how to make a good lead in an essay

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from training.npr.org: https://training.npr.org/2016/10/12/leads-are-hard-heres-how-to-write-a-good-one/

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A good lead is everything — here's how to write one

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(Deborah Lee/NPR)

I can’t think of a better way to start a post about leads than with this:

“The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead.” — William Zinsser, On Writing Well

No one wants a dead article! A story that goes unread is pointless. The lead is the introduction — the first sentences — that should pique your readers’ interest and curiosity. And it shouldn’t be the same as your radio intro, which t ells listeners what the story is about and why they should care. In a written story, that’s the function of the “nut graph” (which will be the subject of a future post) — not the lead.

The journalism lead’s  main job (I’m personally fond of the  nostalgic spelling , “lede,” that derives from the bygone days of typesetting when newspaper folks needed to differentiate the lead of a story from the  lead  of hot type) is to make the reader want to stay and spend some precious time with whatever you’ve written. It sets the tone and pace and direction for everything that follows. It is the puzzle piece on which the rest of the story depends. To that end, please write your lead first — don’t undermine it by going back and thinking of one to slap on after you’ve finished writing the rest of the story.

Coming up with a good lead is hard. Even the most experienced and distinguished writers know this. No less a writer than John McPhee has called it “ the hardest part of a story to write.” But in return for all your effort, a good lead will do a lot of work for you — most importantly, it will make your readers eager to stay awhile.

There are many different ways to start a story. Some examples of the most common leads are highlighted below. Sometimes they overlap. (Note: These are not terms of art.)

Straight news lead

Just the facts, please, and even better if interesting details and context are packed in. This kind of lead works well for hard news and breaking news.

Some examples:

“After mass street protests in Poland, legislators with the country’s ruling party have abruptly reversed their positions and voted against a proposal to completely ban abortion.” (By NPR’s Camila Domonoske )

“The European Parliament voted Tuesday to ratify the landmark Paris climate accord, paving the way for the international plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions to become binding as soon as the end of this week.” (By NPR’s Rebecca Hersher )

“The United States announced it is suspending efforts to revive a cease-fire in Syria, blaming Russia’s support for a new round of airstrikes in the city of Aleppo.” (By NPR’s Richard Gonzales )

All three leads sum up the news in a straightforward, clear way — in a single sentence. They also hint at the broader context in which the news occurred.

Anecdotal lead

This type of lead uses an anecdote to illustrate what the story is about.

Here’s a powerful anecdotal lead to a story about Brazil’s murder rate and gun laws by NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro :

“At the dilapidated morgue in the northern Brazilian city of Natal, Director Marcos Brandao walks over the blood-smeared floor to where the corpses are kept. He points out the labels attached to the bright metal doors, counting out loud. It has not been a particularly bad night, yet there are nine shooting victims in cold storage.”

We understand right away that the story will be about a high rate of gun-related murder in Brazil. And this is a much more vivid and gripping way of conveying it than if Lulu had simply stated that the rate of gun violence is high.

Lulu also does a great job setting the scene. Which leads us to …

Scene-setting lead

Byrd Pinkerton, a 2016 NPR intern, didn’t set foot in this obscure scholarly haven , but you’d never guess it from the way she draws readers into her story:

“On the second floor of an old Bavarian palace in Munich, Germany, there’s a library with high ceilings, a distinctly bookish smell and one of the world’s most extensive collections of Latin texts. About 20 researchers from all over the world work in small offices around the room.”

This scene-setting is just one benefit of Byrd’s thorough reporting. We even get a hint of how the place smells.

First-person lead

The first-person lead should be used sparingly. It means you, the writer, are immediately a character in your own story. For purists, this is not a comfortable position. Why should a reader be interested in you? You need to make sure your first-person presence is essential — because you experienced something or have a valuable contribution and perspective that justifies conveying the story explicitly through your own eyes. Just make sure you are bringing your readers along with you.

Here, in the spirit of first-personhood, is an example from one of my own stories :

“For many of us, Sept. 11, 2001, is one of those touchstone dates — we remember exactly where we were when we heard that the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I was in Afghanistan.”

On a historic date, I was in a place where very few Americans were present, meaning I’m able to serve as a guide to that place and time. Rather than stating I was in Afghanistan in the first sentence, I tried to draw in readers by reminding them that the memory of Sept. 11 is something many of us share in common, regardless of where we were that day.

Observational lead

This kind of lead steps back to make an authoritative observation about the story and its broader context. For it to work, you need to understand not just the immediate piece you’re writing, but also the big picture. These are useful for stories running a day or more after the news breaks.

Here’s one by the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty , a political reporter with decades of experience:

“At the lowest point of Donald Trump’s quest for the presidency, the Republican nominee might have brought in a political handyman to sand his edges. Instead, he put his campaign in the hands of a true believer who promises to amplify the GOP nominee’s nationalist message and reinforce his populist impulses.”

And here’s another by NPR’s Camila Domonoske , who knows her literary stuff, juxtaposing the mundane (taxes) with the highbrow (literary criticism):

“Tax records and literary criticism are strange bedfellows. But over the weekend, the two combined and brought into the world a literary controversy — call it the Ferrante Furor of 2016.”

Zinger lead

Edna Buchanan, the legendary, Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Miami Herald , once said that a good lead should make a reader sitting at breakfast with his wife “spit out his coffee, clutch his chest and say, ‘My god, Martha. Did you read this?’”

That’s as good a definition as any of a “zinger” lead. These are a couple of Buchanan’s:

“His last meal was worth $30,000 and it killed him.” (A man died while trying to smuggle cocaine-filled condoms in his gut.)

“Bad things happen to the husbands of Widow Elkin.” (Ms. Elkin, as you might surmise, was suspected of bumping off her spouses.)

After Ryan Lochte’s post-Olympic Games, out-of-the-water escapades in Rio, Sally Jenkins, writing in the Washington Post , unleashed this zinger:

“Ryan Lochte is the dumbest bell that ever rang.”

Roy Peter Clark, of the Poynter Institute,  deconstructs Jenkins’ column here , praising her “short laser blast of a lead that captures the tone and message of the piece.”

Here are a few notes on things to avoid when writing leads:

• Clichés and terrible puns. This goes for any part of your story, and never more so than in the lead. Terrible puns aren’t just the ones that make a reader groan — they’re in bad taste, inappropriate in tone or both. Here’s one example .
• Long, rambling sentences. Don’t try to cram way too much information into one sentence or digress and meander or become repetitive. Clarity and simplicity rule.
• Straining to be clever. Don’t write a lead that sounds better than it means or promises more than it can deliver. You want your reader to keep reading, not to stop and figure out something that sounds smart but is actually not very meaningful. Here’s John McPhee again: “A lead should not be cheap, flashy, meretricious, blaring: After a tremendous fanfare of verbal trumpets, a mouse comes out of a hole, blinking.”
• Saying someone “could never have predicted.” It’s not an informative observation to say someone “could never have imagined” the twists and turns his or her life would take. Of course they couldn’t! It’s better to give the reader something concrete and interesting about that person instead.
• The weather . Unless your story is about the weather, the weather plays a direct role in it or it’s essential for setting the scene, it doesn’t belong in the lead. Here’s a story about Donald Trump’s financial dealings that would have lost nothing if the first, weather-referenced sentence had been omitted.

One secret to a good lead

Finally, good reporting will lead to good leads. If your reporting is incomplete, that will often show up in a weak lead. If you find yourself struggling to come up with a decent lead or your lead just doesn’t seem strong, make sure your reporting is thorough and there aren’t unanswered questions or missing details and points. If you’ve reported your story well, your lead will reflect this.

Further reading:

• A Poynter roundup of bad leads
• A classic New Yorker story by Calvin Trillin with a great lead about one of Buchanan’s best-known leads.
• A long read by John McPhee , discussing, among other things, “fighting fear and panic, because I had no idea where or how to begin a piece of writing for The New Yorker .” It happens to everyone!

Hannah Bloch is a digital editor for international news at NPR.

Editing & Structure Reporting Writing & Voice

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How to Use Lead Sentences to Improve Your Essay Writing

What are lead sentences and how do you use them to improve your essay writing?

Hi, I’m Tutor Phil, and if you’ve ever watched some of my other videos or read my blog at TutorPhil.com, then you probably have a pretty good idea of how to start writing an essay. You start out with a thesis stated clearly.

And how is a lead sentence related to a thesis? Put simply, a lead sentence is a sentence that opens and summarizes an essay, a section of an essay, or a paragraph perfectly.

I’d like to give you three examples of lead sentences – one for an entire essay, one for a section, and one for a paragraph.

Let’s say your professor wants you to write an essay about a movie. And you pick the movie “Titanic.”

Example of a Lead Sentence that Opens an Essay

Your lead sentence for the essay about the movie could be something like:

“Titanic is a very sad movie because it focuses on a relationship that ends tragically.”

This is a perfect lead sentence for this essay. At the same time this is also a perfect thesis.

What makes it good? Two parts. First, you state what exactly your main point is – and it’s that the movie is very sad. And second, you state why you believe the movie is sad – because it focuses on a relationship that ends tragically.

This makes a perfect lead sentence for an entire essay.

Example of a Lead Sentence for a Section of an Essay

Now, what could be an interesting section of this essay? Remember – a section can contain many paragraphs. That’s why I differentiate between a section and a paragraph.

One section of the paper could focus just on the cinematography. And it could start with this lead sentence:

“Emotional ups and downs in the relationship between the main characters are masterfully conveyed through camera movement.”

And this entire section would be devoted to just that – camera movement that conveys emotions between the main characters.

Example of a Lead Sentence that Opens an Essay Paragraph

Now, let’s zoom in even further and ask ourselves – what could make an interesting paragraph in this section?

Well, one paragraph could be devoted to camera movement during a certain scene – for example, when the ship begins to sink. And our lead sentence could be:

“Camera movement in the final scene helps intensify the main characters’ anguish.”

Please note that in each case, whether the lead sentence opens the entire essay or just a paragraph, its job is to summarize the contents perfectly.

Lead sentences really help you focus on the subject matter of what comes after them because they force your brain to concentrate on the subject matter of the essay, the section, or the paragraph.

They also allow your reader to get a good idea of what’s to come in the paragraph.

This is the structure of a body paragraph with a lead sentence:

Here’s an example of a body paragraph with a lead sentence:

“Lead sentences are necessary in body paragraphs because they contain the main idea to be explained and illustrated in the paragraph. If the main idea is not clearly introduced, then the explanation lacks reference. In other words, the reader may follow the explanation without being clear on what this is an explanation of. To include examples or illustrations without providing a clear general idea first is also counterproductive. When the reader gets to an example, she may not understand what the example is supposed to illustrate without a general idea introduced in the lead sentence. For example, this paragraph is a perfect illustration of how to introduce a point in the beginning of a paragraph and support it with explanations and examples.”

Here’s a video of three examples of beautiful lead sentences and how they can vary in length and complexity:

How to Write a Thesis Statement – Tutorial with Examples

6 simple ways to improve sentence structure in your essays, essay writing for beginners: 6-step guide with examples, 10 solid essay writing tips to help you improve quickly, how to expand an essay – 4 tips to increase the word count.

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

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How to Write a Lead: 10 Do’s, 10 Don’ts, 10 Good Examples

• Written By Megan Krause
• Updated: August 13, 2024

All the best stories have a hook that pulls you in and all great content starts with a great lead.

Good leads capture the essence of the who , what , when , where , why , and how — but without giving away the entire show. The best leads are enticing. The beckon, promising the reader their time will be well-spent and sets the tone and direction of the piece.

What is Lead Writing?

Old-school reporting ace and author of ‘The Word: An Associated Press Guide to Good News Writing,’ Jack Cappon, rightly called lead writing “the agony of square one.” A lot is hinging on your lead. From it, readers will decide whether or not they’ll continue investing time and energy into your content or jump ship. And with our culture’s currently short attention spans and patience, if your content doesn’t hook people up front, they’ll bolt. The “back” button is just a thumbtap away.

So, let’s break down the types of leads, which ones you should be writing, and the top 10 do’s and don’ts. We’ll get you hooking customers in no time .

Two Types of Leads

There are two main types of leads and many, many variations thereof. They are:

The summary lead

Most often found in straight news reports, this is the trusty inverted pyramid lead we learned about in Journalism 101. It sums up the situation succinctly, giving the reader the most important facts first. In this type of lead, you want to determine which aspect of the story — who, what, when, where, why, and how — is most important to the reader and present those facts.

