—Steele Rudd, “When the Wolf Was at the Door”
 
Introductions vary a great deal in professional writing; in fact, many writers challenge themselves with finding imaginative and unusual openings for their articles and books. For this reason, there are no rigid rules about the form an introduction must take. In general, a good introduction will accomplish three aims:
 
 

(1)  interest the reader and encourage further reading;
(2)  set forth a thesis or main idea; and
(3)  set the tone for the rest of the paper.
 
 

In addition, the introduction may suggest the way in which the paper is to be organized.
Although the introduction comes first for the reader, it may not always come first for the writer. Often a writer will revise an introduction considerably after finishing the draft, since an overview of the whole paper may help shaping the introduction. Also, new ideas may occur to the writer as the composition unfolds. Don't hesitate, therefore, to rewrite and polish your introduction before doing your finished draft.
Here are a few techniques used in writing introducing sentences in the introduction, with examples of these techniques by professional writers.
 
1.      Make a simple, straightforward statement of thesis.
 
        Since my sophomore year at the University of California, Los Angeles, I have become convinced that we blacks spend too much time on the playing fields and too little time in the libraries.
 
2.      Tell why the subject matter is important.
 
To understand the nature of the liberal arts college and its function in our society, it is important to understand the difference between education and training.
                             —Harry Kemelman,“Education and Training”
3.    Make a startling or puzzling statement.
 
For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens. Twice their chatter and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead.
                             —Martin Gansberg, “38 Who Saw Murder”
 
4.      Call attention to a problem.
 
I like “dropout” as an addition to the American language because it's brief and it's clear. What I don't like is that we use it almost entirely as a dirty word.
                             —William Zinsser, “The Right to Fail”
 
5.      Ask a question relating your subject to readers' experiences.
 
An insect walks in a manner that is unique among animals.If you possessed six legs and had to use them in walking, how would you move them? That is the problem which instinct has solved for the infinitely varied hosts of the adult insects.
                                          —   Edwin Way Teale, “The Legs of Insects”
 
6.      Use an analogy (a simple concept similar to the more complex one that it explains).
 
We are not unlike a particularly hardy crustacean. The lobster grows by developing and shedding a series of hard, protective shells. Each time it expands from within, the confining shell must be sloughed off. It is left exposed and vulnerable until, in time, a new covering grows to replace the old.
With each passage from one stage of human growth to the next we, too, must shed a protective structure. We are left exposed and vulnerable —but also yeasty and embryonic again, capable of stretching in ways we hadn't known before.
                                 —Gail Sheehy,“Predictable Crises of Adulthood”
 
7.      Challenge a misconception or widely held belief.
 
Whether or not parents matter was a seldom asked question until a year ago when my book, The Nurture Assumption, started making headlines in America. In it, I said that the way parents bring up their children does not ultimately effect the way their offspring will turn out.Although this seems like heresy, parents, I believe, are not to blame if a child turns out badly, nor should they take the credit if a child turns out well.
—Judith Harris, “The sins of the children are visited on the parents”
 
8.      Give enough background to make your thesis understandable.
 
Of all the changes that have altered the topography of childhood, the most dramatic has been the disappearance of childhood play. Whereas a decade or two ago children were easily distinguished from the adult world by the very nature of their play, today children's occupations do not differ greatly from adult diversions.
                                    —Marie Winn, "The End of Play"
 
9.    Tell a personal anecdote that leads to discussion of your topic.
 
Once while trying to reach his car key, Li Ka-shing dropped a two-dollar coin, which rolled under the car. He figured that when the car started, the coin would fall into the gutter, so he squatted down in an attempt to pick it up. Seeing this, an Indian attendant on duty immediately picked it up for him. Having retrieved his coin, Li Ka-shing surprisingly gave the attendant 100 dollars as a reward. His explanation for such a big reward was: “If the attendant hadn’t picked up the coin, it would have rolled into the gutter and the two dollars would have disappeared from the world. When I gave 100 dollars to the attendant, he could spend it for some useful purpose. I think money should be used, not wasted.”
This incident illustrates Li Ka-shing’s philosophy of economy. It also exemplifies his way of thinking; that is, he judges whether an individual's action is justified by determining whether it increases or decreases the total net income of society.As long as the total net income of society is increased, it doesn't matter if he himself suffers a loss; conversely, if the total net income of society is decreased, his own personal financial gain will still be a loss in a broad sense.
                                 —Guohua Chen, “Li Ka-shing and a Coin”
 
