14. The classic introduction

Have you ever been speed dating? No, I didn't think so. Me neither. But the point of speed dating is to get a quick but true glimpse of someone: an introduction to them. Introductions open little windows on the souls of others so we can catch a glimpse of what might be inside. They are a beginning, perhaps.

Or maybe, they are enough: we all hope that we are good enough to make a rapid judgment about someone so that we can screen out any psychopaths that might really not be good people to get to know; but the trouble with this is that psychopaths, it turns out, are by definition extraordinarily good at the kind of superficial charm that you don’t notice is superficial until you scratch below the surface and discover something really alarming, like a collection of stuffed animals, or the entire Barry Manilow back catalogue.

By then it is usually much too late.

So it is with your essay. Not the psychopath bit. Your introduction is meant to serve as a window into the rest of the piece. And it has three important functions:

1) Your introduction should set the scene and frame the question. Briefly show that you have understood the question and why it is a question worth asking. Who is asking it? Why should we care? What is at stake? There needs to be a bit of drama here - a sense of conflict even. In a couple of crisp sentences tell us where the question has come from and why the reader has to read on. Be a bit alluring. Flirt with me!

2) your introduction should state your answer to the question. I'm sorry, but unless you are some kind of essay writing genius, this is a rule I pretty much insist upon. Most of us don't have the skill to create the kind of essay that only reveals its answer to the question at the end. This isn't a whodunnit. If you tell me upfront what the endpoint is, I'll have a way of making sense of what comes next in the essay. I'll have a point on which to hang all your loose ends, and it won't look like your essay is meandering. It gives it focus.

3) your introduction should give an indication of how you are going to answer the question. Yep, tell me your method. What's the procedure that's going to follow? Again, you can do this in summary form of course. But be explicit about what you are doing: first this, then this, and lastly this.

I cannot tell you what a difference this makes to the essay. If you have a good introduction you'll write a good essay, pretty much. It is that simple. So why do 70% of students not do it? They write no introduction. Or they only do one of the above. Then they wonder why no one asks them on a date...