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Functions of an Effective Introduction
How to Approach the Development of an Introductory Paragraph
How to Develop an Appropriate Title
Interest Devices for Introductory Paragraphs
Examples of Interest Devices
Model Introductory Paragraphs
The Development of a Thesis
A Sample Introduction #1
A Sample Introduction #2
A Sample Introduction #3

Functions of an Effective Introduction

1. Appeals to a specific audience.
2. Employs an interest device.
-- appeals to the audience's sense of authority (what they know) 
-- appeals to the audience's sense of value (what they feel)
3. Sets the tone or mood for the paper.
4. Focuses to a thesis (a one-sentence summary of the paper that follows)

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How to Approach the Development of an Introductory Paragraph

1. Identify an appropriate audience for the paper.
2. Draft a thesis sentence.
3. Identify key words and concepts related to the key words of the thesis which are familiar to or positively valued by the audience.
4. Write a title that includes key words related to the broad subject area of the paper.
5. Select an interest device related to the thesis and topic of discussion which will appeal to either or both the authority or the value of the subject to the audience.

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How to Develop an Appropriate Title

Every expository paper must have a title. The title is essential for gaining the audience's initial interest. In doing so, the title functions cognitively as well as emotionally.

Cognitively, a title announces the broad conceptual frame of reference for the paper. Emotionally, a title stimulates the reader's emotional involvement in the subject. Both factors are essential to the movement of an audience into the introduction and, ultimately, into the text of the essay. Below are some fairly weak examples of titles taken from past student essays:

Examine the revisions below. What elements make them more interesting and appealing? What assumptions can you make about the probable audiences?

A Useful Pattern for a Title

Two of the titles above are divided into halves. Each half performs a separate function.

Example:

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Interest Devices for Introductory Paragraphs

1. rhetorical question: a question posed to the audience that will be answered by the writer, not the audience.

2. definition: the explanation of a key term.

3. description: the use of imaginative words and phrases (words that create visual, hearing, and other sensuous images).

4. prediction: a projection of future fact.

5. statistics: numbers, percentages, and other numerical facts.

6. claim: to assert or to maintain something as a fact.

7. historical allusion: a casual reference to a person, place, or event of historical significance.

8. literary allusion: a casual reference to a literary element--a character, famous quotation, an image or symbol, or a famous title.

9. personal allusion: a casual reference to a personal experience.

10. analogy: a partial similarity between two subjects on which a comparison can be made.

11. narrative: a brief story.

12. startling statement: a disturbing or surprising remark.

13. common-place statement: an obvious or uninteresting remark.

14. joke: a brief witty or humorous story.

15. quotation: a direct restatement of remarks by someone else, either selected from printed or non-printed sources.

16. emotional words: words used to stimulate emotional reactions in the reader.

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Examples of Interest Techniques Used in the 
Development of Introductory Paragraphs
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Instructions: Below are sample introductory paragraphs. Each illustrates (in red) the use of a single interest device. The thesis sentence is italicized. As you read each paragraph, identify two or more possible audiences for whom the paragraph might be appealing.

Rhetorical Questions
Definition
Description
Prediction
Statistics
Claim
Historical Allusion
Literary Allusion
Personal Allusion
Analogy
Narrative
Startling Statement
Commonplace Statement
Joke
Quotation
Emotional Words

Rhetorical Question
Use a rhetorical question--one you plan to answer--at the beginning of the introductory paragraph to stimulate immediate active intellectual involvement. You must take control by answering/responding to the question in the next sentence.

Example:
 

Rhetorical Question . . . Thesis

When is it appropriate to pull the plug? questions: When the patient says so? When the family says so? When the hospital says so? Increasingly, more and more doctors are finding themselves legally entrapped by conflicting wills regarding the continuation of life support for terminally ill patients. In order to avoid the prospects of litigation, many American doctors are now refusing to serve controversial cases, decisions whose effects are reverberating throughout the health care industry.

possible audiences: __________________________________________

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Definition
Find an unusual definition for a familiar concept. Avoid opening the paragraph with such trite phrases as "According to the dictionary" or "According to Webster's."

Example:
 

Defintion . . . . . Thesis

"Two or more Republicans make a party; two or more Democrats a cabal," railed out-gunned County Commissioner Warren Oaks during a closed-door council meeting at the Jackson County Courthouse last week. Once more out-maneuvered in the Republican-dominated Court, Oaks reflected what many Democratic leaders have voiced for some time. On issues that count the most--local option, streets and sewers, and county health services-- Democrats are sidetracked.

possible audience: _____________________________________________

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Description
Use imaginative words and phrases to stimulate visual, tactile, or audio sensations.