An alleged virgin gave birth to a son in a barn just outside of Bethlehem last night. Claiming a celestial body guided them to the site, magi attending the birth say the boy will one day be king. Herod has not commented.

A creative or descriptive lead

This can be an anecdote, an observation, a quirky fact, or a funny story, among other things. Better suited to feature stories and blog posts, these leads are designed to pique readers’ curiosity and draw them into the story. If you go this route, make sure to provide broader detail and context in the few sentences following your lead. A creative lead is great — just don’t make your reader hunt for what the story’s about much after it.

Mary didn’t want to pay taxes anyway.

A note about the question lead.  A variation of the creative lead, the question lead is just what it sounds like: leading with a question. Most editors (myself included) don’t like this type of lead. It’s lazy writing. People are reading your content to get answers, not to be asked anything. It feels like a cop-out, like a writer couldn’t think of a compelling way to start the piece. Do you want to learn more about the recent virgin birth?  Well duh, that’s why I clicked in here in the first place.

Is there no exception?  Sure there is. If you can make your question lead provocative, go for it — Do you  think you have it bad? This lady just gave birth in a barn  — just know that this is accomplished rarely.

Which Type of Lead Should You Write?

This depends on a few factors. Ask yourself:

Who is your audience?

Tax attorneys looking for recent changes in the law don’t want to wade through your witty repartee about the IRS, just as millennials searching for craft beer recipes don’t want to read a technical discourse on the fermentation process. Tailor your words to those reading the post.

Where will this article be published?

Match the site’s tone and language. There are some things you can get away with on  Vice.com  that would be your demise on the  Chronicle of Higher Education .

What are you writing about?

Certain topics naturally lend themselves to creativity, while others beg for a “Just the facts, ma’am” presentation. Writing about aromatherapy for a yoga blog gives you a little more leeway than writing about investment tips for a retirement blog.

Lead Writing: Top 10 do’s

1. determine your hook..

Look at the 5 Ws and 1 H. Why are readers clicking on this content? What problem are they trying to solve? What’s new or different? Determine which aspects are most relevant and important, and lead with that.

2. Be clear and succinct.

Simple language is best. Mark Twain said it best: “Don’t use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.”

3. Write in the active voice.

Use strong verbs and decided language. Compare “Dog bites man” to “A man was bitten by a dog” — the passive voice is timid and bland (for the record, Stephen King feels the same way).

4. Address the reader as “you.”

This is the writer’s equivalent to breaking the fourth wall in theatre, and while some editors will disagree with me on this one, we stand by it. People know you’re writing to them. Not only is it OK to address them as such, we think it helps create a personal connection with them.

5. Put attribution second.

What’s the nugget, the little gem you’re trying to impart? Put that information first, and then follow it up with who said it. The “according to” part is almost always secondary to what he or she actually said.

6. Go short and punchy.

Take my recent lead for  this Marketing Land post : “Freelance writers like working with me. Seriously, they do.” Short and sweet makes the reader want to know where you’re going with that.

7. If you’re stuck, find a relevant stat.

If you’re trying to be clever or punchy or brilliant, and it’s just not happening, search for an interesting stat related to your topic and lead with that. This is especially effective if the stat is unusual or unexpected, as in, “A whopping 80 percent of Americans are in debt.”

8. Or, start with a story.

If beginning with a stat or fact isn’t working for your lead, try leading with an anecdote instead. People absorb data, but they  feel  stories. Here’s an  example of an anecdotal lead that works great in a crime story: “It’s just after 11 p.m., and Houston police officer Al Leonard has his gun drawn as the elderly black man approaches the patrol car. The 9mm pistol is out of sight, pointing through the car door. Leonard rolls down his window and casually greets the man. ‘What can I do for you?'” You want to know what happens next, don’t you?

9. Borrow this literary tactic.

Every good story has these three elements : a hero we relate to, a challenge (or villain) we fear, and an ensuing struggle. Find these elements in the story you’re writing and lead with one of those.

10. When you’re staring at a blank screen.

Just start. Start writing anything. Start in the middle of your story. Once you begin, you can usually find your lead buried a few paragraphs down in this “get-going” copy. Your lead is in there — you just need to cut away the other stuff first.

Lead Writing: Top 10 don’ts

1. don’t make your readers work too hard..

Also known as “burying the lead,” this happens when you take too long to make your point. It’s fine to take a little creative license, but if readers can’t figure out relatively quickly what your article is about, they’ll bounce.

2. Don’t try to include too much.

Does your lead contain too many of the 5 Ws and H? Don’t try to jam everything in there — you’ll overwhelm the reader.

3. Don’t start sentences with “there is” or “there are” constructions.

It’s not wrong, but similar to our question lead, it’s lazy, boring writing.

4. Don’t be cliche.

We beg of you .

5. Don’t have any errors.

Include typos or grammatical errors, and it’s game over — you’ve lost the reader.

6. Don’t say anything is “right around the corner.”

Just trust us. We’ve seen it used way too much. “Valentine’s Day is right around the corner,” “The first day of school is right around the corner,” Mother’s Day sales are right around the corner” … Zzzz.  Boring .

7. Don’t make puns. Even ironically.

It’s an old example but it proves the point. From a Huffington Post story about a huge swastika found painted on the bottom of a swimming pool in Brazil: “Authorities did Nazi this coming.” Boo. Absolutely not. Don’t make the reader groan.

8. Don’t state the obvious.

Don’t tell readers what they already know. We call it “water is wet” writing. Some examples: “The internet provides an immense source of useful information.” “Today’s digital landscape is moving fast.” Really! You don’t say?

9. Don’t cite the dictionary.

“Merriam-Webster defines marketing as…” This is the close cousin of “water is wet” writing. It’s a better tactic for essay-writing middle-schoolers. Don’t do this.

10. Don’t imagine anything. You are not John Lennon.

“Imagine a world where everyone recycled,” “Imagine how good it must feel to save a life,” “Imagine receiving a $1,000 tip from your favorite customer on Christmas Eve.” Imagine we retired this hackneyed, worn-out lead.

10 Worthy Examples of Good Lead Writing

1. short and simple..

Edna Buchanan, the Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for The Miami Herald, wrote a story about an ex-con named Gary Robinson. One drunken night in the ‘80s, Robinson stumbled into a Church’s Chicken, where he was told there was no fried chicken, only nuggets. He decked the woman at the counter, and in the ensuing melee, he was shot by a security guard. Buchanan’s lead:

Gary Robinson died hungry.

2. Ooh, tell me more.

A 2010 piece in the New York Times co-authored by Sabrina Tavernise and Dan Froschjune begins:

An ailing, middle-age construction worker from Colorado, on a self-proclaimed mission to help American troops, armed himself with a dagger, a pistol, a sword, Christian texts, hashish and night-vision goggles and headed to the lawless tribal areas near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan to personally hunt down Osama bin Laden.

3. Meanwhile, at San Quentin.

From the 1992 story titled, “After Life of Violence Harris Goes Peacefully,” written by Sam Stanton for The Sacramento Bee:

In the end, Robert Alton Harris seemed determined to go peacefully, a trait that had eluded him in the 39 violent and abusive years he spent on earth.

Remember Olympic jerk Ryan Lochte, the American swimmer who lied to Brazilian authorities about being robbed at gunpoint while in Rio for 2016 games? Sally Jenkins’  story on Lochte  for The Washington Post begins:

Ryan Lochte is the dumbest bell that ever rang.

5. An oldie but man, what a goodie.

This beautiful lead is from Shirley Povich’s 1956 story in The Washington Post & Times Herald about a pitcher’s perfect game:

The million‑to‑one shot came in. Hell froze over. A month of Sundays hit the calendar. Don Larsen today pitched a no-­hit, no‑run, no‑man‑reach‑first game in a World Series.

6. Dialogue lead.

Diana Marcum wrote this  compelling lead for the Los Angeles Times , perfectly capturing the bleakness of the California drought in 2014:

The two fieldworkers scraped hoes over weeds that weren’t there. “Let us pretend we see many weeds,” Francisco Galvez told his friend Rafael. That way, maybe they’d get a full week’s work.

7. The staccato lead.

Ditto; we found this one in an online journalism quiz , but can’t track the source. It reads like the first scene of a movie script:

Midnight on the bridge… a scream… a shot… a splash… a second shot… a third shot. This morning, police recovered the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. R. E. Murphy, estranged couple, from the Snake River. A bullet wound was found in the temple of each.

8. Hey, that’s us.

Sure, we’ll include our own former Dear Megan column  railing against exclamation points:

This week’s question comes to us from one of my kids, who will remain nameless because neither wants to appear in a dorky grammar blog written by their uncool (but incredibly good-looking) mom. I will oblige this request for anonymity because, despite my repeated claims about how lucky they are to have me, apparently I ruin their lives on a semi-regular basis. Why add to their torment by naming them here? I have so many other ways I’d rather torment them.

9. The punch lead.

From numerous next-day reports following the Kennedy assassination:

The president is dead.

10. Near perfection.

Finally, this lead comes from a 1968 New York Times piece written by Mark Hawthorne. It was recently featured  in the writer’s obituary :

A 17-year-old boy chased his pet squirrel up a tree in Washington Square Park yesterday afternoon, touching off a series of incidents in which 22 persons were arrested and eight persons, including five policemen, were injured.

Time to Put That Lead Writing to Good Use

Alright, now that you’ve read this article, you’re going to be hooking readers left and right with captivating leads. What’s next? Well, if you want to showcase your new skills while working with top brands, join our Talent Network . We’ll match you with companies that fit your talent and expertise to take your career to the next level.

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Writing an Essay Lead That Pops

How many times have you sampled the first few lines of a book and decided, “Nah, this isn’t for me”? Whether you picked the book up in a store or library, or downloaded free sample online, you probably made a pretty speedy decision about whether it would hold your interest.  

The human tendency to rush to judgment

Our extremely fast-paced world has trained us to make snap decisions throughout the day, and if, for example, we’re not hooked instantly by an article, book, movie trailer, or song, we’re just a click away from another, more appealing choice. We might move quickly away from someone at a party who begins to bore us and whom we lack the patience to listen to, for even another minute.

Because we have endless choices, we get choosier and choosier about what we’re willing to stick with. These rapid judgments might not be fair, but the “burden of overchoice” in our lives feeds our short attention spans.  

Admissions committee members are human. And the pressure of their job forces them to make very quick decisions about whose applications they will invest more time in and whose will merit only an obligatory but cursory review before being set aside as unworthy of serious consideration. 

Their reality is truly “so many applications, so little time,” which means that when you are applying to b-school , med school , grad school , or college , you have to capture your reader’s attention with the very first lines of your essay – before they are tempted to just give it that cursory read and move on to the next application. Your very first sentence cannot fall flat. It must reel them into your narrative. Every word counts.  

How to hook your essay readers from the beginning

This sounds like a lot of pressure, right? But this is a challenge you can meet successfully. Think of your lead as the beginning of a good fiction story: something is at stake here, something compelling and colorful, something with a punch. Let’s look at a few examples, and you’ll quickly get the point:

“Horns blare as tiny auto rickshaws and bicycle-powered school buses interweave at impossibly close range in the narrow streets of Old Delhi.”

“After a near disaster during my first week as a case manager at a community center for women and children, I discovered that to succeed in my job, I’d have to restrain my anger at how badly things were run in this place.” 

“My aunt’s cancer had already metastasized throughout her body by the time she was finally diagnosed correctly – too late for any effective treatment. At that moment, my interest in a career as a science researcher became much more personal.”

“From the age of seven, when I was struggling with simple math problems but acing my spelling tests and already writing simple stories, I knew I was meant to become a writer.”

Notice that three of these four sample leads are personal anecdotes. They offer no details about the writer’s GPA or technical facts about what they researched in the lab. The first lead is so colorful and dramatic that we instantly want to know more about the person who observed the scene. In every case, the lead begins a story that makes the reader sit up and say, “Ah! This is a dynamic person with a compelling voice!” 

Your goal is to write an essay that introduces you to the admissions committee and makes them want to get to know you better. You’re way ahead of the game when your essay introduction really shines.

Three components of a strong lead

A strong essay opener will include three key elements:

• The theme or agenda of your essay, offering the first few facts about who you are, what you are interested in doing with your life/career/studies, and/or important influences
• Creative details or descriptions
• Energetic writing that will keep the reader engaged through the rest of the essay

Good leads connect where you’ve been to where you’re going 

Let’s look at a few more engaging first lines:

• “It was absolutely pitch black outside when we had to silently leave our home and climb into the back of a truck, beginning our journey to freedom.”
• “Only six months after I launched my start-up, money was flowing… out the window.”
• “Finding a green, scratched 1960s Cadillac in a dump last summer was the moment I realized that mechanical engineering was for me.”

