The thought-provoking hook in the first sentence should be followed with a sentence that moves the hook toward the thesis.The second sentence must interpret the thought-provoking first sentence and make it relevant to the thesis.
If you are writing a personal essay on time management in a mother's life, for example, you would begin with an exciting hook showing the baby crying, the PTA calling, and a row of school lunches to be made, and then you would transition into the second sentence of the essay: "Clearly, no one can manage all of these tasks simultaneously." By sentence three, you are ready to state the problem your paper is going to tackle.
You take the hook and its interpretive second sentence and move toward the thesis by adding a sentence that does not yet state the thesis but introduces the problem or issue that you will address in the paper.
Critics of Ratsmith have cited poor science and questionable methodology when dismissing his results, going so far as to call pumpkinology "rubbish" (de Vil, 2009), "stupid" (Claw, 2010), and "quite possibly made up" (Igthorn, 2009).
Despite these criticisms, there does appear to be a strong correlation between pumpkin patches and rat populations, with Ratsmith documenting numerous pumpkin–rat colonies across North America, leading to the conclusion that pumpkins and rats are indeed "nature's best friends" (2008). Check out MLA Formatting and MLA Style: An Introduction Your instructor has asked you to format your term paper using Modern Language Association (MLA) style.
Since no two essays are the same, no single formula will automatically generate an introduction and conclusion for you.
But the following guidelines will help you to construct a suitable beginning and end for your essay. According to Paul Ratsmith, the tenuous, but nonetheless important, relationship between pumpkins and rats is little understood: "While I've always been fascinated by this natural kinship, the connection between pumpkins and rats has been the subject of few, if any, other studies" (2008). Ratsmith has been studying this connection, something he coined "pumpkinology," since the early 1990s.The first sentence should be what is called a "hook," or an exciting and thought-provoking idea.If your essay about "Wuthering Heights" will explain the concept of wild nature as seen through Heathcliff's characterization, your first sentence might contain your visceral impression of the landscape and lead into a sentence quoting Bronte's early description of the wild Heathcliff.The thesis will shape the following paragraphs or pages and is essential an essential part of the structure of the essay.Whether you are writing a response to Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights," a personal reflection essay, or an essay explaining the importance of a particular economic theory, the introduction is the anchor of the rest of the essay.She has spent many years in community colleges and universities teaching preparatory and developmental reading and writing and has served on committees that shape college policy in developmental studies.Introductions and conclusions play a special role in the academic essay, and they frequently demand much of your attention as a writer.Check your assignment carefully for any directions about what to include in your introduction or conclusion.Now that we've gone over the finer points of how to write an introduction, let's take a look at a sample to see how it all comes together.