LLesson Five: Intros & Conclusions
Surprised to see introductions as the topic of our second-to-last lesson? Most writers find that it is nearly
impossible to craft an essay by beginning with the introduction. The best leads often develop during and after writers have written the remainder of the essay.
Maybe a fantastic introduction or conclusion is caught floating around in the middle of your rough draft. Maybe you find that your essay does not even need an introduction or conclusion. More likely, however, it is in these later stages that you have a good sense of the way your essay is shaping up, all the way to the nitty-gritty details. Since beginnings and endings can be the most challenging and important part of any piece of writing, you will want to take advantage of a completed rough draft.
Part of the reason why introductions and conclusions are so difficult is that writers tend to worry about them too much. Writing teachers give so much attention to the need for a thorough introduction and a sharply drawn conclusion that anxious essayists compensate by going overboard. They feel that in order to appear mature and worldly, their essays must contain profound insights and sweeping observations.
While your introduction and conclusion need not provide the answers to every worldly problem, they do need to be engaging. Admissions officers may spend just a few minutes reading your essay. Your introduction must grab their interest from the beginning and your conclusion must make a lasting impression.
Introductions
The introduction is the first sentence of your essay and it plays the dual role of setting the theme of your essay and engaging the reader. The introduction should not be overly formal. You do not want an admissions officer to start reading your essay and think, here we go again.?Although admissions officers will try to give the entire essay a fair reading, they are only human -- if you lose them after the first sentence, the rest of your essay will not get the attention it deserves.
General Tips
Don't Say Too Much. Just tell the story! Your introduction should not be so complex and so lengthy that it loses the reader before they even start. You have the rest of the essay to say what you want. There's no need to pack it all into the first sentence. This leads to the next tips.
Don't Start Your Essay with a Summary. If you summarize, the admissions officer does not need to read the rest of your essay. You want to start your essay with something that makes the reader want to read until the very end. Once you have drawn the reader in through the first one to three sentences, the last sentence in your introductory paragraph should explain clearly and briefly what the point of the whole essay is. That is, why you are using this person, place, or thing. What does it say about you?