Wouldn’t you want to keep reading to learn the rest of these stories? I would! 

Many clients worry that these kinds of anecdotal introductions are too “soft,” too “personal,” or too “creative.” But the right vibrant anecdote can absolutely do the job of being creative, personal, and strong. A compelling lead draws your reader into your story and make them feel involved in your journey. Descriptive language can go a long way to spice up a straightforward story and help the reader follow you from where you began to where you are headed.

How to write a lead that pops

Now that you have read several great examples of attention-grabbing leads, your mind might already be busy generating ideas for your own essay introduction. Write them down. If you don’t have ideas just yet, though, that’s okay – give yourself some time to think. Make a list of turning-point moments in your life that relate to your educational or professional goals. As we have seen, these experiences can be drawn from anywhere: recent or older work experiences, your cultural or family background, or “aha!” moments. 

An electrical engineering applicant could describe the first time their rural home suddenly went dark and they realized they had found their professional calling. An MBA applicant might have had a very profound and meaningful experience offering basic financial guidance to a struggling working-class individual, prompting their goal of pursuing a career in the nonprofit sector. A law school applicant might have witnessed a courtroom scene during an internship that inspired them to pursue a certain type of law. The possibilities go on and on.

As you make your list of anecdotes, jot down as many small, precise details as you can about each memory or experience. Why was this moment important on your journey toward your dream career or school? How did you feel at that moment? How did it help shape you? What did it teach you? Were there any sensory details (sights, smells, tastes, touch) that were particularly relevant to those moments? 

Then, try starting your essay with the anecdote itself, inviting the reader to share your experience, and add color, personality, and voice.

At the beginning of this post, we pointed out how easy it is to make snap judgments (perhaps unfairly) about a book, article, film, or acquaintance you just met at a party, and to turn your attention away because you weren’t captivated instantly. We end this post asking you to think about all the times you began sampling a book or story and after the first few lines, you simply had to know what was going to happen next. You bought the book or read the story straight through. You want your essay to be one of those proverbial “page-turners” (even if it’s less than one page) that the admissions committee starts reading and can’t put down. You will have earned their full attention, straight through to the end. Once they’re hooked, you can take them anywhere you please.

Still need help finding that “hook” to open your essay? Our admissions pros will guide you to finding that perfect moment. They can help you plan and craft an application that will draw your readers in with a substantive narrative that will inspire them to place your application in the “admit” pile. 

By Judy Gruen, former Accepted admissions consultant. Judy holds a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University. She is also the co-author of Accepted’s first full-length book, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools . Want an admissions expert help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• Five Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your Grad School Statement of Purpose , a free guide
• Three Must-Have Elements of a Good Statement of Purpose
• Proving Character Traits in Your Essays 

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Writing a Lead or Lede to an Article

Rules? What rules? Just tell the story effectively and hold the reader

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

A lead  or lede refers to the opening sentences  of a brief composition  or the first paragraph or two of a longer article or essay . Leads introduce the topic or purpose of a paper, and particularly in the case of journalism, need to grab the reader's attention. A lead is a promise of what's to come, a promise that the piece will satisfy what a reader needs to know.

They can take many styles and approaches and be a variety of lengths, but to be successful, leads need to keep the readers reading, or else all the research and reporting that went into the story won't reach anyone. Most often when people talk about leads, it's in professional periodical writing, such as in newspapers and magazines. ​

Opinions Differ on Length

Many ways exist as far as how to write a lead, the styles of which likely differ based on the tone or voice of the piece and intended audience in a story—and even the overall length of the story. A long feature in a magazine can get away with a lead that builds more slowly than an in-the-moment news story about a breaking news event in a daily paper or on a news website.

Some writers note that the first sentence is the most important of a story; some might extend that to the first paragraph. Still, others might emphasize defining the  audience  and message to those people in the first 10 words. Whatever the length, a good lead relates the issue to the readers and shows why it's important for them and how it relates to them. If they're invested from the get-go, they'll keep reading.

Hard News Versus Features

Hard news leads get the who, what, why, where, when, and how in the piece up front, the most important bits of information right up top. They're part of the classic reverse-pyramid news story structure. 

Features can start off in a multitude of ways, such as with an anecdote  or a quotation  or dialogue and will want to get the point of view established right away. Feature stories and news both can set the scene with a narrative description . They also can establish a "face" of the story, for example, to personalize an issue by showing how it's affecting an ordinary person.

Stories with arresting leads might exhibit tension right up front or pose a problem that'll be discussed. They might phrase their first sentence in the form of a question.

Where you put the historical information or the background information depends on the piece, but it can also function in the lead to ground the readers and get them context to the piece right away, to immediately understand the story's importance.

All that said, news and features don't necessarily have hard-and-fast rules about what leads work for either type; the style you take depends on the story you have to tell and how it will be most effectively conveyed.

Creating a Hook

"Newspaper reporters have varied the form of their work, including writing more creative story leads . These leads are often less direct and less 'formulaic' than the traditional news summary lead. Some journalists call these soft or indirect news leads. "The most obvious way to modify a news summary lead is to use only the feature fact or perhaps two of the what, who, where, when, why and how in the lead. By delaying some of the answers to these essential reader questions , the sentences can be short, and the writer can create a 'hook' to catch or entice the reader to continue into the body of the story." (Thomas Rolnicki, C. Dow Tate, and Sherri Taylor, "Scholastic Journalism." Blackwell, 2007)

Using Arresting Detail

"There are editors ...who will try to take an interesting detail out of the story simply because the detail happens to horrify or appall them. 'One of them kept saying that people read this paper at breakfast ,' I was told by Edna [Buchanan], whose own idea of a successful lead is one that might cause a reader who is having breakfast with his wife to 'spit out his coffee, clutch his chest, and say, "My God, Martha! Did you read this!"'" (Calvin Trillin, "Covering the Cops [Edna Buchanan]." "Life Stories: Profiles from The New Yorker ," ed. by David Remnick. Random House, 2000)

Joan Didion and Ron Rosenbaum on Leads

​ Joan Didion : "What's so hard about the first sentence is that you're stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you've laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone." (Joan Didion, quoted in "The Writer," 1985)

Ron Rosenbaum : "For me, the lead is the most important element. A good lead embodies much of what the story is about—its tone, its focus, its mood. Once I sense that this is a great lead I can really start writing. It is a heuristic : a great lead really leads you toward something." (Ron Rosenbaum in "The New New Journalism: Conversations With America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft," by Robert S. Boynton. Vintage Books, 2005)

The Myth of the Perfect First Line

"It's a newsroom article of faith that you should begin by struggling for the perfect lead . Once that opening finally comes to you—according to the legend—the rest of the story will flow like lava. "Not likely...Starting with the lead is like starting medical school with brain surgery. We've all been taught that the first sentence is the most important; so it's also the scariest. Instead of writing it, we fuss and fume and procrastinate. Or we waste hours writing and rewriting the first few lines, rather than getting on with the body of the piece... "The first sentence points the way for everything that follows. But writing it before you've sorted out your material, thought about your focus , or stimulated your thinking with some actual writing is a recipe for getting lost. When you're ready to write, what you need is not a finely polished opening sentence, but a clear statement of your theme ." (Jack R. Hart, "A Writer's Coach: An Editor's Guide to Words That Work." Random House, 2006)

• What Is the Inverted Pyramid Method of Organization?
• The Difference Between an Article and an Essay
• Achieving Emphasis in Writing
• Definition and Examples of Paragraphing in Essays
• Sentence Variety Composition
• Expanding Sentences With Adjectives and Adverbs
• What Is Textuality?
• The 5 Ws (and an H) of Journalism
• Definition and Examples of Paragraph Breaks in Prose
• First-Person Point of View
• Loose Sentence in Grammar and Prose Style
• How Do You Edit an Essay?
• Definition and Examples of Climactic Order in Composition and Speech
• Sentence Length
• Examples of Faulty Parallelism in English Grammar
• Using Sentence Fragments Effectively

How to Start an Essay with Strong Hooks and Leads

ALWAYS START AN ESSAY WITH AN ENGAGING INTRODUCTION

Getting started is often the most challenging part of writing an essay, and it’s one of the main reasons our students are prone to leaving their writing tasks to the last minute.

But what if we could give our students some tried and tested tips and strategies to show them how to start an essay?

What if we could give them various strategies they could pull out of their writer’s toolbox and kickstart their essays at any time?

In this article, we’ll look at tried and tested methods and how to start essay examples to get your students’ writing rolling with momentum to take them to their essays’ conclusion.

Once you have worked past the start of your essay, please explore our complete guide to polishing an essay before submitting it and our top 5 tips for essay writing.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF AN ESSAY’S INTRODUCTION?

 Essentially, the purpose of the introduction is to achieve two things:

 1. To orientate the reader

2. To motivate the reader to keep reading.

 An effective introduction will give the reader a clear idea of what the essay will be about. To do this, it may need to provide some necessary background information or exposition.

Once this is achieved, the writer will then make a thesis statement that informs the reader of the main ‘thrust’ of the essay’s position, the supporting arguments of which will be explored throughout the body paragraphs of the remainder of the essay.

When considering how to start an essay, ensure you have a strong thesis statement and support it through well-crafted arguments in the body paragraphs . These are complex skills in their own right and beyond the scope of this guide, but you can find more detail on these aspects of essay writing in other articles on this site that go beyond how to start an essay.

 For now, our primary focus is on how to grab the reader’s attention right from the get-go.

 After all, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step or, in this case, a single opening sentence.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON WRITING HOOKS, LEADS & INTRODUCTIONS

Teach your students to write  STRONG LEADS, ENGAGING HOOKS  and  MAGNETIC INTRODUCTIONS  for  ALL TEXT TYPES  with this engaging  PARAGRAPH WRITING UNIT  designed to take students from zero to hero over  FIVE STRATEGIC LESSONS.

WHAT IS A “HOOK” IN ESSAY WRITING?

A hook is a sentence or phrase that begins your essay, grabbing the reader’s attention and making them want to keep reading. It is the first thing the reader will see, and it should be interesting and engaging enough to make them want to read more.

As you will learn from the how to start an essay examples below, a hook can be a quote, a question, a surprising fact, a personal story, or a bold statement. It should be relevant to the topic of your essay and should be able to create a sense of curiosity or intrigue in the reader. The goal of a hook is to make the reader want to read on and to draw them into the central argument or point of your essay.

Some famous examples of hooks in literature you may have encountered are as follows.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” George Orwell in 1984

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” – Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice

HOW TO HOOK THE READER WITH ATTENTION-GRABBING OPENING SENTENCES

We all know that every essay has a beginning, a middle , and an end . But, if our students don’t learn to grab the reader’s attention from the opening sentence, they’ll struggle to keep their readers engaged long enough to make it through the middle to the final full stop. Take a look at these five attention-grabbing sentence examples.

• “The secret to success is hidden in a single, elusive word: persistence.”
• “Imagine a world without electricity, where the only source of light is the flame of a candle.”
• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, but most importantly, it was the time that changed everything.”
• “They said it couldn’t be done, but she proved them wrong with her grit and determination.”
• “He stood at the edge of the cliff, staring down at the tumultuous ocean below, knowing that one misstep could mean certain death.”

Regardless of what happens next, those sentences would make any reader stop whatever else they might focus on and read with more intent than before. They have provided the audience with a “hook” intended to lure us further into their work.

To become effective essay writers, your students need to build the skill of writing attention-grabbing opening sentences. The best way of achieving this is to use ‘hooks’.

There are several kinds of hooks that students can choose from. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the most effective of these:

 1. The Attention-Grabbing Anecdote

2. The Bold Pronouncement!

3. The Engaging Fact

4. Using an Interesting Quote

5. Posing a Rhetorical Question

6. Presenting a Contrast

 How appropriate each of these hooks is will depend on the essay’s nature. Students must consider the topic, purpose, tone, and audience of the essay they’re writing before deciding how best to open it.

 Let’s look at each of these essay hooks, along with a practice activity students can undertake to put their knowledge of each hook into action.

1: HOW TO START AN ESSAY WITH “THE ATTENTION-GRABBING ANECDOTE”

 Anecdotes are an effective way for the student to engage the reader’s attention right from the start.