Example
 

Description . . . . . . . . Thesis

Quite frankly, I had always been a little embarrassed by the "peace movement"--all those bouncing, magic-markered signs, the sweaty students, the coarse din of bellowed ultimatums, and the inevitable confrontation between bellicose marshals and clench-fisted demonstrators cuffed to chain-link fences or slathered flat over the sticky summer asphalt, each prone body a presumptuous negative statement. "What good?" I thought. "What practical, what moral, what social good can ever come from such absurd folly?" But today, these old images from the sixties mean little, and world-wide, the "peace movement" now enjoys leadership at the highest cultural levels.

possible audiences: _____________________________________________

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Prediction
A projection of future fact, a prediction entices a reader's interest by shifting his interest from focusing on present perceptions to entertaining potential changes in the future.

Example:
 

Prediction . . . Thesis

Legalized gambling will bring organized crime to Texas. So warn the leaders of religious, social, and civic organizations across the state. But Texas state revenues are on the skids, and rising unemployment threatens to destabilize traditional political lines from city hall to the state capitol. In these financially severe times, local option gambling promises to extend the privilege of Lone Star wagering from the senior citizens' bingo parlors to the very altars of the American "Bible Belt" itself.

possible audiences: _____________________________________________

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Statistics
Figures seem to reduce complex issues to immediately manageable concepts.

Example
 

Statistics . . . . . Thesis

More than sixty percent of the American people said "No!" Sixty-three percent of the American people interviewed by professional pollsters on July 4th, 1976--America's bicentennial day--found excerpts from the "Declaration of Independence" too radical and inflammatory to support. Had they been voting two hundred years earlier, the course of world history might certainly have been quite different. Today, in the 21st century, many Americans continue to question assumptions of the "Declaration" that we have long held "to be self-evident--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

possible audiences: _____________________________________________

(Return to Interest Devices)

Claim
Assert something as fact--and the more unexpected, the better.

Example
 

Claim . . . . Thesis

The primary language of Texas is Spanish, not English. But that language is not so linguistic as much as it is political. At least, that's what politicians seeking state office are finding out. Increasingly, the margin of victory at the state polls may well be determined by the burgeoning Hispanic vote. Buoyed by the United States new immigration law that has all but automatically guaranteed a large new voting block, Hispanics are sure to redefine the traditional profile of Texas politics, particularly in three key South Texas counties.

possible audiences: _____________________________________________

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Historical Allusion
Mention an historical event, person, or place that your audience can automatically identify with without your having to give an explanation.

Example
 

Historical Allusion . . .   Thesis

A scintillating sun came up one morning over the Alamo, but on that poignant day it didn't seem to make much difference. The sun kept coming up bright and cheery over corporate Texas a sesquicentennial later, but it couldn't burn off the dark haze--stretching from the Lone Star high plains to Middle East oil fields--that seemed to be choking off Texas, business after business. In 2001, however, it isn't the Mexicans that have laid siege to an embattled Texas, but rather OPEC. At the brunt end of the foreign onslaught are Texas banks.  At the beginning of the 21st century, a number of  Texas banks have folded, and others are likely  to follow.

possible audience: ______________________________________________

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Literary Allusion
Mention a literary work, a character, or famous quotation from a work of literature whose reference is relevant to the main idea of the paper.

Example
 

Literary Allusion . . . . . . .   Thesis

At the end of "Chapter the Last," an older and worldlier, wiser young Huck confesses, "I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it. I been there before." So might have protested young Stephen Forester of Albuquerque, New Mexico, following threats of a New Mexico appellate court to return him to parents and their religious congregation from whom a lower court had wrested custody a year earlier. Forester, who turns eighteen during his rescheduled hearing and who would be able to render moot any reversal in his status, has claimed he will refuse to return to the fundamentalist charismatic group, members of which he claimed locked him in isolation more than five times in their attempts to test his religious conviction. The case of Stephen Forester represents only one of several cases before U.S. state and federal courts presently enjoying the support of "People for the American Way" seeking to open the "territories" of more liberal religious thought.

possible audiences: _____________________________________________

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Personal Allusion
A reference to personal experience, the personal allusion invites an extremely close relationship between author and audience.

