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Uncommon Ways to Start an Essay you Should Definitely Try to Use

In writing there are some rules regarding good craftsmanship that need to be adhered to, such as never start a story with a weather forecast. Hmm, interesting, I can think of a few non-fiction books that have been very successful best sellers that have started the story with comments about the weather. This actually sets the scene for some ideas of how to start an essay with tactics that are uncommon.

You want to engage you reader right from the start, you need them to sit up and think positively about your essay. You may like to try out some of these ideas:

  • Start with a definition. First rule here make sure that the definition is relevant to your essay and that you make reference to the term at least three times in your essay. You may choose a term that is overused in out language and consequently it has lost some of its meaning - take it back to its grass roots. Be inventive.
  • Start with a quote. Again make the quote relevant to your essay or your field of study. Don’t quote Freud if you are writing about calculus! Keep the quote short and preferably use a quote that maybe reasonably well known, if you use quotes that are too obscure or have a tenuous link to you essay subject, you will lose your reader at the first sentence. You get your readers attention but for the wrong reasons, they will spend the next 20 minutes trying to figure out how you have linked the quite with your subject.
  • Start with a bold statement. Guaranteed to get the attention of your reader. Again make sure of its relevance to your work. Make sure that your bold statement does not offend your reader. The bold statement could be a snippet of information or a fact or statistic.
  • Start with a question. Ask your reader for their thoughts; ask for their views; ask if they had ever considered an aspect of the subject of your essay, make it thought provoking but not too scary. This could be linked with making a bold statement.
  • Start with an anecdote. This is a great idea and a really good way to get the readers attention. It goes without saying that the anecdote must be related to the subject of your essay. The down side of using an anecdote is that it can eat into your work count. You need to craft the anecdote so that your audience understands the story you are relating and its relevance to your essay.