When the anecdote is based on the writer’s personal life, they are a great way to create intimacy between the writer and the reader from the outset.

Anecdotes are an especially useful starting point when the essay explores more abstract themes as they climb down the ladder of abstraction and fit the broader theme of the essay to the shape of the writer’s life.

Anecdotes work because they are personal, and because they’re personal, they infuse the underlying theme of the essay with emotion.

This expression of emotion helps the writer form a bond with the reader. And it is this bond that helps encourage the reader to continue reading.

Readers find this an engaging approach, mainly when the topic is complex and challenging.

Anecdotes provide an ‘in’ to the writing’s broader theme and encourage the reader to read on.

Examples of Attention-grabbing anecdotes

• “It was my first day of high school, and I was a bundle of nerves. I had always been a shy kid, and the thought of walking into a new school, surrounded by strangers was overwhelming. But as I walked through the front doors, something unexpected happened. A senior, who I had never met before, came up to me and said ‘Welcome to high school; it’s going to be an amazing four years.’ That one small act of kindness from a complete stranger made all the difference, and from that day on, I knew that I would be okay.”
• “I was in my math class and having a tough day. I had a test coming up, and I was struggling to understand the material. My teacher, who I had always thought was strict and unapproachable, noticed that I was struggling and asked if I needed help. I was surprised, but I took her up on her offer, and she spent extra time with me after class, helping me to understand the material. That experience taught me that sometimes, the people we think we know the least about are the ones who can help us the most.”
• “It was the last day of 8th grade, and we were all sitting in the auditorium, waiting for the ceremony to begin. Suddenly, the principal got on stage and announced that there was a surprise guest speaker. I was confused and curious, but when the guest walked out on stage, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was my favorite rapper who had come to speak to us about the importance of education. That moment was a turning point for me, it showed me that if you work hard and believe in yourself, anything is possible.”

Attention-Grabbing Anecdote Teaching Strategies

One way to help students access their personal stories is through sentence starters, writing prompts, or well-known stories and their themes.

First, instruct students to choose a theme to write about. For example, if we look at the theme of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, something like: we shouldn’t tell lies, or people may not believe us when we tell the truth.

Fairytales and fables are great places for students to find simple themes or moral lessons to explore for this activity.

Once they’ve chosen a theme, encourage the students to recall a time when this theme was at play in their own lives. In the case above, a time when they paid the cost, whether seriously or humorously, for not telling the truth.

This memory will form the basis for a personal anecdote that will form a ‘hook’. Students can practice replicating this process for various essay topics.

It’s essential when writing anecdotes that students attempt to capture their personal voice.

One way to help them achieve this is to instruct them to write as if they were orally telling their story to a friend.

This ‘vocal’ style of writing helps to create intimacy between writer and reader, which is the hallmark of this type of opening.

2: HOW TO START AN ESSAY WITH “THE BOLD PRONOUNCEMENT”

 As the old cliché “Go big or go home!” would have it, making a bold pronouncement at the start of an essay is one surefire way to catch the reader’s attention.

Bold statements exude confidence and assure the reader that this writer has something to say that’s worth hearing. A bold statement placed right at the beginning suggests the writer isn’t going to hedge their bets or perch passively on a fence throughout their essay.

The bold pronouncement technique isn’t only useful for writing a compelling opening sentence, the formula can be used to generate a dramatic title for the essay.

For example, the recent New York Times bestseller ‘Everybody Lies’ by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is an excellent example of the bold pronouncement in action.

Examples of Bold Pronouncements

• “I will not be just a statistic, I will be the exception. I will not let my age or my background define my future, I will define it myself.”
• “I will not be afraid to speak up and make my voice heard. I will not let anyone silence me or make me feel small. I will stand up for what I believe in and I will make a difference.”
• “I will not be satisfied with just getting by. I will strive for greatness and I will not be content with mediocrity. I will push myself to be the best version of me, and I will not settle for anything less.”

Strategies for Teaching how to write a Bold Pronouncement

Give the students a list of familiar tales; again, Aesop’s Fables make for a good resource.

In groups, have them identify some tales’ underlying themes or morals. For this activity, these can take the place of an essay’s thesis statement.

Then, ask the students to discuss in their groups and collaborate to write a bold pronouncement based on the story. Their pronouncement should be short, pithy, and, most importantly, as bold as bold can be.

3: HOW TO START AN ESSAY WITH “THE ENGAGING FACT”

In our cynical age of ‘ fake news ’, opening an essay with a fact or statistic is a great way for students to give authority to their writing from the very beginning.

Students should choose the statistic or fact carefully, it should be related to their general thesis, and it needs to be noteworthy enough to spark the reader’s curiosity.

This is best accomplished by selecting an unusual or surprising fact or statistic to begin the essay with.

Examples of the Engaging Fact

•  “Did you know that the average teenager spends around 9 hours a day consuming media? That’s more than the time they spend sleeping or in school!”
• “The brain continues to develop until the age of 25, which means that as a teenager, my brain is still going through major changes and growth. This means I have a lot of potential to learn and grow.”
• “The average attention span of a teenager is shorter than that of an adult, meaning that it’s harder for me to focus on one task for an extended time. This is why it is important for me to balance different activities and take regular breaks to keep my mind fresh.”

Strategies for teaching how to write engaging facts

This technique can work well as an extension of the bold pronouncement activity above.

When students have identified each of the fables’ underlying themes, have them do some internet research to identify related facts and statistics.

Students highlight the most interesting of these and consider how they would use them as a hook in writing an essay on the topic.

4: HOW TO START AN ESSAY USING “AN INTERESTING QUOTATION”

This strategy is as straightforward as it sounds. The student begins their essay by quoting an authority or a well-known figure on the essay’s topic or related topic.

This quote provides a springboard into the essay’s subject while ensuring the reader is engaged.

The quotation selected doesn’t have to align with the student’s thesis statement.

In fact, opening with a quotation the student disagrees with can be a great way to generate a debate that grasps the reader’s attention from the outset.

Examples of starting an essay with an interesting quotation.

• “As Albert Einstein once said, ‘Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.’ As a 16-year-old student, I know how it feels to be judged by my ability to climb the “academic tree” and how it feels to be labeled as “stupid”. But just like the fish in Einstein’s quote, I know that my true potential lies in my unique abilities and talents, not in how well I can climb a tree.”
• “Mark Twain once said, ‘Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.’ This quote resonates with me because as a teenager, I often feel pressure to conform to the expectations and opinions of my peers. But this quote reminds me to take a step back and think for myself, rather than blindly following the crowd.”
• “As J.K. Rowling famously said, ‘It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.’ As a 16-year-old student, I often find myself getting lost in my dreams for the future and forgetting to live in the present. But this quote serves as a reminder to me to strive for my goals while also cherishing and living in the here and now.”

Teaching Strategies for starting an essay with an interesting quotation.

To gain practice in this strategy, organize the students into groups and have them generate a list of possible thesis statements for their essays.

Once they have a list of statements, they now need to generate a list of possible quotations related to their hypothetical essay’s central argument .

Several websites are dedicated to curating pertinent quotations from figures of note on an apparently inexhaustible array of topics. These sites are invaluable resources for tracking down interesting quotations for any essay.

5: HOW TO START AN ESSAY BY “POSING A RHETORICAL QUESTION”

What better way to get a reader thinking than to open with a question?

See what I did there?

Beginning an essay with a question not only indicates to the reader the direction the essay is headed in but also challenges them to respond personally to the topic.

Rhetorical questions are asked to make a point and to get the reader thinking rather than to elicit an answer.

One effective way to use a rhetorical question in an introduction is to craft a rhetorical question from the thesis statement and use it as the opening sentence.

The student can then end the opening paragraph with the thesis statement itself.

In this way, the student has presented their thesis statement as the answer to the rhetorical question asked at the outset.

Rhetorical questions also make for valuable transitions between paragraphs.

Examples of starting an essay with a rhetorical question

• “What if instead of judging someone based on their appearance, we judged them based on their character? As a 16-year-old, I see the damage caused by judging someone based on their physical appearance, and it’s time to move away from that and focus on character.”
• “How can we expect to solve the world’s problems if we don’t start with ourselves? As a 16-year-old student, I am starting to see the issues in the world, and I believe that before we can make any progress, we need to start with ourselves.”
• “What would happen if we stopped labelling people by race, religion, or sexual orientation? As a teenager growing up in a diverse world, I see the harm caused by labelling and stereotyping people; it’s time for us to stop and see people for who they truly are.”

Teaching Students how to start an essay with a rhetorical question

To get some experience posing rhetorical questions, organize your students into small groups, and give each group a list of essay thesis statements suited to their age and abilities.

Task the students to rephrase each of the statements as questions.

For example, if we start with the thesis statement “Health is more important than wealth”, we might reverse engineer a rhetorical question such as “What use is a million dollars to a dying man?”

Mastering how to start an essay with a question is a technique that will become more common as you progress in confidence as a writer.

6: HOW TO START AN ESSAY BY “PRESENTING A CONTRAST”

In this opening, the writer presents a contrast between the image of the subject and its reality. Often, this strategy is an effective opener when widespread misconceptions on the subject are widespread.

For example, if the thesis statement is something like “Wealth doesn’t bring happiness”, the writer might open with a scene describing a lonely, unhappy person surrounded by wealth and opulence.

This scene contrasts a luxurious setting with an impoverished emotional state, insinuating the thrust of the essay’s central thesis.

Examples of Starting an essay by presenting a contrast

• “On one hand, technology has made it easier to stay connected with friends and family than ever before. On the other hand, it has also created a sense of disconnection and loneliness in many people, including myself as a 16-year-old. “
• “While social media has allowed us to express ourselves freely, it has also led to a culture of cyberbullying and online harassment. As a teenager, I have seen social media’s positive and negative effects.”
• “On one hand, the internet has given us access to a wealth of information. On the other hand, it has also made it harder to separate fact from fiction and to distinguish credible sources from fake news. This is becoming increasingly important for me as a 16-year-old student in today’s society.”

Teaching Strategies for presenting a contrast when starting an essay.

For this activity, you can use the same list of thesis statements as in the activity above. In their groups, challenge students to set up a contrasting scene to evoke the essay’s central contention, as in the example above.

The scene of contrast can be a factual one in a documentary or anecdotal style, or a fictionalized account.

Whether the students are using a factual or fictional scene for their contrast, dramatizing it can make it much more persuasive and impactful.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

These aren’t the only options available for opening essays, but they represent some of the best options available to students struggling to get started with the concept of how to create an essay.

With practice, students will soon be able to select the best strategies for their needs in various contexts.

To reinforce their understanding of different strategies for starting an introduction for an essay, encourage them to pay attention to the different choices writers make each time they begin reading a new nonfiction text.

Just like getting good at essay writing itself, getting good at writing openings requires trial and error and lots and lots of practice.

USEFUL VIDEO TUTORIALS ON WRITING AN ESSAY INTRODUCTION

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• Knowledge Base
• Transition sentences | Tips & examples for clear writing

Transition Sentences | Tips & Examples for Clear Writing

Published on June 9, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

Clear transitions are crucial to clear writing: They show the reader how different parts of your essay, paper, or thesis are connected. Transition sentences can be used to structure your text and link together paragraphs or sections.

… In this case, the researchers concluded that the method was unreliable.

However , evidence from a more recent study points to a different conclusion . …

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Table of contents

Transitioning between paragraphs, transitioning to a new section, transitions within a paragraph, other interesting articles.

When you start a new paragraph , the first sentence should clearly express:

• What this paragraph will discuss
• How it relates to the previous paragraph

The examples below show some examples of transition sentences between paragraphs and what they express.

Placement of transition sentences

The beginning of a new paragraph is generally the right place for a transition sentence. Each paragraph should focus on one topic, so avoid spending time at the end of a paragraph explaining the theme of the next one.

The first dissenter to consider is …

However, several scholars dissent from this consensus. The first one to consider is …

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While transitions between paragraphs are generally a single sentence, when you start a new section in a longer text, you may need an entire transition paragraph. Transitioning to a new section involves summarizing the content of the previous section and expressing how the new one will build upon or depart from it.

For example, the following sentences might be an effective transition for a new section in a literary analysis essay.

Having established that the subjective experience of time is one of Mann’s key concerns in The Magic Mountain , it is now possible to explore how this theme facilitates the novel’s connection with World War I. The war itself is not narrated in the book, but rather hinted at as something awaiting Castorp beyond the final pages. In this way, Mann links his protagonist’s subjective experience of time to more than just his illness; it is also used to explore the period leading up to the outbreak of war.

