How many times do your papers bog down because you do not have an effective opener, one that will catch the reader's interest, signal where you are going with your subject, and--most important--give you the momentum to keep writing? Knowing what you are going to say is sometimes not enough. Perhaps you write a sentence that sounds good, but then hit a wall. It doesn't lead anywhere. Maybe you have too much to say, too much unruly material to organize effectively, especially if you have done your research and brainstorming or prewriting. Of course, there is always that old standby, the opening generalization or topic sentence, but it may seem too sweeping, or too abrupt, or too predictable, or it may lead nowhere after the first paragraph. Worse, your paper already begins to sound like all the others you have written.
You are looking for interest and momentum, a beginning that will entice the reader and carry you well into your subject, but your repertoire of openings may be limited. As the following examples show, professional writers have found a variety of solutions to this problem. They collect opening ideas and strategies, each with its own kind of power, and one way they explore a topic is to riffle through their collection of openers. As Constance Weaver of Western Michigan University has said, "Attention to how to say helps writers find what to say." The following are a few ideas you can use to start your own collections:
- General-to-Specifics Openers
- Specifics-to-General Openers
- Narrative Openers
- Anecdotal Openers
- Openers with Delayed Revelations
- Opening with Quotations
General-to-Specifics
Example:
Human beings have always been migratory. Sometimes between 100,000 and 400,000 years ago, man's predecessor Homo erectus had spread from China and Java to Britain and southern Africa. Later, Neanderthal types spanned Europe, North Africa and the Near East; modern Homo sapiens, originating probably in Africa, reached Sarawak at least 40,000 years ago….
The paragraph opens with a generalization, then moves to specifics. The first sentence immediately addresses the topic, an interesting and almost inexhaustible one. The author has not stated anything too obvious, only announced his intention to explore a rich subject: how and why humans migrate. The rest follows.
The word always signals the broadest generalization, one without exceptions. Thus, it is appropriate in the opening sentence of a paragraph that follows a general-to- specifics or whole-to-parts organization (although the article as a whole follows an effects-to-cause structure). The first sentence generalizes; the rest of the paragraph illustrates: even the earliest beings identified as humans were in constant migration. The remainder of the article focuses on modern migrations, ones caused by economic and technological inequality, and far larger than any in the past. Generalization-first openers have the advantage of clarity. They immediately orient the reader, giving an overview before descending to specifics. The "news" here, though, is not in the generalization itself; for many readers of Scientific American it is old information. The real news is, however, implicit in the generalization: "Why is it true?" Why have humans always behaved this way? There is often a new story in an old story, in a situation we have taken for granted.
Specifics-to-General
Example
Tadpoles, herring, basking sharks, flamingos, mallards, and blue whales form an unlikely family. The group ranges from the smallest free-living vertebrates to the largest and includes amphibians, fishes, birds, and mammals. These organisms are all suspension feeders: they eat by processing massive volumes of water through their feeding apparatus and filtering out small organisms and other fragments of organic material.
This article begins with a list of seemingly incompatible animals which raises the immediate question: What is the connection? Conversely, a writer might list a number of familiar items/ideas and then What is there left to know about anything so familiar? This approach creates a sense of anticipation about what the point the writer will make… In both cases, the sequence follows from specifics to general, from examples to umbrella term.
Narrative Openers
With engines on full afterburners, an F-111 jet dives toward the floor of the Nevada desert. After descending from an altitude of nine kilometers to only 100 meters, the jet levels off. It is traveling slightly faster than the speed of sound (Mach 1.2). The F-111 tears through the air, generating shock waves that kick up clouds of sand. . . .
A narrative opening creates immediate drama. Something is happening, and our natural instinct is to follow its outcome. We can postpone an explanation even while our curiosity grows. The writer uses the narrative opening as a concrete and energetic way of introducing his topic, an explanation of the events and technology that led to the development of such a parachute. Narrative openings enliven expository writing, writing that explains and informs. Being active and concrete, they seize the reader's imagination where abstract generalizations give us little to visualize.
Anecdotes
On the morning of December 29, 1696, a Dutch captain and his crew were searching for the survivors of a ship that had gone down not far off the coast of Western Australia. Although no survivors were ever found, what the crew did find washed up on the shore of a nearby island --amid rats as big as house cats--was a remarkable fish. The fish, unlike any the sailors have ever seen, was described as being, "about two feet long, with a round head and a sort of arms and legs and even something like hands." There is no doubt in our minds (although its specific identity will never be known) that his strange fish--sketchily described so long ago--was a frogfish.
Aptly named, these unusual fishes do bear a surprising resemblance to frogs; their bodies (which range in length from one to 16 inches) are globose and equipped with well-developed leglike fins that enable them to clamber across rocks . . .
This article is a general treatment of frogfishes (or anglerfish), the kind of broad topic often assigned to college students. It describes the creatures, then discusses their variations, their distribution, their natural camouflage, their peculiar eating habits (they dangle a lure to attract prey and can swallow something almost as large as themselves), and their evolutionary relationship to other species of bony fish. Anecdotes are self-contained narratives (that is, they have endings), and they exploit the universal attraction of a story, the built-in desire to know what happens next, and postpones the clinical and abstract treatment that we usually expect of such subjects. But a story or anecdote can do more than simply pep up a dry subject; it can also establish a context that makes the subject more relevant, explaining how it first came to someone's attention or attracted someone's curiosity (and is thus worthy of our own).
Delayed Revelation
He was born in a London slum, he lacked a university education, and he was unemployed except for a six-year stint as a telegraph clerk. Yet by virtue of his talent and sheer force of will, Oliver Heaviside became one of the leading Victorian physicists. He clarified and extended the circuit principle that made long-distance telephony possible and foresaw television, over-the-horizon radio, and several aspects of Einstein's theory of relativity.
Although Heaviside was greatly esteemed by the scientists of his time, he is now almost forgotten . . .
Delayed revelation here prepares for a surprise, setting the reader up for the "yet" statement: "he" came from very unpromising circumstances, ones that would never forecast his eventual achievement. This kind of opening is a popular way to establish that there is often "news" in familiar topics (many electrical engineers and physicists, the prime audience for the article, would know of Heaviside's accomplishments even if they did not know of his personal life). By postponing identification of the subject, the antecedent of "he," the writer also sidesteps any prejudices and other pre-existing opinions that might interfere with the reader's response or receptivity.
Quotations
On May 15, 1898, the intrepid Arctic explorer Frederic A. Cook made the following notation in his journal: "The winter and the darkness have slowly but steadily settled over us. . . . It is not difficult to read on the faces of my companions their thoughts and their moody dispositions. . . . The curtain of blackness which has fallen over the outer world of icy desolation has also descended on the inner world of our souls. Around the tables . . . men are sitting about sad and dejected, lost in dreams of melancholy from which, now and then, one arouses with an empty attempt at enthusiasm. For brief moments some try to break the spell by jokes, told perhaps for the fiftieth time. Others grind out a cheerful philosophy; but all efforts to infuse bright hopes fail."
Short or long, quotes make lively openers. The quote can establish the magnitude and importance of the subject--not a bad way to get the interest of an audience. Lengthy quotes are risky even in midtext, and so the users often excuse them (It is worth reprinting at length . . .). In an opener, long quotes may also postpone identification of the subject, a tactic that can stimulate either the reader's curiosity or impatience, depending (of course) on the quote. In any event, such a lengthy opening quote would be suitable only in a longer paper.
--Based on materials in Right Words, Right Places, Scott Rice (Wadsworth, 1992) From the SJSU Writing Center: http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/english/foropen.htm