In this video, we're going to discuss how to write an essay introduction paragraph.
We'll talk about one specific way to write your paragraph. Of course, there are
many other different ways to write an introduction, but in this video we'll
talk about just one. Let's start by reviewing some basic information about
the introduction paragraph. First of all, it's the first paragraph of an essay. It
functions to grab the reader's attention, so it needs to be interesting. It
provides the reader with background information about your topic, some
general information about your topi,c and finally it tells the reader the main
idea of the essay with the thesis statement. Let's review the parts of the
introduction paragraph. There are three basic parts: the hook, the background
information /bridge, and the thesis statement. When you write the
introduction paragraph, you start with the hook, which is a sentence or two to
attract the reader's attention. Then, you write the background information or
bridge which gives some general information about the topic
to the reader and also connects the hook to the thesis statement, and the last
thing in the introduction paragraph is the thesis statement or the main idea of
the essay. This is just one way that we can start an introduction paragraph. We
can break it down into a five step process. First, we start with reading the writing
prompt or the question that you need to answer for your essay; then brainstorm
ideas or think of ideas to write about; write your thesis statement; write the
hook; and write the background information. So, here you can see that the
parts of the introduction paragraph are out of order here, but there's a reason
why we want to write these parts in this order when we do the introduction. Step
one is read the writing prompt. So, here's an example of a writing prompt: "What is
the difference between fresh food and packaged food?"
We'll be working with this writing prompt as an example through this whole
presentation. So, the next step is to brainstorm ideas. This is where we try to
think of all the ideas that we can based on the question so that we can kind of
come up with ideas to write about in our essay. So, there are many ways to
brainstorm, but one way that I suggest is doing a free write. So, in a free write
you just write non-stop about the topic for two minutes. You write basically
anything that comes to your mind about this topic or even if it seems
like it's not related to the topic you still put it down on your paper, but
the whole point is for your pencil to not stop writing until the time is up. If
you can't think of anything to write about, you just start writing "I don't
know what to write, I don't know what to write, I don't know what to write," until
something comes to your mind. So, here's an example of a freewriteI I did based
on the essay question, the sample essay question that we saw earlier. You can
pause the video here and read my free write if you'd like; otherwise, we'll go on
to step three. Step three is to write your thesis statement. The thesis
statement is written at the end of the introduction paragraph, but I think it's
probably the best thing to do if you write your thesis statement first so
that you know the direction of your essay. So, remember that the question was
"what is the difference between fresh food and packaged food?" Now, we go ahead
and write the thesis statement at the bottom of your paper. The reason why we
do this is because we're going to add the hook and the background information
in the space above the thesis statement.
The next step we can do is to write the hook. So, for my example essay introduction,
I'm going to use a personal story. So, we have the thesis at the bottom, and my
hook is here at the top. "Last week, I found an old backpack that I used to use
in high school over 20 years ago." Step 5 is to write the background information
and bridge, so you can actually compare my freewrite to this finished product,
the essay introduction paragraph. You can pause the video and read the
introduction paragraph here, but what I want you to notice is that I started
with the hook, I have this background information, and then we end with the
thesis statement. You'll notice that some of the information that is in this
introduction paragraph is from my free write. For example, I talked about
"chemicals." I talked about "snacks." I talked about a specific snack here, ho ho, but the
idea of the snack came from my my free write brainstorm. The last thing I want
to talk about is how to connect the sentences and ideas in your introduction.
The introduction paragraph is not just random sentences about the topic. They're
all connected in a special way. So, one way you can connect them is to look for
ideas that are similar in each sentence. So, for example in the hook, I said "Last
week, I found an old backpack that I used to use in high school over 20 years ago/"
The next sentence is "I looked inside the backpack and found a ho-ho chocalate
cake that I had taken for lunch a long time ago." So, you see that this idea of
"backpack" and "backpack," it's in the first sentence
and the second sentence, so the idea connects the sentences. Then here we have
"hoho chocolate cake." So, if we remember that, we can go on to the next sentence: "I
opened it up and was surprised by the fact that the ho ho looked fresh as
though I had just bought it yesterday." So, again we started here, sentence number
two, I wrote "a ho ho chocolate cake". The next sentence I said "I opened it up." "It"
is referring to the cake, and then in the same sentence I refer to the ho ho again.
The following clause I have "it" again referring to the cake. So, the same idea
is present in all of these sentences. If we continue, "I asked myself how this
could be. How could a snack that was over 20 years old still look and even smell
like I had just bought it?" So, this "snack" is referring to the ho ho cake again. "The
fact is that chemicals in this cake had kept in looking and smelling fresh for
over two decades even though it was unrefrigerated and in an old backpack.
Many other types of food all over the world are packaged in a similar way to
this cake." So, you can see again I use the word "cake" to refer to this ho ho
chocolate cake. I used "it" and then in this sentence, "many other types of food
all over the world are packaged in a similar way to this cake." I still have
"this cake" right here referring to the same snack in all the other sentences,
but this time I also said "food all of the world is packaged in the same in a
similar way," So, this idea if we look to the next sentence says, In many cases,
these packaged foods are indistinguishable from fresh food." So,
"packaged food" is here and this idea of packaged foods in the previous sentence.
We ended this sentence with "fresh food," and then we go on to our thesis, "However,
although they may look very similar, fresh food and packaged food differ from
each other in flavor and health risks. So, the ideas are connected
throughout the entire introduction paragraph by either words or phrases or
even pronouns like "it." And, that's just one way that you can put together an
introduction paragraph.