The starting part of your essay holds a lot of importance. If the starting is proper and well-written, then you will be able to create a good impression on the reader, which, in most cases, is the teacher.
You know what they say about the first impression being the last impression. Once you make a good first impression, your readers will look at your essay in a positive way, and they will be more inclined to grade it nicely.
In this post, we’re going to be looking at some tips and pointers that you can follow to make the introductory parts of your essay compelling and of high quality.
Make sure that the introduction is comprehensive
The introduction of your essay has to be very comprehensive. Comprehensive, in this context, means that it should convey a lot of information, but it should not be very long.
It should not be long and lengthy because introductions are supposed to be short. It also has to convey all the main points since the introduction is supposed to tell the reader what the essay is all about.
Both of these traits can help in making the introduction compelling. In other words, it can draw in the readers and induce them to read the thing till the end.
- To ensure that the intro covers all the main points of the essay, you should first read the essay a couple of times (even if you’ve written it yourself) and make a list of all the main parts. That way, you will be able to write an introduction and tally off the inclusion of all the items in the list.
- To make sure that the intro is short, make sure that you use an active voice and that your sentences are brief. Also, don’t add any irrelevant details in there that you can (and are going to) mention in the main body itself.
Make sure that the introduction does not contain any spelling or grammar errors
Once you have the comprehensiveness down, one thing that can still spoil the quality of the introduction is grammatical imperfection and spelling errors.
Spelling and grammar mistakes are very sneaky. You can make them in a moment of forgetfulness and impulsive writing, but it can take a bit before you find them. We recommend doing two things to ensure that there are none of them in the introduction of your essay:
- When you write the introduction, you should read it a few times slowly and carefully. It can help to take a minute or two away from your writing desk before coming back. This helps you look at the text with a fresher mind. By proofreading the text, you can find the errors in it. It’s an age-old technique.
- Another thing that you can do—if you want to make things easier and quicker—is to check grammar using an online tool. There are basically online tools that quickly scan the provided content and spot the errors using an algorithm. Once the errors are pointed out, the tool also provides suggestions to fix the mistakes.
- A good way to find errors in your essay is to have a peer or colleague read it for you. Proofreading the thing yourself may not be very effective if you have worked on it for too long and basically know the whole thing by heart. Using a tool, on the other hand, may not be possible if you are not allowed to do so or if there is no reliable one that you can trust.
Make sure that the introduction fits any guidelines that you have been provided
Another important thing to keep in mind when writing an introduction for your essay is to ensure that it adheres to any guidelines or rules that you have been provided. Depending on the institute that you belong to and the teacher that has assigned you to the essay, there could be different guidelines, such as a particular length for the intro, a specific tone, and whatnot.
To do this, i.e., to ensure your introduction’s adherence to the guidelines, all you have to do is check the provided instructions and see if there are any particular ones that apply to the intro part. A lot of times, there may not be any such guidelines, and you can dismiss this step. But if there are, just read your introduction through and see if it violates any of them or not.
Conclusion
And with that point, we’re going to wrap this post up.
Writing a good introduction for your essay can be highly beneficial. It can create a positive first impression, and induce the reader to go on to the main body and finish the whole essay.
In the post above, we’ve discussed three different tips that you can follow for this purpose. You should first focus on making the intro comprehensive, after which you should ensure grammatical perfection. Then, before finalizing it and moving on, you should also make sure that it is in line with any guidelines that you may have been provided.
