1. The Introductory Paragraph

2. What is the purpose of the
introductory paragraph?
• Get the reader’s attention
• Set tone for the rest of the essay
• Make a contract with the reader - what
will be covered in this piece?

3. The Parts of the Introductory Paragraph
• The Hook - Designed to grab attention
immediately and give some indication about
the essay’s topic
• The Transition - Moves the reader from the
hook to the driving force of the essay….
• The Thesis - Makes the contract with the
reader about what will be discussed without
a blatant announcement.

4. Types of Hooks

5. Personal Examples
• Provides strong, dramatic incidents to use. Honesty
in expressing thoughts and feelings will ring true
with the reader. While you can make up the personal
experience, be careful that it sounds credible.
• Personal observation - different from a personal
example, an observation is something you saw
happening.

6. Example 1
On Friday, February 19, 2000, life changed
for an eighteen-year-old young man. He became
very ill from a bacterial infection. His body could
not fight the infection. Why? After a week of tests
and examinations by several specialists, the
diagnosis was made. He had leukemia, a cancer of
the bone marrow. I am that young man. When a
person finds out that he has cancer, just as I did,
his whole world changes. A cancer patient is
affected physically, psychologically, and socially
by the impact of cancer.

7. Example 2
One morning a young mother had her seven-month
old son in his stroller under the peach tree near the family
pool. She walked to the kitchen to get a knife so she could
peel the peach for him. Ten seconds later, she found him
facedown with the stroller at the bottom of the pool. She
immediately pulled him out and administered CPR to her
son. If she had been gone any longer, he might have been
one of the statistics that plague our country every year.
These child drownings could be greatly reduced if parents
never left their children unattended around water, if pools
were properly fenced, and if other safety devices were
installed in or by the pool.

8. Using Quotations
• Content of quote should be:
–
–
–
–
Dramatic
Emotionally appealing
Surprising
Humorous
• Quote does not have to be from a famous
person
• Must be relevant to thesis statement

9. Example 1
• “The mind is its own place, and in itself can
make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” This
thought by John Milton was recorded over four
hundred years ago, but it is still timely for us
today. He seems to be saying that we are the
ones to control our lives. We can be miserable
when things are going well, just as we can be
happy when things are going wrong. With this
thought in mind, we can control the way we face life
through our attitude, our determination, and our
ability.

10. Example 2
“I am stupid. I am never going back to school.” These are the
words spoken by a learning disabled child when he was in
first grade. He cried as he slowly walked to his bedroom,
shredding his schoolwork into small pieces. This was the
first of many times when he and his parents would feel
frustrated because there was nothing that they could do.
Parents of children with learning disabilities have often felt
unprepared to help their children with their handicaps and
frustrated with attempts to seek the proper placement of
them in the public-school system. The experience of school
can be overwhelming for children who have trouble
learning. The learning disabled student in the public
educational system must deal with academic, social, and
emotional problems.

11. Using Facts or Statistics
• Must be startling or unusual
• Must be from a credible source
• Use journal as a place to record both quotes and
facts or statistics that might work for an
introduction

12. Example 1
In the desert regions of Arizona, solar homes
date back to the pre-Columbian Indians. These
people carefully designed their homes in the
recesses of south-facing cliffs to receive the
warmth of the winter sun. In the summer,
shade was provided by overhanging cliffs.
Today, as then, the desert-region solar home
must be carefully designed to use the sun
efficiently in the orientation, the exterior, and
the interior.

13. Example 2
According to an article in Family Safety & First Aid,
published by Berkley Books, “… every 45 seconds a
fire breaks out in an American home – 700,000
residences aflame each year. And 16 times a day
somebody dies in one of these burning homes.”
These statistics are frightening and should not be
taken lightly. The best way to deal with the
possibility of loss from fire is to plan ahead before it
happens. Otherwise, it is too late. In order not to
become one of these statistics, Americans need to
equip their homes with safety devices, set and
adhere to safety rules, and practice a family escape
plan.

14. Using Current Events
• Must be recent
• Must be important
• Should be made public by newspapers, television,
or radio

15. Example
This morning’s newspaper reported a man who had
shot his twenty-three-year-old girlfriend and her ninemonth-old child because he believed his girlfriend had
transmitted AIDS to him. In 1984, a nurse in Kokomo,
Indiana, refused to go into thirteen-year old Ryan
White’s hospital room because he had just been
diagnosed with AIDS, and in 1987, a bullet shattered his
home’s picture window, forcing Ryan and his family to
move to Cicero, Indiana, a community twenty miles
south. Though these incidents seem bizarre in civilized
America, many people fear AIDS because of the
consequences of the disease, the misinformation
concerning the disease, and the increasing number of
cases of the disease.

