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How To Write A Hook For An Essay

When you want to grab the attention of your reader when you write an essay, the best way to do this is to use a hook. This is something that appears at the beginning of the essay as the first sentence and encourages your audience to keep reading. Because it can range from anything including a quote, statistic, fact, or a famous saying, students want to know how to write a hook for an essay that is appropriate for their content.

Understanding Techniques Related to Creating a Hook

In order to write a hook, each paper writer needs to know all the options. This will allow you to choose an appropriate technique based on your writing style and topic. You can review example essays to help you get an idea of how different techniques come into play and reel the reader into reading the essay. Techniques such as asking rhetorical questions, quotes, fact, a statistic, or strong statement can help you make a great hook. Whichever technique you decide to use for your hook it should be engaging or significant to your topic.

A quote can be something found in literary work you have read related to your topic. It can also be something said by a famous person. A rhetorical question is something that can be directed toward your audience to make them think a little bit with curiosity. When you use a question as your hook you want to avoid the answer being something simple such as a yes or no. A fact or statistic can be related to your topic as a way of raising awareness of something, or to prove a point in relation to the main idea. This may be something from a reliable source such as a government website or respectable organization connected to your topic.

Learning How to Write a Hook for an Essay

While a hook is an important part of an essay this can be challenging for some, especially when they do not have an idea what to write about. While writing your hook, ask yourself why would you keep reading? Think about your essay and content you want to present. Visualize your essay being completed and points you want your audience to read. How will your overall presentation compliment how you start your essay and your writing style? When you take time to read other essays you begin to sense a pattern for hook techniques and how they fit for each type of essay.

As stated earlier, your hook appears in the introduction paragraph as the first sentence. Depending on the type of essay you are writing, your reading audience, and your topic, your hook can be created using one of the techniques mentioned earlier. Pay attention to how your hook should be written. Avoid starting your hook with certain phrases such as “Did you know…?” or with something sketchy or vague. A general statement is another element to avoid since you want to introduce something new, interesting, and unexpected.

When a Good Hook Helps Create a Good Essay

When you want to know how to write a good essay you need to consider each element, including the hook. A good essay will feature an informative introduction paragraph with a strong thesis statement, body paragraphs each outlining a significant point related to your thesis with supporting evidence, and a solid conclusion that summarizes important points mentioned throughout the essay. To help get readers focused and to set the tone for the content you have created you need a good hook to get them started.

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