the points you’re going to make in the essay about your topic

This is a major research paper, so it’s long. I’m going to write about his baseball life, his early life, and his passions outside of baseball (civil rights)

Step Three: Brainstorm a list of ideas, clichés, and associations dealing with your topic

Baseball, take me out to the ball game, grand slam, double-header, triple play, seventh-inning stretch, peanuts and Cracker Jack, “Juuuust a bit outside,” major league, home run, homers, crack of the bat, Negro League, Milwaukee Brewers, The Hammer (his nickname), swing and miss…

Step Four: Put the ideas together in interesting ways to create title options

Hank Aaron Hammers It Home

Triple Play: The Life, Love, and Career of Hank Aaron

From Mobile to the Majors: Hank Aaron’s Success Story

…and so on.

Note that the second two title options above utilize a colon. These are titles with subtitles, sometimes called a two-part title. The first part, before the colon, is the eye-catcher. The second part gives a direction for the essay. This is an opportunity you can exercise to get more words for your title. Note that each section of this chapter utilizes a title and subtitle! It’s a great strategy to try.

Let's say you're going to write a persuasive essay about the importance of attending class. You can think of different titles based on different strategies:

• Description of your essay
  • For Example: How to be a Successful College Student
• Rhetorical question
  • To Attend or Not to Attend?
• Mode of writing title
  • Go to Class!
• Two-part title
  • Attendance: The Key to Acing College
• Lifting a great phrase from your essay title
  • Be There: Attending Class to Ace College