EXPLANATION Notice that the original introductory paragraph above is matter-of-fact, indecisive and somewhat dull. It gives the impression that the writer does not know how to get the essay started. If readers are bored or confused by the first paragraph, they may lose interest and not read on.
The sample correction is more interesting because it is a descriptive anecdote to engage the reader's mind so that questions start occurring. Why were people glued to television screens? Where were cars being tossed around by torrents of water? What was 'one of Australia’s worst natural disasters'? By making the reader actively think about the writing, the writer has ensured that the reader will read on.
Anecdotes can be very effective introductions to an essay. Sometimes, brief anecdotes are woven naturally into the opening paragraph, as in this example, a paragraph to introduce an essay on bullying:
The stereotype of a bully is a large, thick-set boy who is, no doubt, not very bright and who intimidates smaller children for their lunch or their lunch money. When I was at primary school, on one occasion I was bullied by such a boy. I was afraid of being physically attacked by him, though luckily the bell rang before much damage was done, and, after I spent a couple of days of keeping out of the bully’s way by helping the teacher to cover books, I was left alone and he moved on to another target. The current generation of children has nowhere to hide. The bullies are not just at school but also in their home, in their bedroom, in their pockets, every waking moment. The e-bully is here and there is no getting away from him or her.
Sometimes anecdotes comprise the whole opening paragraph, as in the next example (an anecdote to introduce an essay on parenting). In such cases, the point of the anecdote needs to be explained in the second paragraph.
My Mum and I were in our kitchen. Pen in hand, we were carefully examining our 'To do' lists and working out what order we would do things in. My Dad came into the kitchen, took one look at us and laughed. He patted me on the head and said, 'You're so like your mother!' I was stunned. After all, I was nothing like her - was I?
Paragraphs exist to help the writer organise ideas around clear topics and to help the reader identify when the writer has moved on to a new topic. Each paragraph has a topic sentence. When the topic sentence is at the end of a paragraph, it has a similar effect to an anecdote: it builds up interest through tension. We call such paragraphs periodic paragraphs, because period means the end. (Full stops are also referred to as periods.) The above paragraph on bullying is a periodic paragraph because the topic sentence is the final sentence.
Relating an anecdote and constructing a periodic paragraph are just two ways of making your introductory paragraph more interesting. Some other possibilities are listed below. These approaches arrest attention and make the reader want to read on.
1. Ask a thought-provoking question:
Could the 2011 floods in Queensland have been avoided?
2. Make a surprising or controversial assertion:
A lot of good came out of the Queensland floods of 2011.
3. Include a quotation:
In the aftermath of the devastating Queensland floods of 2011, the scale of the task of rebuilding the state was summed up by Premier Anna Bligh: ‘We now face a reconstruction task of post-war proportions,’ she said.
4. Open with dialogue (for example, a chat-room conversation):
- [Dannyboy] I hear that Brisbane is expected to flood tomorrow as badly as in 1974. I wasn’t around then. How bad was it?
- [Tanya B] Mum said it was terrible. Thousands of houses went under.
- [Buzz] How come we can put people on the moon, but can’t stop a city from flooding?
- [Mel23] Maybe the government will do something about it now.
- [TanyaB] What can you expect if we continue to build on known flood plains!
- [Hangdog] What could they have done?! This has been the heaviest rain on record.
5. Produce interesting statistics or facts:
- In January 2011, 75 per cent of Queensland was declared a disaster zone after extensive flooding. That is more than 1 million square kilometres - an area greater than the size of all of Germany and France.
- OR
- Within two weeks of the infamous flooding of Brisbane in mid-January 2011, a maritime taskforce had retrieved from the Brisbane Riverand Moreton Bay 510 pontoons that had been swept away as well as 41 vessels and over 800 items of large debris.
6. Describe a scene relevant to your topic:
Some floods creep slowly, silently upon their victims but flash floods are raging torrents. On Monday, 9 January, 2011, what has been described as an inland tsunami raced through Toowoomba, taking everyone by surprise. Cars were swept away and surfed the raging water, crashing into anything in their path and somersaulting over each other. Walls were swept away from the sides of buildings. People frantically clung to electricity poles. The heart of Toowoomba looked like a war zone.