Example
 

Personal Allusion . . . . . . . . Thesis

When I found out that my mother was dying from cancer a number of years ago, I was devastated. It's so hard to watch a close friend or relative--let alone your mother or father--deteriorate so rapidly and so irrevocably. Unlike many people who lose loved ones to this terrible disease, however, my mother and I took personal the opportunity to square our lives with each other just one week before she died. Although our conversation lasted less than thirty minutes, it brought final peace, not only between a mother and son, but also between two close friends. From day to day, I am satisfied that my mother and I were able to find a deep, personal closure. Many people, however, never experience such a meaningful communication in the face of death. For them--the living--the remaining years will be marked by a quiet despair. One answer for them might have been professional counseling. While the costs of such services may be prohibitive for some, every family facing the awkward and frightening experience of relating to a dying member should consider the options such support can provide.

possible audiences: _____________________________________________

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Analogy
The analogy compares similarities between two subjects. Use the analogy to court something familiar to the audience.

Example
 

Analogy .   . Thesis

When the "Doaker" played for SMU, a nation of football fans were hypnotized by his lightning speed and magic on the field. The Heisman Trophy winner was always prepared, and play after play, season after season, he always delivered. Dallas is the home of other reliable winners in the Doak Walker tradition, both on and off the field. Like the tenacity of a great foot ball player, the reliability of your financial consultant determines whether you win or lose. Daytona Financial Consultants offer you three proven plans for investment opportunities that will keep you in the winner's circle.

possible audience: ______________________________________________

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Narrative
Tell a brief story as a background case statement.

Example
 

Narrative . . . . . . . Thesis

When she was only six years old, tiny "Lupita" immigrated from Mexico to Texas with her father. Upon entering public schools in Brownsville, she was told not to expect too much; little Lupe was classified as a "yellow bird," the designation for those in need of special education and for the mentally retarded. A dropout by her fourth year, today she is Dr. Guadalupe Quintanilla, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of the University of Houston, a wife and mother of a cardiologist and two attorneys, a United States alternate delegate to the United Nations, and a nominee for the post of United States Ambassador to Mexico. The case of Dr. Guadalupe Quintanilla is perhaps the most dramatic illustrations of educational discrimination, an insidious, institutionalized brand of prejudice that may be stunting the development of more than 1/2 million bright children of Hispanic birth throughout the United States.

possible audiences: _____________________________________________

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Startling Statement
For dramatic punch, hit the audience with the related but totally unexected.

Example
 

Startling Statement . . . Thesis

The sons of H. L. Hunt are bankrupt. The scions of silver have tossed in their chips--from what few millions of chips they have left. The story of Dallas-based Placid Oil and the Hunt's billion dollar plunge is only one of several remarkable tales beginning to unfold out of the beleaguered Texas oil fields. The OPEC assault on Texas oil and gas reserves is devastating the Texas economy with ominous implications for political aspirants from the offices of the Governor to local justices of the peace.

possible audiences: _____________________________________________

(Return to Interest Devices)

Commonplace Statement
For its curiosity value, begin with an obvious, though related statement (the ironic value of which you will explain in the next sentence).

Example
 

Commonplace Statement     . . Thesis

If past trends hold, more than eighty-five percent of Mountain View College freshmen who don't drop English 1301 will probably pass. That's probably too many, if a recent report from the Carnegie Institute for Higher Education is correct. Director Ernest Boyer has just released a Carnegie review of teaching in colleges and universities throughout the United States. The findings are an indictment of instruction in major skills areas where, according to the report, standards have been declining for several years. That slack, if it exists at Mountain View College, may well be tightened with the return of the English 1301 Competency Exam.

possible audience: ______________________________________________

(Return to Interest Devices)

Joke
Begin with humor and a joke whose punchline reflects the major concept of the thesis sentence.

Example
 

Joke   . . . . . . . . Thesis

A close friend tells the story of his father, the blithe optimist, visiting a friend in the hospital following a boating accident. Bob, his fishing buddy, had broken an ankle, fractured two ribs,and lashed his face in a series of incredible misadventures. Harry, my friend's father, listened with benign patience to the litany of horrific details and then checked each one with a kindly admonition. "My goodness, Bobby, be thankful they didn't have to amputate it!" "And you know, Bob, it's a wonder you didn't puncture a lung!" And "Mercy, old friend, it's a miracle you can still see!" "Heck, Harry!" retorted the perplexed fisherman, "I didn't have such a bad day after all!" That has to be the way some officials at Baltimore State College must feel, semester after semester, as they try to engineer their way through the worst series of financial crises in their troubled history. With the blight of another new disclosure or another note payable almost daily, trustees could use a little justified optimism.

possible audiences: ______________________________________

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Quotation
Cite a related comment from someone whom the audience already respects.