As in academic writing generally, aim to be as concise as you can while maintaining clarity: If you can transition to a new section clearly with a single sentence, do so, but use more when necessary.

It’s also important to use effective transitions within each paragraph you write, leading the reader through your arguments efficiently and avoiding ambiguity.

The known-new contract

The order of information within each of your sentences is important to the cohesion of your text. The known-new contract , a useful writing concept, states that a new sentence should generally begin with some reference to information from the previous sentence, and then go on to connect it to new information.

In the following example, the second sentence doesn’t follow very clearly from the first. The connection only becomes clear when we reach the end.

By reordering the information in the second sentence so that it begins with a reference to the first, we can help the reader follow our argument more smoothly.

Note that the known-new contract is just a general guideline. Not every sentence needs to be structured this way, but it’s a useful technique if you’re struggling to make your sentences cohere.

Transition words and phrases

Using appropriate transition words helps show your reader connections within and between sentences. Transition words and phrases come in four main types:

• Additive transitions, which introduce new information or examples
• Adversative transitions, which signal a contrast or departure from the previous text
• Causal transitions, which are used to describe cause and effect
• Sequential transitions, which indicate a sequence

The table below gives a few examples for each type:

Grouping similar information

While transition words and phrases are essential, and every essay will contain at least some of them, it’s also important to avoid overusing them. One way to do this is by grouping similar information together so that fewer transitions are needed.

For example, the following text uses three transition words and jumps back and forth between ideas. This makes it repetitive and difficult to follow.

Rewriting it to group similar information allows us to use just one transition, making the text more concise and readable.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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How to write a lead sentence.

Writing lead sentences doesn’t have to be hard. The lead sentence (aka “topic sentence”) is the sentence that leads the rest of the paragraph. Whether it is the first sentence in the paragraph or it’s found somewhere in the middle, the lead sentence summarizes or states the point of the paragraph. There are thousands of different kinds of lead sentences: the paper-leader, the biographical sketch, the “given” statement, the transition, the teaser, and I could go on and on with my fake names for general lead sentence types.

Note: If you’re not a writing student, I suggest you keep your lead sentences at the beginning of the paragraph. It seems most non-writing teachers prefer solidarity to creativity. When you’re writing for someone else (read: for a grade), you have to cater to them.

For simplicity, we’ll say that there are two basic lead sentences with a few flavors for each: the paper-leader and the transition.

The Paper-Leader

Every paper has a beginning sentence, a lead sentence. This is the most crucial sentence in the whole paper. Can you guess the 2nd most crucial sentence, by the way? It’s the last. More on that elsewhere.

Your first sentence is so important that you really should write several (I have written almost 100 at times!) and choose the best. The average reader will only read the rest of your paper if the first sentence (and title!) interests him. Unfortunately for your teacher, he has to read the whole thing even if your first sentence is uninteresting. In a speech, the first sentence is called the attention getter. Your first sentence should be and do just that.

Because lists are easier to retain (and to use for re-checking facts), here’s a list of tips for writing a “Paper-Leader” lead sentence:

• If writing a review or biographical sketch, consider listing the who, what, when, where, why, and/or how. Give the reader the quick facts so that he knows what you’re talking about up front. Example: In his book, On Writing Well: the Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2001), William Zinsser gives an overview of the components of good writing. ( Book Review of On Writing Well )
• If writing a personal essay, consider what is the most interesting aspect of your topic and pique the reader’s curiosity with a question or statement. Example: I was the only kindergartner without a grandparent. ( Adoption of Grandparents )
• Avoid cliche, general or blanket statements. Example: Everybody loves a good movie. [BORING! How about something more like “Kung Fu Panda destroys expectations and restyles the unique humor found in Dreamworks movies”? It’s at least more interesting!]
• Be specific, be descriptive, be certain. Which North American country is soccer most popular in? How hard is it to be part of a national soccer team? Is the US women’s soccer team the best in the world, or isn’t it? We need to know that you know what you’re talking about. Example: Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world: it costs on average $50 per cup to drink the coffee harvested from luwak feces.
• If you can’t think of how to start, try writing the point of your paper in one sentence. Just one! If you can find a way to phrase your point so that it is informative and interesting, you can use that as your lead sentence. Example: Writing lead sentences doesn’t have to be hard.

The Transition

The most common lead sentence is the transition. This is the humble little sentence at the beginning of every paragraph following the first in a standard paper. Though the Paper-Leader can be a bit dramatic, the Transition lead sentence tends to be completely utilitarian. It’s the link between the last paragraph and the next. Here’s the list of tips for the Transition lead sentence:

• Don’t summarize the previous paragraph. The last sentence of each paragraph is usually a summary, so you won’t need to re-summarize.
• The lead sentence MUS T relate to the rest of the paragraph.
• You can refer to the previous paragraph to compare it to the point of the next paragraph. Example: Although some may be repulsed by the origin of Kopi Luwak, many coffee connoisseurs praise its flavor.
• See the list for The Paper Leader for more tips.

If this article has helped you, or if you have other questions about this topic, please let me know. Thanks!

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Writing Basics . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to How to write a lead sentence

Well done! Good advice from start to finish. What’s next? 🙂 ~Jim

Great advice. Thank you so much. I had the rest of my paper written and my professor said i lacked a good lead in sentence. That is the hardest part of writing a paper in my opinion. Thank you again.

Jim- Thanks. What’s next? Whatever I can find! 🙂

Michael- Glad I could help!

It was good advice but it did not help me

How can I help you?

can a question ever be a lead for a news story?

example: What are the MCAs and what do you need to know about them?

I began looking on the internet for ideas on a lead sentence for my essay when I found this site. I noticed under the services tab that I could get a basic edit or a deep edit. My essay was relatively complete already and was worth 1/5 of my grade, so it was worth it to me to invest a little money into keeping the ‘A’ I had in the class. What a deal! My essay was returned to me the very next day with tons of useful ideas, suggestions, grammatical tips, word choice input, and questions that I had never considered. After reviewing the edits and correcting my paper, I took advantage of the second free edit and there was still more suggestions on the return. The process of refining my paper really helped turn a so-so paper into a winning essay. Well worth the money and even more because I kept my ‘A’ in the class due to the improvements made to one essay. If your grade means anything to you, use this service. It’s well worth the small investment.

It can be used, but it has to be an outstanding question to be strong.

example: What do you do when you find a man living in your attic?

Thank you for the kind words, Kimberly! It was a joy to work with you.

Leave a comment

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What Is a Lead-in Statement?

Danny djeljosevic.

In writing, a lead-in statement is the opening of an essay or other piece of writing. This statement is part of the introductory paragraph and the first thing the audience reads and is thus meant to keep the reader’s attention.

Explore this article

An effective lead-in statement not only captures the reader’s attention, but also allows the writer to naturally segue into the topic of the paper. Typically, the lead-in statement will relate to the topic at hand.

There is no one way to write a lead-in statement. This opening sentence can be creative like an interesting anecdote, a surprising fact that the reader may not know or a relevant mention of a famous person. There are more conventional ways of writing a lead-in statement, such as writing a very brief history of the topic or simply stating what the paper is about.

Despite the number of options in writing a lead-in statement, there are several measures not to take in writing the opening. For example, opening with a definition from the dictionary may not effectively catch the reader’s attention. While stating the topic is a viable option, it is not recommended to state it as some variant of “The topic of this essay is...”

About the Author

Danny Djeljosevic is a freelance writer and blogger living in San Diego, Calif. He pursues a variety of interests including writing (blogs, prose, screenplays and comic books), criticism and filmmaking. Djeljosevic has a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Florida.

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A Full Guide On How To Create Good Leadership Essay

Attempting a leadership essay isn’t such a daunting task, provided you have a grasp of the necessary information needed for a leadership paper. To write this special essay, you’ll need to redefine what exactly an essay on leadership is, how to choose the perfect topic, what should be in the content, and how to organize and structure the paper. Let’s delve deeper!

What Is A Leadership Essay?

A leadership essay is a well-formatted, organized and specialized type of formal writing which elaborates on a generic leadership topic or a superior human figure exercising a great influence on people and transmitting desire and optimism to achieve goals.

What Makes A Good Leader Essay?

There are some peculiarities needed to infuse in your write-up if, for example, you’re trying to learn how to write a leadership essay about yourself.

Also, if you’re just trying to produce leadership essays for college, then you’d first and foremost, learn  how to structure an essay , among other skills needed for this type of essay. Here are some qualities which can be found in a good essay about leadership.

• Choose a creative topic
• Avoid the passive voice (the active voice sounds stronger)
• Search for and study leadership essay examples
• Follow the appropriate essay style
• Focus on the essay structure
• Review the essay

How To Choose A Topic And Make A Great Title?

To choose a topic for a paper on leadership, you need to do some research on the concept of a leader (whether in the corporate industry, political society or even in the criminal world). You have to know the current leadership tendencies in organizational groups or society. You can choose to make a leader the point of your reference by explaining the consequences of their leadership abilities or inabilities.

In the body of your essay, don’t forget to mention several types of leadership styles and point out which one the subject portrays. Finally, you should not rule out making comparisons of famous leaders in the modern world or in history. An example of a great prompt for a leadership essay that deploys the comparison technique would be the leadership styles of President Trump and The Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte as both leadership styles have been subjected to political reviews in recent times since their emergence as president of their respective countries.

Outline For A Leadership Essay

When writing a college or professional essay such as -long and short essays on leadership, planning is the key to perfection. The general outline for any essay, including leadership papers, include an introduction, the body paragraphs (which must be properly linked with transition words and/or phrases) and a recapitulating or finding-based conclusions. Here’s what your outline should look like:

Introduction

Knowing how to start a leadership essay depends on your introduction writing ability. The introduction is the gateway to the essay. Aided by punchy opening words, which are the hook, the purpose of the introduction is to draw the reader’s attention. The introduction presents the thesis statement and leaves the body paragraphs to sustain the reader’s interest.

Body Paragraphs

Having informed the readers of the topic of the essay in the introductory paragraph(s), the body paragraphs follow immediately.

Here, you can elaborate on the concept of leadership and do a meaningful interpretation of the subject – the topic or the thesis statement. Don’t forget to talk about your leadership philosophies and leadership experience in whatever capacity you might have found yourself in. Remember, people are more interested in personal experiences. They are great in helping to sustain readers’ attention.

Remember to state a thesis or hypothesis in the opening paragraphs – which is the intro. In each of the body paragraphs of the essay, try to relate your points to the thesis and use each point to prove its validity.

The conclusion is the end part of any well-structured essay. Its purpose is a no-brainer. You don’t want to leave your reader hanging by ending the essay cold turkey. Any standard essay without a conclusion is just as useless as an essay with no purpose. However, be careful not to present new ideas not mentioned in the body.

As mentioned, the conclusion serves to summarize the developed points, restate the thesis and/or present the findings. It is your last opportunity to create an impression on the reader, and this is where they take the message away. If your conclusion is weak, then we might say the essay’s objectives are not achieved.

What To Include In A Leadership Essay?

Here are some tips on what your leadership essay should include.

Your Definition Of A Good Leader And Why He Or She Is Important

Since your essay revolves around leadership and the traits of a good leader, you’ll need to define what it takes to be one. You may also take this opportunity to trash some common myths on what a leader is (i.e., a manager being confused for a leader).

For reference purposes, the concepts of leadership and being a good leader are explained:

Leadership is the quality of a leader and is that person capable of exercising a great influence on people and transmitting desire and optimism to achieve goals. A leader is a guide; someone with ideas and goals that can spread to a large group of people who still believe he or she can lead them in the right direction.

There are many types of leaders and therefore, of leadership since people generally always look for a person or group that shows them a direction to follow. You can find religious, political, social, or philosophical leadership. Leadership can be exercised in a traditional way. In many countries, there is a monarchy. The king or queen is a leader with limited political power, at least in western democracies, but still have the respect and consideration of the people. Their words continue to be heard and taken into account, especially in problematic times. There are other types of leadership that are not given by birth, such as legitimate leadership exercised by, for example, political leaders freely chosen by their people, or charismatic leaders.

In a way, charismatic leaders are what many understand as leaders since they are people who, by their way of behavior and characteristics, get many people to follow and adhere to their ideas. Some charismatic leaders can become legitimate leaders if they choose the path of politics. A traditional leader can also be charismatic. There have always been kings loved by his people more than others. But it can also be a person who prefers independent movements outside of power.

