How to Write a Good Hook for Your Essay “You have to make choices even when there is nothing to choose from.” ― Péter Zilahy And you have to find perfect hooks for essay even when you do not know what to write about. When you are asked to write an essay that works, it doesn’t mean it should be boring and too formal to express your thoughts and creative nature. Every author and storyteller will agree with the fact, that you should write for the audience first of all. What does it mean? It means that your task is to grab their attention and make them want to read your essay till the very end.
That’s the reason why essay hooks exist. An essay hook is the first one-two sentences of your essay, its introductory part, which serves to grab a reader’s attention and let him decide whether he wants to continue reading this essay or not. Certainly, such hooks work not for essays or other college papers only. Every writer, copywriter, screenwriter, and storyteller certainly has his own tricks to grab readers’ attention and glue them to a particular piece of writing. Robert McKee, a guru of screenwriting, called such hooks “inciting incidents”; and a world-famous ad executive David Ogilvy had the list of his own 29 “magic words” to use in titles and hook clients’ attention. College essay hooks may be not easy to find, especially when you do not have a clear picture of your essay yet. So, the first and very important aspect of writing a good essay hook lays here: •
Think of overall presentation of your work, its type, writing style, and structure in order to understand what types of hooks for essays will perfectly fit your paper.
The importance of your essay hook is undeniable, as it is a part of your paper introduction. As we all know, both introduction and conclusion are considered the most important parts of college essays, because they help authors give their most essential message to readers. Every guide to writing introductions will reveal the importance of hooks for essay by all means. Do you have any ideas of what your perfect essay hook should look like?
Essay hooks ideas 1. A literary quote Such a hook for essay may be perfect when you write about some particular author, story, literary phenomenon, book, etc. Even if your essay is not fictional in nature, a literary quote will make it sound more “alive” and “fresh”. Examples: •
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” These words of Nick Carraway perfectly describe…”
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“Not all those who wander are lost.” And yes, indeed, every person is so…”
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“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” Agree or not, but these words from The Alchemist determine…”
2. Quotes of famous people A person whom everybody knows may be more authoritative and influential than others; that is why writing a quote from his/her speech can be a really good essay hook. Examples: •
"John Wooden once said, 'Never mistake activity for achievement.'"
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“Learn to laugh” is something my kindergarten teacher told me after Ralph Thorsen spilled paint on my daffodil picture.
3. Anecdote Do not be afraid of spoiling your essay with such an unusual hook. Even if you start writing with some humorous hook, it does not mean your essay will become a funny absurd at once. Some humor can help you grab readers’ attention and awake their interest to the topic. Examples: •
“As my cousin and I pedaled our new bikes to the beach, 6 years old, suntanned and young, we met an old, shaggy-haired man weaving unsteadily on a battered old bike.”
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"When I was a young boy, my father worked at a coal mine. For 27 years, he made it his occupation to scrape and claw and grunt his way into the bowels of the earth, searching for fuel. On April 19, 2004, the bowels of the earth clawed back."
But remember, that in most cases it is not allowed to use the first person in essays, that is why check everything twice before using “I” in your paper. 4. Question Questions are perfect hooks for essays by all means. Nothing can attract people’s interest better than a question, because they will definitely continue reading your essay to find the answer. But try to ask questions that do not lead to such simple answers as “Yes” or “No”; they should lead to some thinking, different attitudes, opposite points of view, alternative variants, etc. Examples: •
"What would you do if you could play God for a day? That's exactly what the leaders of the tiny island nation of Guam tried to answer."
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“Have you ever wondered, whether Anna Karenina still loved Alexei if she hadn’t decided to commit a suicide?”
5. A scene People like to visualize everything, and that is why your scene hook will help them draw a clear picture in minds at once. You can describe some incident, or mention some particular features of a person or a character to let readers picture the scene. Examples: •
“The day of his birth began with Hurricane Charlie pounding at our door in Charleston, South Carolina.”
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“Deciding to attend Hampton Roads Academy, a private school, was one of my most difficult decisions.”
6. Some fact or definition Such types of hooks for essays serve to surprise your reader. Give the interesting fact about something you are going to describe and discuss in your essay’s body, and you will grab the attention of your audience at once. Examples: •
"Spain, though hardly a literary juggernaut, translates more books in one year than the entire Arab world has in the past one thousand years."
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“Amiable is the best way to describe Elizabeth’s personality: she was friendly and caring.”
7. Statistics It’s not the worst essay hooks idea as well. By giving some proven facts at the very beginning of you paper, you will interest your readers and make them want to read more details about the fact provided. Examples: •
"The average iceberg weighs over 100,000 metric tons."
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“70% of all jobs found today were got through different networking strategies”
Depending on the type of your essay (narrative, persuasive, personal, critical, argumentative, deductive, etc.), essay hooks ideas can be totally different. Your essay hook is just a tip of an iceberg, and it will not make the whole your essay work at once. First, you should organize your research in a right way, and
then to think of the best hooks for essay that could make your paper special, interesting, and catchy for readers to learn. ******* 1. http://bid4papers.com/blog/essays-that-work/ 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McKee 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ogilvy_%28businessman%29 4. https://www.gallaudet.edu/tip/english_works/writing/guide_to_writing_introductions_and_co nclusions.html 5. http://www.examiner.com/article/networking-strategies-college-for-your-future-career 6. http://inspirationfeed.com/articles/blogging/5-writing-tips-how-to-organize-your-research/