What are the features of a good hook?
Long story short? You need to figure out . Then, you can craft a hook that perfectly leads into the rest of the work. Again, don’t underestimate how you can portray things mysteriously at the beginning of the essay to both showcase your creativity and to build reader interest!
It’s easier said than done, but a good hook for a personal statement helps to establish tone and focus or even what kind of person you are while setting up the rest of the statement. For instance, let’s say I am writing a statement for a university application and the prompt asks the writer to describe a time when they overcame a great challenge or obstacle. The hook for such an essay might go like this: “I found myself face down on the wet mud, covered in equal parts hot shame and cold dirt. Nobody was as surprised as me, though, when I began to get back up again.”
Here, we use to capture the reader’s imagination and really put them into the moment. In this case, the moment is one of great failure and humiliation. Crucially, though, part of the hook involves quite literally rising from this failure. This shows the admission committee what kind of person you are: one who may get knocked down 10 times but will get up 11.
What are the different types of quotes one can use for a hook?
Writing a good hook for an essay may seem particularly daunting when you are writing a personal narrative. By definition, a personal narrative is a story of your life. Therefore, good essay hooks for such narratives need to both get the readers’ attention and introduce you to readers as a sympathetic character.
Sometimes, it’s not easy to tell which kind of hook your essay needs. When this is the case, it can be helpful to write the rest of your essay, then come back to your and write the kind of hook that would make want to read that whole essay. Refer to your to ensure that it fits your essay goals.
It’s important that hooks for essays be well crafted, because in many cases, the reader won’t continue reading an essay if it doesn’t hold their interest. The hook grabs their attention and makes them want to read on.
What does this mean in practice? Rather than touching on much (if anything) about the outside world, a personal narrative hook should usually share something about you as a person. Ideally, this shouldn’t just be basic info. Instead, it should be something that reveals more intimate information about you to your reader.
What are the features of a good hook?
Because of this, you need to to match the rest of the statement. For example, if you are going to describe how you overcame an unforeseen challenge, a good hook might start with a moment of high tension before you present the challenge as it appeared to you at first: encompassing and insurmountable. This adds weight to the part of your statement where you describe overcoming what seemed to be impossible. Or if you’re building a , an intriguing image might pull us in.
What are the different types of quotes one can use for a hook?
Writing a personal narrative involves a high degree of vulnerability. You are letting readers see past your exterior and glimpse who you really are. Therefore, a good hook for such a narrative should lean into this emotional rawness while telling us more about who you are as a person. For example, such a hook may read, “Nothing was ever the same since my grandmother died. Or at least, nothing would ever be the same about me again.”
How do I write a hook for an essay?
There is obviously a kinship between the personal statement and the personal narrative. However, personal statements are generally about helping readers understand your values, insights, skills, qualities, and interests. Personal narratives, however, get more into how both the challenges and triumphs of your life have defined who you are as a person. And our hook above sets up a great personal tragedy that serves as a defining point of the writer’s life.
What is a good hook for an essay?
Good essay hooks can be particularly difficult when you are writing a (for an in-depth guide, head to that link). After all, when you are writing about someone else’s work, it can be daunting to try to come up with something very memorable on your own.
How do I write a hook for an argumentative essay?
One possible approach to this hook is the classic: “if you can’t beat’em, join’em.” For example, you could always begin your literary analysis with a quote from the literature in question. You then follow this up with interesting commentary that helps to contextualize the rest of your intro.