Example
 

Quotation   . . . . . . . Thesis

On September 23, 1931, as the engines of war were being forged in the sloughs of German politics, one of that nation's brightest native sons could still write, "Only if the statesmen have powerful support for a policy of peace from a majority of their people can they hope to attain their great goal. To help shape public opinion in that direction by words and deeds is the responsibility of all of us." Albert Einstein became one of the most eloquent spokespersons for peace in the twentieth century. For more than three decades he cried out against the incessant race to an atomic holocaust punctuated in a single blinding flash on August 6th, 1945, over Hiroshima, Japan. He had refused to lend the elegance of his great mind to the genesis of man's ultimate folly. Instead, he was helping to draft the architecture for the United Nations, what he hoped would inspire a common world government, the only answer to the annihilation of culture and all traces of human life.

possible audiences: _____________________________________________

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Emotional Words
Stimulate initial emotional reactions to entice the audience's interest.

Example
 

Emotional Words . . . Thesis

American veterans are always looking for places to salute the United States flag. But one place where they aren't saluting "Old Glory" any longer is the Panama Canal Zone. In 1976 the United States approved two controversial treaties calling for the return of the canal to the Panamanians after the year 2,000, and more people in the United States besides the veterans are upset. Yet, as some State Department analysts note, the United States had no choice but to ratify the Panama Canal Treaties in order to insure both economic and political stability in the Western Hemisphere.

possible audiences: _____________________________________________

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Step 1: Identify Main Ideas from Readings
 

Example

parents' arguments  need for discipline  alcoholism neglect of physical needs  physician's report  unwanted pregnancy  financial instability  jurisdiction of the courts  relocation of infants community awareness programs

Example
 

First Draft:	Researchers agree that there are many reasons for child abuse.
Second Draft:	There are three major reasons for child abuse.
Third Draft:	Three major reasons for child abuse are (1) alcoholism, (2) responses to unwanted pregnancy, and (3) tension produced because of instability within a family unit.

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A Sample Introductory Paragraph #1

Almost every schoolboy knows that George Washington is the father of his country and knows the reasons why. It is only later in his studies, however, that Mason Locke Weem's legend of the cherry tree and other grade-school stories he discovers to be fabrications. Of all the "founding fathers," it is really Benjamin Franklin who best deserves the title "Father of Our Country" because he established the pattern that so many Americans would try to follow in their own lifestyles. Franklin became known as the first American "self-made man," an impression that he demonstrated in his political activities, his diplomatic service, and in his humanistic contributions to mankind.

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A Sample Introductory Paragraph #2

Political observers of the Middle East note that the shaky peace between Egypt and Israel could be unraveling. Earlier hope for a permanent peace following the signing of the Camp David Accords has evaporated, and discussions are now stalemated. Three reasons for the stalemate between Egypt and Israel include (1) the instability of the Yasser Arafat's government, (2) the inability or unwillingness to control terrorist acts by the Hammas, and (3) Bush's conservative Middle East foreign policy.

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A Sample Introductory Paragraph #3

The patrol car pulled behind the Stop and Go at the corner of Cedar Springs and Oak Lawn. It was well after 3:00 a.m. as the officers began their stakeout. A sleepy forty-five minutes passed grudgingly before she appeared, cautious but confident, in her tight, red blouse and slippery, black rayon shorts. So begins a parable of the "dark night of the soul." Although the scene is modern and the setting local, the tale, as it unfolds, bears remarkable resemblance, both in plot and motifs, to important ethical studies throughout much of American literature. But perhaps no American short story has so provocatively challenged its readers' moral posture as has Nathaniel Hawthorne's study of human sin in his 1830's collection of Twice-Told Tales. Nowhere did he more tenaciously search out the problem of evil as he did in his technical masterpiece, "Young Goodman Brown." In his short story, "Young Goodman Brown," Nathaniel Hawthorne defined the source of human evil as absolutism, a theme which he orchestrated through symbolic light and dark color imagery.

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