Charisma is the personal magnetism a person has. It is something very difficult to define but makes one capable of convincing others without too much effort, making people follow and trust the leading figure. Charisma can be used positively or negatively. The leaders of the most destructive sects are very charismatic people that are capable of convincing their followers of the eeriest ideas, including donating all their belongings or committing collective suicide.

Examples Of Your Leadership Style

In the content of your essay, you may consider giving an interpretation to your (or your chosen leader’s) leadership traits. Below are some examples of leadership qualities that separate a good leader from a bad leader.

What qualities are necessary for leadership

• Communication
• Emotional intelligence
• Strategic thinking
• Commitment and passion
• Knowledge and experience
• Leading by example
• Active listening
• Ability to enhance talent
• Setting goals and expectations
• People investment
• Discernment
• Concentration
• Positive attitude
• Problem-solving
• Self-discipline

Leadership Essay Example

To know how to do essay fast, you’ll need some ready-made essay examples for the sake of guidance and inspiration. You may find below a leadership essay written by Oliver Smith useful in your leadership paper.

Writing a leadership essay should be easy. A good essay on leadership starts from the hook, and the thesis statement in the introduction. The points developed in the body paragraphs help affirm the hypothesis. Finally, the conclusion offers the reader a summary through the restatement of the essay’s main idea.

As required for every essay type, your essay on leadership has to follow a definite style and format. Examples are MLA, APA, Chicago and AP styles. Take your time in choosing a creative but new topic and also in writing the content. By following this guide, everything should be as perfect as possible.

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How to Introduce Evidence: 41 Effective Phrases & Examples

Research requires us to scrutinize information and assess its credibility. Accordingly, when we think about various phenomena, we examine empirical data and craft detailed explanations justifying our interpretations. An essential component of constructing our research narratives is thus providing supporting evidence and examples.

The type of proof we provide can either bolster our claims or leave readers confused or skeptical of our analysis. Therefore, it’s crucial that we use appropriate, logical phrases that guide readers clearly from one idea to the next. In this article, we explain how evidence and examples should be introduced according to different contexts in academic writing and catalog effective language you can use to support your arguments, examples included.

When to Introduce Evidence and Examples in a Paper

Evidence and examples create the foundation upon which your claims can stand firm. Without proof, your arguments lack credibility and teeth. However, laundry listing evidence is as bad as failing to provide any materials or information that can substantiate your conclusions. Therefore, when you introduce examples, make sure to judiciously provide evidence when needed and use phrases that will appropriately and clearly explain how the proof supports your argument.

There are different types of claims and different types of evidence in writing. You should introduce and link your arguments to evidence when you

• state information that is not “common knowledge”;
• draw conclusions, make inferences, or suggest implications based on specific data;
• need to clarify a prior statement, and it would be more effectively done with an illustration;
• need to identify representative examples of a category;
• desire to distinguish concepts; and
• emphasize a point by highlighting a specific situation.

Introductory Phrases to Use and Their Contexts

To assist you with effectively supporting your statements, we have organized the introductory phrases below according to their function. This list is not exhaustive but will provide you with ideas of the types of phrases you can use.

Although any research author can make use of these helpful phrases and bolster their academic writing by entering them into their work, before submitting to a journal, it is a good idea to let a professional English editing service take a look to ensure that all terms and phrases make sense in the given research context. Wordvice offers paper editing , thesis editing , and dissertation editing services that help elevate your academic language and make your writing more compelling to journal authors and researchers alike.

For more examples of strong verbs for research writing , effective transition words for academic papers , or commonly confused words , head over to the Wordvice Academic Resources website.

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How to Lead Into a Quote

Last Updated: January 11, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Lynn Kirkham . Lynn Kirkham is a Professional Public Speaker and Founder of Yes You Can Speak, a San Francisco Bay Area-based public speaking educational business empowering thousands of professionals to take command of whatever stage they've been given - from job interviews, boardroom talks to TEDx and large conference platforms. Lynn was chosen as the official TEDx Berkeley speaker coach for the last four years and has worked with executives at Google, Facebook, Intuit, Genentech, Intel, VMware, and others. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 85,348 times.

Introducing a quote in a paper can be tricky, as you want the quote to feel seamless and relevant to your topic. You may want to use a quote from a literary text to support your ideas in an essay, or as evidence in your research paper. The key to using quotes effectively is to always use a lead-in or introduction to the quote. Try using an introductory phrase or verb to lead into the quote. You can also use your own assertions to introduce the quote in the text.

Leading With an Introductory Phrase or Verb

• According to Smith, “Life is beautiful.”
• In Smith's view, “Life is beautiful.”
• In Smith's words, “Life is beautiful.”

• Do not use “says” as a descriptive verb to introduce a quote, unless you are quoting from an interview.
• Arendt remarks, “Even in the darkest of times, we have the right to expect some illumination.”
• Arendt states, “Even in the darkest of times, we have the right to expect some illumination.”

• Arendt points out that “totalitarianism is to be feared.”
• Arendt emphasizes that “totalitarianism is to be feared.”
• Arendt describes her book as “an exploration of power.”

Leading with Your Own Assertion

• For example, you may write an assertion like, “Arendt does not see totalitarianism as a positive result of war.”
• Or you may write an assertion like, “Hamlet argues against Rosencrantz's claim that he lacks ambition.”

• Arendt does not see totalitarianism as a positive result of war: “Totalitarianism is to be feared and loathed.”
• Hamlet argues against Rosencrantz's claim that he lacks ambition: "I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space.”

• For Arendt, state sanctioned propaganda was essential totalitarian regimes, where “one could make people believe the most fantastic statements,” thereby confirming the state's power over its citizens.
• Hamlet is doubtful of Rosencrantz's view, claiming he could be “bounded in a nutshell” and still feel powerful, “a king of infinite space.”

Polishing the Lead-In

• You can also look at your use of quotes throughout the paper to confirm they flow well. Make sure you are consistent with how you introduce quotes in the paper. Use one to two different ways to introduce quotes and stick to them so the reader can follow your train of thought.

• You should also check that you italicize any titles in the lead-in. Capitalize any author names or titles in the lead-in, as well.

• Place the citation at the end of the quote, if you are using in quote citations.
• Arendt does not see totalitarianism as a positive result of war: “Totalitarianism is to be feared and loathed” ( On Totalitarianism , 54).
• Hamlet is doubtful of Rosencrantz's view, claiming he could be “bounded in a nutshell” and still feel powerful, “a king of infinite space” ( Hamlet , 2.2).

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• ↑ https://www.ccis.edu/offices/academicresources/writingcenter/essaywritingassistance/suggestedwaystointroducequotations.aspx
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/quotations/
• ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/quoliterature/
• ↑ https://www.albright.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Adding-Lead-Ins-Before-a-Quote.pdf
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/using_research/quoting_paraphrasing_and_summarizing/signal_and_lead_in_phrases.html

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Signal and Lead-in Phrases

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In most citation styles, including APA, MLA, and Chicago style, you can add variety to your research writing by not always using the same sentence structure to introduce quotations, paraphrases, or pieces of information borrowed from different sources. It is relatively simple to use a wide variety of different expressions to introduce both direct and indirect citations. These expressions, which usually occur in the parts of sentences that come just before quotes and paraphrases, are called signal phrases (or, in some cases,  lead-in phrases ). 

Often, signal phrases can be distinguished by the presence of a verb like "indicate" or "argue" that references what the author is doing in the original source. However, a few select signal phrases contain no verbs (e.g., "According to [author],").

In the examples below, the author being cited is Jane Doe. The examples in the first section are adapted to APA, which recommends past-tense verbs  in signal phrases. For MLA (as well as Chicago style), the same verbs can also be used in the present tense instead of the past tense, as the second section below shows. 

Be sure each signal phrase verb matches your intention for the in-text citation. Read the whole sentence after you finish to ensure that the signal phrase grammatically coheres with any content that follows the quote or paraphrase.

Expressing Disagreement with a Signal Phrase

Of course, some quotes and paraphrases express disagreement or negative opinions. In these cases, be sure that any verbs in the signal phrase match the nature of the quote or paraphrase. See the examples below.

Doe rejected  the claim that nature is more important than nurture.

Doe denied  the claim that nature is more important than nurture.

Doe refutes  the claim that nature is more important than nurture.

Doe disputes  the claim that nature is more important than nurture.

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Writing, Introduction Paragraph, Hooks and Lead-ins

https://bid4papers.com/blog/hook-for-essay/

How to Write a Good Hook for Your Essay

“You have to make choices even when there is nothing to choose from.”                                                                                               ― Péter Zilahy

And you have to find perfect hooks for an essay even when you don’t know what to write about.

When you are asked to write an essay, it doesn’t mean that you don’t get to express your own thoughts and creativity. An essay shouldn’t be boring or too formal. As a writer, your first priority is to make sure that you are keeping your audience in mind and writing for them and to them. That means grabbing and keeping their attention so that they want to read every word.

This is exactly why the essay hook exists and is such an important tool.

An essay hook is the first one or two sentences of your essay. It serves as an introduction and works to grab the reader’s attention. The first couple sentences will help your reader decide whether they want to continue reading your essay or not.

The use of hooks in writing goes far beyond just essays and college papers. Every writer, copywriter, screenwriter, and storyteller uses this device to draw in readers and keep them hooked. For example, world-famous ad executive,  David Ogilvy , relied on a list of 29 “ magic words ” that he used in titles in order to hook a client’s attention.

College essay hooks can be difficult to generate, especially when you are still working on clarifying what your essay is going to say. So, the very first step in writing a strong essay hook is to do some planning.

Consider the overall presentation of your work:

• What type of essay are you writing?
• What type of writing style and tone will you need to use?
• Who is your intended audience?
• What kind of structure do you need to establish?

Essay hooks ideas

• A literary quote

This type of hook is appropriate when you are writing about a particular author, story, literary phenomenon, book, etc. Using a quote will make your essay sound fresh and establish your authority as an author.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” These words of Nick Carraway perfectly describe…”

“Not all those who wander are lost.” And yes, indeed, every person is so…”

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” Agree or not, but these words from The Alchemist determine…”

• Quotes from Famous People

Including a quote from an authoritative and influential person can help support your argument and create an intriguing hook. The key is to make sure that you clearly show how the quote is relevant to your essay.

“John Wooden once said, ‘Never mistake activity for achievement.'”

“Learn to laugh” were the first words from my kindergarten teacher after Ralph Thorsen spilled paint on my daffodil picture.

Don’t be afraid to employ this type of hook. Remember, even if you start with a humorous anecdote, it doesn’t mean that your entire essay has to be funny. A bit of humor can help you grab readers’ attention and spark their interest in the topic.

“As my cousin and I pedaled our new bikes to the beach, 6 years old, suntanned and young, we met an old, shaggy-haired man weaving unsteadily on a battered old bike.”

“When I was a young boy, my father worked at a coal mine. For 27 years, he made it his occupation to scrape and claw and grunt his way into the bowels of the earth, searching for fuel. On April 19, 2004, the bowels of the earth clawed back.”

Keep in mind that most essay assignments will ask you to avoid using the first person. Be sure to check any requirements before using “I” in your writing.

• Pose a Question

Almost nothing can attract interest better than a well-constructed question. Readers will want to continue reading your essay in order to discover the answer. Be sure to avoid simple “Yes” or “No” questions and try to pose questions that ask reader to consider the other side or engage in some critical thinking.

“What would you do if you could play God for a day? That’s exactly what the leaders of the tiny island nation of Guam tried to answer.”

“Have you ever wondered, whether Anna Karenina still loved Alexei if she hadn’t decided to commit a suicide?”

• Set a Scene

People respond well to visual cues. Taking the time to set a detailed scene will help your reader have a clear picture in their minds and create an effective hook. You can describe an incident or detail the particular features of a person or a character to help the readers become immersed in your writing.

“The day of his birth began with Hurricane Charlie pounding at our door in Charleston, South Carolina.”

“Deciding to attend Hampton Roads Academy, a private school, was one of my most difficult decisions.”

• Include an Interesting Fact or Definition

These types of hooks start by surprising the reader with something that may not have known. Provide an interesting fact about something you are going to discuss in your essay’s body and your audience will want to keep reading to learn more.

“Spain, though hardly a literary juggernaut, translates more books in one year than the entire Arab world has in the past one thousand years.”

“Amiable is the best way to describe Elizabeth’s personality: she was friendly and caring.”

• State Your Thesis

There is no harm in getting right to the point. Start with your main argument and use the rest of your essay to support your point of view. If you have an interesting take on a subject, readers will want to see where you came up with your idea.