10.  Explain your special qualifications to discuss the subject.
 
As one who wears two hats (or should I say a hat and a veil?), I am angered and embarrassed when the origins of our universe are posed as a conflict between Genesis and evolution.
My hat? I have a master's degree in chemistry from St. Louis University, and have taught science and religion for more than 25 years. My veil? I am a Roman Catholic nun, a member of the Sisters of Mercy community. I firmly believe both in God and in evolution.... My anger? That there are some well-meaning people who confront the young with a false choice: eitherthe biblical story of creation or evolutionary theory. My thesis?There is no intrinsic conflict between faith and science, between God the creator and evolutionary theory.
—Sister Noel Riley, “Getting a Big Bang out of Creation Theories”
 
Some other effective approaches might include the following:
 
11.     Use an appropriate quotation that is relevant to your thesis.
12.     Use a firm statement of opinion, arousing your readers' feelings.
13.     Make a prediction.
14.     Use relevant humor or witty word play.
15.     Use a figure of speech or imaginative imagery.
16.     Use a common human experience leading to a controlling question.
17.     Use a thesis statement that also suggests your organization.
 
You will be wise to avoid certain trite or ineffective openings. Here are some that are generally considered undesirable:
 
1.    Avoid apologies, complaints, or belittling of your work.
2.    Avoid making too sweeping a claim for your subject. If you promise more than you deliver, your reader will be disappointed.
3.    Avoid mysterious openings that require knowledge your reader may not possess.
4     Avoid giving dictionary definitions; this approach is dull and overworked.
5.    Avoid making statements that are too obvious.
6.    Avoid irrelevant jokes or gimmicky attention-getters.
7.    Avoid platitudes or trite sentiments.
8.    Avoid a simplistic restatement of the assignment or the title.
9.    Avoid "This paper will discuss..." unless you are writing for a social journal.
 
Concluding paragraphs 
 
The purpose of a concluding paragraph is to leave the reader a sense of completeness. A very short paper probably will not require a formal conclusion, but the ending sentence should have a sufficient ring of finality so that the reader does not look for more.
Since the best conclusions grow out of the material that precedes them, the following examples of concluding paragraphs from professional writing may not have their full impact when examined out of context. Nevertheless, they may give you some ideas. These techniques are used fairly frequently, though you are by no means limited to them in deciding how to end your themes.
 
       1.     Suggest a solution to the problem discussed.
 
The fact, is nobody has the answer, and the dawning awareness of this fact seems to me one of the best things happening in America today. Success and failure are again becoming individual visions, as they were when the country was younger, not rigid categories.Maybe we are learning again to cherish this right of every person to succeed on his own terms and to fail as often as necessary along the way.
                                                —William Zinsser, “The Right to Fail”
 
       2. Make an emphatic restatement of your thesis.
 
All our giving carries with it messages about ourselves, our feelings about those to whom we give, how we see them as people and how we phrase the ties of relationship.Christmas giving, in which love and hope and trust play such an intrinsic part, can be an annual way of telling our children that we think of each of them as a person, as we also hope they will come to think of us.
                                                —M. Mend and R. Metraux, “The Gift of Autonomy”
 
       3. Recommend an action or a change in attitude.
                              
So if birth controlmustcome by A.D. 2430 at the very latest, even in an ideal world of advancing science, let it come now,in heaven's name, while there are still oak trees in the world and daisies and tigers and butterflies, and while there is still open land and space, and before the cancer called man proves fatal to life and the planet.
                                                 —Isaac Asimov, “The Case Against Man”
 
       4. Warn against a course of action to be avoided.
 
And what of love? You cannot hope to find love by experimenting biologically. You don't build love by creating a living situation designed to test it. You don't create love you commit to it — for better or for worse. When we finally realize that all our experiments in alternate life styles, communal marriage and open-ended covenants are simply a means of runningfromresponsibility and love not to them, we will have reached the beginning of maturity.
—Louise Montague,“Straight Talk about the Living-together Arrangement”
 
5. Summarize the ideas you have conveyed, but not too mechanically.
 
If this paper has given you any usefully hints on the important subject of reading, and made you see that it is one's duty no less than one's interest to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” the hood books that fall in your way, its purpose will be fulfilled.
                                                —Lewis Carroll,“Feeding the Mind”
 
6. Use an apt quotation that relates to your subject.
 
Learned Hand put it better, as usual: “In establishing a business, or in excavating an ancient city, or in rearing a family, or in writing a play, or in observing an epidemic, or in splitting up an atom, or in learning the nature of space, or even in divining the structure of this giddy universe, in all chosen jobs the craftsman must be at work, and the craftsman, as Stevenson says, gets his hire as he goes.... If it be selfishness to work on the job one likes, because one likes it and for no other end, let us accept the odium.”
                                     —John Train, “For the Adventurous Few: How to Get Rich”
 
