Think about the last time that you read an amazing essay -- something that you knew you had to finish even after reading just the first few lines. It does not happen all the time, but I love it when it does. Frankly, if something does not hook me from the beginning, my chances of reading it plummet. I believe that most people are like me in this regard. Generally speaking we know what we like. And yet, despit that, most of us stll struggle to write anything that anybody else would be interested in. One would think that it should be easy to just tell people “write something you would be interested in reading,” and that they would. But it rarely happens. Why is that?
I surely don't have all of the answers, but I do feel like yesterday I was able to come up with something of a formula that I hope will help my students. I pulled some really great books off of the shelf in my office (Different by Youngme Moon, How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, and The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene looked that their introductions. A pattern (maybe even a formula) quickly emerged.
So here it is:
A good essay starts with a story, which sets up a problem which then gets examined in the form of a question. The thesis then stands as an answer or possible answer to that question.
Go ahead. Pull some of your favorite non-fiction off of your shelf and take a look at it. I think that more times than not the authors of those books will begin with some type of illustrative story that presents a problem. They will probably then pose one or more questions associated with those problems. The introduction will probably close with a thesis that if you look closely will propose an answer to those questions.
The trick with something like a 1500 word (five page) paper is that you have to keep your intro quite short. But I believe it can be done.