“It is time, at last, to speak the truth about Thanksgiving, and the truth is this. Thanksgiving is really not such a terrific holiday. . .”

“Humans need to invest more time and money into space exploration because Earth is on a certain path to destruction.”

• Reveal a Common Misconception

The most interesting essays will teach the readers something new. If you start your introduction by showing that a commonly accepted truth is actually false, your readers will be instantly hooked.

“Any parent will tell you that goldfish are a great first pet for a child. They hardly need any attention, and they won’t be around for too long. Flushing a goldfish in its first week is pretty common—it even happened to my first goldfish. But it turns out that goldfish aren’t as helpless as we all think.”

“While most coffee enthusiasts would tell you that their favorite drink comes from a bean, they would be wrong. Coffee is actually made from a seed that is simply called a bean.”

By listing proven facts at the very beginning of your paper, you will create interest that can be carried throughout the rest of the essay.

“The average iceberg weighs over 100,000 metric tons.”

“70% of all jobs found today were got through different networking strategies”

Depending on the style of essay you are writing (narrative, persuasive, personal, critical, argumentative, deductive, etc.), the type of hook you will want to use will vary. Remember, your essay hook is just a tip of an iceberg and it will not guarantee that the rest of your essay will work. Be sure to  organize your research  and start with an outline before deciding on the best hook to start your essay. The right choice can make your paper truly interesting and worth reading.

Investigations

Most Minnesota charter schools are failing to make good on their promises

Minnesota created charter schools to be more independent than their public school counterparts, allowing them to innovate and better help struggling students. But the lack of oversight often leads to financial mismanagement and fewer resources when things go wrong.

By Mara Klecker and

Jeffrey Meitrodt

The idea, born in Minnesota, was a daring one: Create an entirely new type of public school, independent and unshackled from the constraints of traditional bureaucracy.

These charter schools would be led by teachers and community members. They would be incubators for new ideas and methods. They would boost the academic achievement of students struggling in regular schools.

The model spread quickly after City Academy opened in St. Paul in 1992. Today, 45 other states have embraced charter schools. Major foundations, including the Walton Family Foundation and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have invested billions of dollars in these educational alternatives. Nearly 1 of every 13 public school students in the U.S. attends a charter school.

In some places, especially the Northeast, charters have delivered the kind of results advocates dreamed of decades ago — even for the most economically disadvantaged students and their families.

But Minnesota’s charter schools, which cost taxpayers more than $1 billion last year, are largely failing to make good on most of their promises.

The state’s charter school students are far less likely to meet grade-level standards for math or reading than their peers in traditional public schools. Just 13 of 203 charters have consistently exceeded the state average in math and reading proficiency since 2016, when regulators began implementing a new accountability system. At 14 charter schools, not a single student was proficient in math in the 2023-24 school year. At nine charters that same year, attendance rates were below 20%.

The Minnesota Department of Education does not include academic proficiency when evaluating charter schools, and financial oversight of these taxpayer-supported schools is almost nonexistent. At least 18 charter schools closed after allegations of fraud or other misconduct on the part of employees. Dozens of other charters, plagued by financial mismanagement, have closed over the past three decades, including four failures this year alone. Some of those schools closed in the middle of the year, forcing students and their parents to scramble.

“They promised these schools would be better,” said University of Minnesota professor Myron Orfield, an early supporter turned critic who has been researching charter schools since 2008. “The vast majority are really bad. Many of them are so bad they never should have opened. We shouldn’t continue to allow that.”

Advocates note that many charter schools in Minnesota attract students who flounder in other schools. Charter school students are twice as likely to be people of color and three times as likely to be English learners, state records show. But the rates of charter school students living in poverty and those receiving special education services are comparable to public school districts.

Some charter school advocates admit they are failing the children who most need them.

“Charter schools are day cares,” said Don Allen, the outgoing director of LoveWorks Academy for Arts, a Minneapolis charter where more than 90% of the students are Black and just 2% of the students were proficient in math last year. “This is probably the lowest depth that charter schools have fallen.”

A 2023 study from Stanford University, touted as the most comprehensive national analysis of charter school students ever conducted, found that academic progress in Minnesota’s charter schools ranked in the middle of the 30 states evaluated. Some states saw academic gains up to 10 times that of Minnesota.

Native American students in charter schools fared the worst in Minnesota, actually losing ground academically compared with Native students attending schools in their home districts.

Minnesota’s track record is so dismal that many of the large foundations that support charter schools have abandoned them, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into other states.

“They got frustrated with the lack of quality and the lack of growth,” said Jennifer Stern, chief executive officer of Great MN Schools, a Minneapolis nonprofit that invests in promising schools.

State officials delegate most regulatory chores of charter schools to the nonprofits and educational organizations that serve as so-called authorizers, who are supposed to hold charter schools accountable for their performance but also guarantee their autonomy.

The state’s main role is evaluating the authorizers, but the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) has terminated just one of the more than 50 groups that have played this role — and that organization supervised two of the best charter schools in Minnesota.

The academic performance of those schools was not part of the review process, and MDE officials say they do not plan to include student proficiency in the next round of reviews, which began this summer. Assistant Commissioner Daron Korte said state officials were concerned that such evaluations could affect equity by discouraging schools from recruiting poor or diverse students.

“If you are evaluating authorizers based on the academic performance of their charter schools, they are going to be incentivized to authorize charter schools that they know are going to be high performing,” Korte said.

Former Anoka-Hennepin Schools Superintendent Dennis Carlson, who has run the state’s largest public district and its biggest charter school, said Minnesota is failing at every level, from state officials to school leaders.

“They all bear some responsibility,” Carlson said. “To me, there is enough blame to go around.”

‘Innovation for innovation’s sake’

Charter schools were established to spur innovation in education, driven primarily by teachers who wanted the freedom to try approaches that didn’t exist in traditional districts.

Because of charter schools, Minnesota students now have an extraordinary range of public school options.

Some charters celebrate the performing arts. Others offer project-based curriculum focused on the environment. Many target specific populations, such as the Somali-American community or Native Americans, and teachers often look like their students.

There are language immersion charter schools in Chinese, German, Hmong, Russian, Spanish and Ojibwe. There are classical academies that prioritize critical thinking and career-oriented schools focusing on science, technology, engineering and math. Some schools cater to students who are at risk of dropping out.

Traditional public schools have adopted some of those ideas, too, with magnet schools boasting language immersion, STEM curriculum or culturally specific themes.

“If you don’t have charter schools, you don’t have a place to experiment with education,” said Ellis Runion, a teacher at the recently shuttered Upper Mississippi Academy in St. Paul. “But there’s not a lot of room for experimentation when you’re in triage all the time.”

From the outset, Minnesota charters have been hobbled by state rules that push many of them to rent second-rate locations — including church basements, strip malls and industrial parks — that turn off parents and hinder enrollment. Unlike other states, where collaboration is common, Minnesota’s schools largely operate independently, which means they often don’t have the resources they need to survive a crisis. The schools get about 70% of the funding that goes to regular schools.

The state does not require leaders to hold an administrative license, which means many charter schools have been run by inexperienced administrators and overseen by unqualified board members who routinely rubber-stamp bad decisions. Sometimes that means dealing with financial mistakes. In other cases, schools continue to operate after misconduct ranging from fraud and racial discrimination to self-dealing.

Several veteran charter school directors say that in authorizing new charters, Minnesota has put too much emphasis on innovation and not enough on ensuring quality education.

“What is needed most is not a cute new idea,” said Brad White, who now works as an education consultant, training school leaders across the country. “What is most needed are quality schools that make sure kids are ready for life after K-12.”

White founded a Colorado school in 2013 after spending a year apprenticing with a network that operates more than a dozen charters in the Denver area. His school earned a coveted National Blue Ribbon designation in 2019, the same year White left to begin organizing a new charter school in Minnesota.

But White said Minnesota officials were not interested in seeing him replicate his success in the state. They wanted something different.

In Denver, White had the support of the public school system, which not only steered students to him but also helped him obtain $22 million to renovate his long-empty building.

In Minneapolis, White couldn’t even get the school system to meet with him to discuss renting one of the district’s three empty school buildings. The district has labeled those buildings — all still on the market — off-limits to charters. The district has said it won’t accept purchase offers that “hinder or compete” with Minneapolis Public Schools’ mission, goals or operations.

White eventually settled for a vacant church school in St. Paul, which cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars in foundation support because his Minneapolis funders were not interested in Ramsey County schools.

Then, a third of his 65 students switched schools at the last minute, the kind of enrollment swing common at many charter schools in Minnesota.

White decided to close the school. It had been open for less than two weeks.

“It shouldn’t be easy to start a quality charter school — it also shouldn’t be impossible,” White said.

This fall, two struggling Spanish immersion schools will merge to improve their odds of survival and hopefully boost their anemic academic performance.

“We are trying to figure out how we can provide academic excellence and academic rigor above everything else,” said Katie Groh de Aviña, executive director of El Colegio High School in Minneapolis, where enrollment and test scores have been stubbornly low. “Right now we are not showing it.”

Norma Garcés, who ran El Colegio before taking over St. Paul’s Academia Cesar Chavez in 2021, said the founders of El Colegio never reached out to the community to see if local families wanted another Spanish immersion school.

“Charter schools fall apart because they don’t understand the market they are going to serve,” said Garces, a 12-year veteran of charter schools. “Some people are doing innovation for innovation’s sake. They think people will come because your idea is great.”

Success as the exception

A few Minnesota charter schools have consistently delivered strong academic results and proven financially stable.

Often their student demographics are similar to those of the best-performing traditional public schools, generally white and wealthier. But a few have built successful models to serve a more diverse student body.

Eagle Ridge Academy, founded two decades ago, struggled with some of the same things that doomed other charters, including an unaffordable lease. But school leaders found a way around the problem, creating an affiliate to buy a property — the only way Minnesota charters can own their school buildings.

The school grew slowly, adding grades as enrollment stabilized. It’s now one of the largest charters in the state, serving more than 1,500 students. And it’s been intentional about attracting more diverse families, building a student population that is now mostly students of color. Nearly a third of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, triple the rate of the surrounding Minnetonka public school district.

Before moving to a sprawling campus in Minnetonka in 2016, school leaders conducted a market study to determine the local community’s wants and needs — something lawmakers didn’t require of Minnesota charters until last year.

“There was a demand for this type of school so enrollment was never a problem for us,” said Jason Ulbrich, Eagle Ridge’s executive director.

Demand has remained high, likely because of Eagle Ridge’s strong record of academic performance: It has beaten state proficiency benchmarks more than almost any other charter in the state. Eagle Ridge’s waitlist is now 1,200 strong, a sharp contrast to the three dozen charters that enroll fewer than 100 students and often struggle to meet enrollment targets.

“It’s usually the small charters that are less stable because they are like a small business,” Ulbrich said. “Small businesses always just have their heads barely above the water.”

Eagle Ridge’s authorizer is Friends of Education, which oversees many of the state’s other top-performing charters, and has also taken a tough-love approach. No other authorizer has shut down as many schools for failing to meet expectations.

Of the 23 charters approved by the group, half were closed or never opened. Some were terminated because of low academic performance. Others weren’t allowed to open because they didn’t attract enough students.

“Operating a charter is a privilege, not a right,” said Beth Topoluk, executive director of Friends of Education. “And it is a privilege that must be continuously earned.”

‘Nobody is trying to help them’

According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Minnesota operates more independent charters than any other state with a significant number of such schools. That means they don’t have partners that can provide the financial safety net and operational expertise that is far more common in other states where large school networks dominate.

It didn’t start that way. Initially, only traditional districts could sponsor a charter school in Minnesota, and some were early and enthusiastic partners. But after a wave of charter school scandals forced the state to tighten regulation and increased scrutiny of authorizers in 2009, most traditional districts dropped out.

Just two public districts — Northfield and Chisago Lakes — still supervise charters in Minnesota.

Most regular districts now treat charters as the enemy, drawing away students and state funding.

Teachers unions initially supported the charter school movement. But they’ve largely soured on charter schools, blaming them for undermining traditional districts while not being held to the same standards.

Education Minnesota, the statewide teachers union that represents more than 80,000 educators, has called for a moratorium on new charters, saying the state needs to improve oversight to make sure the schools are meeting “minimum standards.”

Bernadeia Johnson said she ran into significant opposition from the teachers union when she tried to help charter schools during her four-year tenure as superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools.