       7. Make a prediction.
 
Will anything sensible be done? Of course not. The American people are as devoted to the idea of sin and its punishment as they are to making money —and fighting drugs is nearly as big a business as pushing them. Since the combination of sin and money is irresistible (particularly to the professional politician), the situation will only grow worse.
                                                                      —Gore Vidal, “Drugs”
 
8. Use an analogy or figurative comparison.
 
How shall I sum up what it meant to have known Einstein and his works? Like the Nobel Prize winner who pointed helplessly to his watch, I can find no adequate words. It was akin to the revelation of great art that lets one see what was formerly hidden. And when, for example, I walk on the sand of a lonely beach, I am reminded of his ceaseless search for cosmic simplicity —and the scene takes on a deeper, sadder beauty.
                                            —Banesh Hoffman, “My Friend, Albert Einstein”
 
       9. Cite an authority.
 
Jefferson was prouder of having been the founder of the University of Virginia than of having been President of the United States.He knew that the educated and developed mind was the best assurance that a political system could be made to work —a system based on the informed consent of the governed.If this idea fails, then all the saved tax dollars in the world will not be enough to prevent the nation from turning on itself.
                       —Norman Cousins,“How to Make People Smaller Than They Are”
 
10.  End By exploring some deeper meaning of the subject discussed.
 
It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power; that one must never, in one's own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one's strength. This fight begins, however, in the heart and it now had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair. This intimation made my heart heavy and, now that my father was irrecoverable, I wished that he had been beside me so that I could have searched his face for the answers which only the future would give me now.
                                           —James Bldwin,“Notes of a Native Son”
 
In addition to the techniques illustrated, the following can be used effectively:
 
11.  End with a speculative question that leaves the subject open for further thought.
12.  End with musing upon the broader implications of the topic.
13.  Return to the theme, question, or image in the opening paragraph to round out the essay.
14.  End with an ironic twist or unexpected turn of thought on the subject.
15.  End with a note of high persuasion or challenge.
16.  End with an anecdote or a humorous comment.
 
A few kinds of conclusions are best avoided. Here are some guidelines for avoiding weak conclusions:
1.      Avoid labeling your conclusion, especially in short papers. The phrase “in conclusion” is too obvious an announcement. So is “in summary.”
2.  Avoid mechanical or unnecessary summarization. In a paper of fewer than 500 words, a summary conclusion merely sounds repetitious. Even in a longer paper, the mechanical summation of points can be boring.
3.      Avoid postscripts and afterthoughts. Either integrate these into the body of the paper or leave them out entirely.
4.      Avoid apologies or belittling of your own efforts.
5.      Avoid deflective conclusions that lead your reader into a different topic.
 
If the idea you think of at the end of the essay is important to your thesis, rewrite it into the body.
“A skillful introduction or a fine closing doesn't salvage an otherwise foolish or badly organized theme. It does mean that an essay must begin and must end -- and not start and stop. Anyone can stop writing. Only writers can finish.” (1)
 
            --------------------------------------
(1)    Thomas S. Kane and L.J. Peters. 1969. “Beginnings and Closing,” Writing Prose  p. 219.
 
III.   Writing transitional paragraphs
 
Transitional paragraphs usually signal major turning points in a theme or article. They refer to what has gone before and also point in the direction the writer plans to take. Transitional paragraphs should be brief, since wordiness might distract from the pivotal function of the transition. Here are some examples:
 
1.      But why? Why should work be a significant source of human satisfaction? A good share of the answer rests in the kind of pride that is stimulated by the job, by the activity of accomplishing.
                                          —Leonard R. Sayles,“Why People Work”
 
2.      This self-image becomes a golden key to living a better life because of two important discoveries:
1)     All your actions, feelings, behavior —even your abilities —are always consistent with this self-image. …
2)           The self-image can be changed.
                            —Maxwell Maltz, “Your Key to a Better Life”
 
3.      To communicate the ideas, the fears and hopes, the shape and feel of all the infinite possible futures, science fiction writers lean heavily on another of their advantages: the art of fiction.
                                          —Ben Bova,“The Role of Science Fiction”
 
Well-written transitional paragraphs enable the reader to reflect on what has gone before and predict the point or idea that will be discussed next. In short essays, writers may make transitions between minor points without separate paragraphs. Sometimes a sentence at the beginning of one paragraph makes a transition from the preceding paragraph (refer to Chapter 5. II.). Separate paragraphs of transition usually signals major divisions of thought.
 