16. Using Contrast to the Thesis Statement
• In direct contrast to the thesis statement
• It’s fun to prove an expert wrong

17. Example
Since the middle 1940s, the female Cannabis sativa
plant, commonly known as marijuana, has been
classified by the United States government as a
Schedule I drug. This classification recognizes
marijuana as a dangerous narcotic, similar in
potency to heroin and possessing no redeeming
medicinal qualities. Research in the last few years,
however, has brought many new discoveries in
medicine relating to the possible uses of marijuana
to treat many different illnesses, including
glaucoma, cancer, and phantom limb pain suffered
by paraplegics and amputees.

18. A Body Paragraph

19. 1
Brainstorm
the topic
2
Make it more
specific
5
Source cards
Write down
your topic
3
4
Research
6
Note cards
8
7
MLA citations
Outline
Copy & paste works
cited page to back of
research paper
12
14
Thesis
sentence
Introductory
& concluding
paragraphs
11
13
Parenthetical citations
9
10
Works cited page
Body
paragraphs

20. • A body paragraph is the basic paragraph
of a research paper or an essay.
• Body paragraphs are all the paragraphs
between the introductory paragraph and
the conclusion.
• Body paragraphs support and prove your
thesis.
• You learned about them in middle
school:

21. Introduction
Body paragraph #1
Body paragraph #2
Body paragraph #3
Conclusion

22. We’re going to learn how to write an
effective body paragraph for a
research paper.
The body paragraph’s structure may
remind you of a certain food.
Which of these three is your favorite?

26. The McParagraph
logic:
Topic sentence
Topic
sentence
Support sentence 1
Support reason 1
Proof sentence 1
Support reason 2
Support sentence 2
Support reason 3
Conclusion
The McParagraph
sentences:
Proof sentence 2
Support sentence 3
Proof sentence 3
Concluding
sentence

27. Topic Sentences
• Topic sentences state the main idea of
the paragraph.
• The rest of the paragraph must expand
on, describe, or prove what the topic
sentence states in some way.
• A good topic sentence make a point and
suggests the logical structure of the rest
of the paragraph.
• In handout 1, match each topic sentence
with its logical structure.

28. Which are good topic sentences?
• Texas has 267,000 square miles.
• Texas is so big that you can find many
things to do.
• There are several ways of accurately telling
how old fossils are.
• The animal dies and sinks to the sea floor.
Do the exercises under “Practice 2” on pages
W-27 and W-28 in your notebook.

29. Topic sentence
Support sentence 1
Proof sentence 1
Now we’ll look
Now we’ll look
at support and
at support and
proof sentences
proof sentences
Support sentence 2
Proof sentence 2
Support sentence 3
Proof sentence 3
Concluding
sentence

30. • A topic sentence is the first sentence in
your body paragraph.
• A support sentence gives a reason in
support of the paragraph’s topic
sentence.
• A proof sentence proves a support
sentence by providing a detail or
quotation from a source.
• A conclusion (one sentence) refers back
to the topic, provides a logical closing,
and may provide a transition to the next
body paragraph.

31. What makes each sentence in the
following body paragraph what it is: a
topic, support, proof, or concluding
sentence?

32. The political success of Lincoln's speech - the last speech
in a series sponsored by the Young Men's Central Republican
Union of New York that winter (Holtzer 13) - had something to do
with timing and luck. A sizable number of Republican leaders
were worried that the front-running candidate, New York Senator
William Henry Seward, was perceived by the Northern electorate
as too close to the unpopular abolitionist movement (Holtzer 32).
“Lincoln’s best ally in the winter of 1860 was his lack of
association with the abolitionists in the mind of New Yorkers,”
according to Holtzer (32). Republicans were worried also that
Seward has little appeal in the West (Illinois, Ohio, etc.) (Burris
126). Burris asserts that “Indiana and Illinois Republicans
perceived Seward as an Eastern liberal” (127). Lincoln also
benefited from the political machinations of the speech series’s
sponsors. The Young Republicans planned the speech series
ostensibly to introduce alternative candidates to Seward, but the
real motivation of the group's leader, James A. Briggs, was to
damage Seward enough to promote his favorite alternative, Ohio
governor Salmon P. Chase (Holtzer 34). The Republican party’s
soul-searching and the secret motivations of the series sponsors
gave Lincoln the opening he needed.
Topic
Support
Proof
Support
Proof
Support
Proof

33. In handout 2, cut out the sentences.
Then arrange them correctly in the
order they would appear in a
paragraph. Glue or tape them onto a
sheet of colored paper in that order.
Finally, label each sentence as being a
topic sentence, a support sentence, a
proof sentence, or a concluding
sentence.

34. A Conclusion Paragraph

35. Conclusion Paragraph
• It is important to have a strong conclusion, since this is the
last chance you have to make an impression on your
reader.
• The goal of your conclusion isn’t to introduce any new
ideas, but to sum up everything you’ve written.
• Specifically, your conclusion should accomplish three
major goals:

36. Conclusion Paragraph
• Restate the main idea of your essay, or your
thesis statement
• Summarize the three sub-points of your essay
• Leave the reader with an interesting final
impression