“Any gesture that I made was seen as a way to kill the district that I worked for,” said Johnson, who stepped down in 2015. Charter schools, she said, “are allowed to fail. Nobody is trying to help them.”

The Stanford study noted that academic progress was “significantly accelerated” for students enrolled in network schools compared with stand-alone charters.

“The institutional knowledge that networks provide can be a critical factor in making sure the kids attending those schools have a better experience,” said James Woodworth, who co-authored the Stanford report.

In Richfield, Horizon Science Academy Twin Cities came close to shutting down in 2022 when enrollment fell to 62 students and the school’s deficit topped $200,000. But because the school is part of a network operated by Concept Schools in Illinois, it was able to borrow $1.8 million to subsidize its operations while hiring a recruiter to boost enrollment in the Somali American community.

The school expected 250 students this fall when it added a seventh grade and it won’t have to make any loan payments until 2029.

“Without Concept, this school would have closed,” said Stephen West, who oversees two Concept schools in Minnesota.

Other charter networks have deliberately avoided Minnesota, worried about the state’s unusual requirement that all charter school board members be elected from within the school community. Charter advocates say that rule has resulted in weak boards, usually dominated by teachers and parents, who often yield power to ineffective school leaders. Other states allow authorizers to appoint or approve board members.

“Charter school boards are not doing their jobs,” said Ember Reichgott Junge, a former DFL state senator from New Hope who wrote Minnesota’s pioneering charter legislation. “They don’t understand fiduciary duties. They don’t understand that if a school is not performing on tests, the board is responsible for that, not just the executive director or the principal of the school.”

In Green Isle, southwest of the Twin Cities metro, leaders of the small town’s only school — a charter that opened in 2004 — decided the best way to boost enrollment was to open a day care center in 2018, figuring it would funnel students into the elementary program. But the move backfired and school enrollment dropped to just 39 students.

The board of Green Isle Community School decided to close this year after two years of mounting deficits, which they linked to day care costs. Last year, the school spent more money on administrative costs than teacher salaries.

Green Isle Mayor Shane Sheets, whose two stepchildren attended the school, blamed the closing on “really poor financial oversight.” Sheets said he’s saddened that the town is losing its largest employer and worried about the community’s future.

“If we are closing our school,” he said, “who is going to want to have a business here?”

State rules enable ‘imprudent decisions’

Minnesota is also the only state that bars charter schools from using state money to buy school buildings. That means most schools have to rent space, but with many districts refusing to lease empty schools to charters, administrators often have to take whatever they can find.

That was a problem at Rise Academy in St. Paul, which agreed to move into an industrial park far from the families it wanted to serve, according to board Vice Chair Karen Tarrant. The school — formerly known as College Prep Elementary — was able to survive for years under the direction of its popular founder, but it entered into slow decline when he left, Tarrant said. It closed this spring.

School officials said they expected more help from their authorizer, the Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools, when the school’s finances started to unravel in 2022.

Records show the guild kept renewing the school’s contract despite expressing concerns about its “lack of financial sustainability.” The organization, in a 2021 state review, had one of the lowest ratings among Minnesota authorizers, triggering state-mandated action to address its deficiencies.

Meanwhile, Rise Academy continued to flounder.

“They came to the meeting when we voted to close and I asked, ‘What kind of help could you give?’” Tarrant said. “They kind of shrugged their shoulders and said, ‘You’ll figure it out.’”

Jim Zacchini, executive director of the guild, said the organization warned school officials for five years about the potential consequences of “declining enrollment and high teacher attrition.” Zacchini said the guild also offered to pay for the services of a fiscal planning consultant in February, but he said administrators “chose not to act upon this offer.”

“Despite multiple warnings from the Guild, the board failed to recognize the financial issues that were their own duty to oversee,” Zacchini said in a written response to questions. He also noted that the guild addressed the weaknesses cited by the MDE and was removed from corrective action in late 2022.

Other authorizers said that state law requires them to give charter school leaders wide latitude over how the schools operate — and the state has penalized them for infringing on a school’s autonomy.

“Charter school autonomy allows charter schools to make imprudent decisions as long as they are not illegal,” said Topoluk at Friends of Education, Minnesota’s highest-rated authorizer. “Everyone has good intentions, but that doesn’t mean they have the capacity to do this.”

One of the biggest mistakes charter schools make is renting more space than needed. Hiawatha Academies in Minneapolis closed two of its five schools in recent years to save money when leaders realized their enrollment projections were off by more than 1,000 students.

But Hiawatha continues to struggle. In April, more than 100 students walked out of Hiawatha Collegiate High School to protest the firing of seven teachers and other personnel moves aimed at closing a $1 million budget hole. The schools’ authorizer also put it on probation this year after four years of declining academic performance.

“I don’t want to see the school get shut down or go downhill,” said Sarah Ragoonanan, a senior who led the protest. “But I don’t think the board is making decisions right now that are in the best interests of us.”

Charter advocates wish more authorizers would hold schools accountable for their academic failures and help school leaders find ways to deliver on charters’ original promise.

“We should not let schools fail kids indefinitely,” said Stern at Great MN Schools.

Click here  to read more of this investigation and watch a video about charter schools.

about the writers

Mara klecker.

Mara Klecker covers Minneapolis K-12 schools for the Star Tribune. She previously reported on the suburbs of the Twin Cities. Before coming to the Star Tribune, she was the social services reporter at the Omaha World-Herald. 

Jeffrey Meitrodt is an investigative reporter for the Star Tribune who specializes in stories involving the collision of business and government regulation. 

More from Investigations

How minnesota’s charter school experiment is failing students.

Minnesota created charter schools to spur innovation. Closures and low academic proficiency have plagued them.

How Rhode Island’s charter schools succeeded where Minnesota’s failed

Rhode Island leads the nation in charter school performance. Advocates say adopting some of Rhode Island’s methods might help Minnesota’s struggling charter school system.

'Emilia Pérez' Review: Three Great Performances Lead Jacques Audiard’s Ambitious but Flawed Netflix Melodrama | TIFF 2024

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Jacques Audiard has never made two films alike, with each new endeavor a completely new exploration of entirely new genres and experiences. From making one of the greatest crime dramas of the 21st century with A Prophet , creating a Western dramedy in The Sisters Brothers , or a unique take on the romantic drama with Rust and Bone , Audiard always makes sure each film is unlike what you’ve seen from him before. While Audiard usually seems to latch onto a specific new genre and try to master it, his latest, Emilia Pérez , is arguably his most ambitious film so far, one that refuses to fit into a particular box, a musical drug cartel drama with a transgender affirmation story, all blended with a melodramatic telenovela style. No one would ever say Audiard isn’t daring, and Emilia Pérez is certainly a strong example of this, yet despite three strong female lead performances—including one of the best of the year— it's a film that bites off more than it can effectively chew.

What Is 'Emilia Pérez' About?

Rita ( Zoe Saldaña ) is a lawyer for a major law firm, yet is under-appreciated in her job, assisting her teammates while not getting any of the credit. After a mysterious phone call one day, she is kidnapped and brought to meet a Mexican cartel leader, Juan “Manitas” Del Monte ( Karla Sofia Gascón ) who needs her help. Manitas wants to leave the country and have sex reassignment surgery, a desire had since childhood. Manitas wants Rita to find the best place to do this major life change quickly and effectively, but also have Manitas’ wife, Jessi Del Monte ( Selena Gomez ), and their children set up for a life without their father and husband. But even after Rita succeeds at helping Manitas become Emilia Pérez (also played by Gascón) and moving Jessi’s family to Switzerland, Rita, Emilia, and Jessi are intertwined in ways they never expected.

Audiard wisely centers this film around these three fantastic female performances , each of which is daring and surprising in its own way. Despite finding massive success at the box office, we’ve never seen Saldaña so free and playful as we do here, with many of the bigger, bombastic musical numbers centered around her. Her opening number sets up the wild shifts in styles that Audiard is going for, and some of the broader songs allow her to really strap in and have a blast. One sequence has Saldaña’s Rita singing in a plastic surgery office to a song called “La Vaginoplastia,” while another has her gyrating and mocking throwing money at rich people. With these three stories intersecting, Saldaña has the most opportunities to let loose and embrace the over-the-top nature of Audiard’s vision fully , and it’s a delight to see Saldaña get a role like this that she can truly sink her teeth into.

The same can be said about Selena Gomez’s Jessi , which gives the actress one of her most mature performances yet, as she’s thrown into a role at extremes. Jessi begins as Manitas’ wife, then goes to mourning her husband, followed by changing her life’s situation, then potentially falling for another man with a questionable background ( Édgar Ramírez as Gustavo Brun). Gomez may not get quite the same amount of attention that the other two actresses receive, yet she makes the most of this rich role in the moments we do focus on her.

Karla Sofia Gascón Gives a Star-Making Performance in 'Emilia Pérez'

But the real standout here is Gascón in a remarkable performance of discovery, struggle, and becoming who Manitas was always meant to be. Even though Emilia Pérez is playing with melodrama and grand ideas—especially in her segments of the film—Gascón always grounds the role of the title character with strength, reserve, and subtle power over everything. As Manitas, Gascón is an intimidating figure who gets what they want, and when the transformation to Emilia Pérez is complete, we still feel the power they hold, even though the character is trying to distance themselves from their cartel past. Again, Gascón is thrown into many larger-than-life situations and story beats, but excels at all of them. We know the pain that this character can inflict, but we also see the love and care Pérez has in this new phase of her life. Especially when Gascón interacts with her children in the film as Emilia, the film finds a touching emotional core that centers this often wild story into something real and heartbreaking. Gascón plants this film into very honest emotions and concepts, and gives a commanding performance that will go down as one of the year’s best.

'Emilia Pérez' Might Be Too Ambitious For Its Own Good

And yet, it’s the overabundance of ideas within Audiard’s latest that holds this film back , attempting to do a lot, and spreading itself too thin. Emilia Pérez is the first film Audiard has written on his own, a story which began as a four-act opera libretto, and was loosely based on the 2018 novel “Écoute” from Boris Razon . It’s impossible not to admire how daring Audiard’s story is, with a narrative that will shift and evolve into something else every 15 minutes or so. But because of that, Emilia Pérez can sometimes feel more like a genre deconstruction and attempt to flow so many different types of films together in a way that never quite becomes cohesive. As previously stated, Audiard has always tried something new with each subsequent film, but with Emilia Pérez , it’s like he wants to try that same level of ambitious genre-hopping every few minutes.

This, unfortunately, mostly hurts the musical side of the film. There are large stretches of Emilia Pérez that are without songs, almost as if Audiard has forgotten he’s attempting a musical. When the film is a musical, songs often stop and start without leaving much of an impact, and sadly, the songs by Camille and score by Clément Ducol are mostly forgettable. There are some exceptions, as with the emotional “Papa,” in which Pérez’s son sings to her about his deceased father, and the staging of the musical sequences are always impressive. But when they’re done extremely well and the songs are hitting just right, it only highlights how often the musical elements seem almost like an afterthought. For a film so daring and inventive, it’s disappointing that the musical aspect of Emilia Pérez never soars to meet this film’s ambitions.

As an always exciting auteur who has deserved more attention for decades, Emilia Pérez is an excellent calling card for Audiard, a film that truly spotlights everything he’s capable of doing as a remarkable director. Audiard has also thrived at getting incredible performances out of actors, such as Tahar Rahim ’s breakthrough in A Prophet , one of Marion Cotillard ’s finest achievements in Rust and Bone , and Antonythasan Jesuthasan ’s powerful performance in the Palme d’Or-winning Dheepan , and he continues this trend with this brilliant trio of Saldaña, Gomez, and Gascón, each of which should deservedly receive attention come award season. But Audiard’s attempt to pack this story with so many directions and ideas doesn’t always coalesce into a satisfying whole, exploring the absurdities of melodrama and Mexican telenovelas effectively, but cramming to many other styles in as well. Emilia Pérez is doing a lot and often doing it quite well, but not all of these pieces fit together as well as they should.

Emilia Perez

Emilia Pérez boasts a remarkable trifecta of performances, but Jacques Audiard's ambitious project tries to do a bit too much.

• Karla Sofia Gascón gives a star-making performance that should make a splash in award season.
• Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez get to flex acting muscles they never have before.
• Jacques Audiard gets to embrace his penchant for trying out new genres.
• But Audiard's playfulness means some parts of the film aren't as effective as others.
• The musical moments are well-shot, but the songs themselves are mostly unmemorable.

Emilia Pérez screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. It's available to stream on Netflix in the U.S. starting November 13.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

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