IV.   Reading practice
 
1.      Read the following passages and analyze the organization of each. Then  write out the thesis statement in the introduction, topic sentence in each body paragraph and the concluding sentence in the conclusion on the left margin.
 
Passage One(Exposition)
 
Electric Fish
 
The idea of a fish being able to generate electricity strong enough to light lamp bulbs — or even to run a small electric motor — is almost unbelievable, but several kinds of fish are able to do this. Even more strangely, this curious power has been acquired in different ways by fish belonging to very different families.
Perhaps the best known are the electric rays, or torpedoes, of which several kinds live in warm seas. They possess on each side of the head, behind the eyes, a large organ consisting of a number of hexagonal shaped cells rather like a honeycomb. The cells are filled with a jelly-like substance, and contain a series of flat electric plates. One side, the negative side, of each plate, is supplied with very fine nerves, connected with a main nerve coming from a special part of the brain. Current passes from the upper, positive side of the organ downward to the negative, lower side. Generally it is necessary to touch the fish in two places, completing the circuit, in order to receive a shock.
The strength of this shock depends on the size of the fish, but newly born ones only about 5 centimetres across can be made to light the bulb of a pocket flashlight for a few moments, while a fully grown torpedo gives a shock capable of knocking a man down, and, if suitable wires are connected, will operate a small electric motor for several minutes.
Another famous example is the electric eel. This fish gives an even more powerful shock. The system is different from that of the torpedo in that the electric plates run longitudinally and are supplied with nerves from the spinal cord. Consequently, the current passes along the fish from head to tail. The electric organs of these fish are really altered muscles and like all muscles are apt to tire, so they are not able to produce electricity for very long . People in some parts of South America who value the electric eel as food, take advantage of  this fact by driving horses into the water against which the fish discharge their electricity. The horses are less affected than a man would be, and when the electric eels have exhausted themselves, they can be caught without danger.
The electric catfish of the Nile and of other African fresh waters has a different system again by which current passes over the whole body from the tail to the head. The shock given by this arrangement is not so strong as the other two, but is none the less unpleasant. The electric catfish is a slow, lazy fish, fond of gloomy places and grows to about 1 metre long; it is eaten by the Arabs in some areas.
The power of producing electricity may serve these fish both for defence and attack. If a large enemy attacks, the shock will drive it away; but it appears that the catfish and the electric eel use their current most often against smaller fish, stunning them so that they can easily be overpowered.
(English Language Learning, June 1999)
 
       Passage Two (Persuasion)
 
Water
                                                               By Sheilagh Ogilnie
 
Life on earth depends on water, and there is no substitute for it. The current assumption is that our basic needs for water — whether for drinking, agriculture, industry or the raising of fish —will always have to be met. Given that premise, there are two basic routes we can go: more equitable access to water or more drastic engineering solutions (more dams, for instance, or massive shifts of water from Canada to the southwestern United States using pipelines from one river basin to another).
Looking at the engineering solution first, a lot of my research concentrates on what happens to wetlands when you build dams in river basins, particularly in Africa. The ecology of such areas is almost entirely driven by the seasonal regime of the river — the pulse of the water. And the fact is that if you build a dam, you generally wreck the downstream ecology. In the past, such problems have been hidden by a dearth of information. But in the next century, governments will have no excuse for their blissful ignorance.
The engineers’ ability to control water flows has created new kinds of unpredictability too. Dams in Africa have meant fewer fish, less grazing and less floodplain agriculture —none of which were anticipated. And their average economic life is assumed to be thirty years. Dams don't exist for ever, but what will replace them is not clear.
The challenge for the next century is to find new means of controlling water. Although GM technology will allow us to breed better dry-land crops, there is no market incentive for companies to develop crops suitable for the micro-climates of the Sahel and elsewhere in Africa. Who is going to pay for research on locally appropriate crops in the Third World?
This brings us to the key issue in any discussion of water: money. To talk about a water crisis glosses over intractable problems such as poverty. In the next century every household in Britain will have a water meter, and we will pay for what we use just as we do for gas or electricity. That is resolvable and a similar system will eventually be adopted across Europe and the US. But consider the problems of water supply in Mexico City or Delhi. If you're rich, you drink mineral water and may even have a swimming-pool —yet millions in such cities can’t get safe drinking water. People talk about the coming water crisis. I believe we have one now. It is a water crisis for the poor.
(From CAM: Cambridge Alumni Magazine, No.28,
Michaelmas Term, 1999)