How to Start an Essay: 5 Ways to Hook the Reader

Considering how to start an essay before diving straight into the introduction will help you hook the reader. 

Hooking the reader ensures that they’re motivated to continue reading your work. Needless to say, this is crucial. 

But how exactly do you hook the reader in an academic assignment? What strategies and tips can you use to begin your essay with a bang? 

In this article, I present five options that show you precisely how to start an essay. Each option will hook the reader and guarantee that they will continue reading. 

Then, I reveal some handy tips that will help you write compelling introductions in all of your essays, including how to use AI to your advantage.

First: What do we mean by “hook”?

The hook is a compelling opening statement that will likely engage the reader, encouraging them to continue reading. There are different types of hooks you might wish to include in an essay: 

• Question: Here, you ask the reader a direct question to encourage their participation in your assignment. This may help them to visualize your work or to see something from a different perspective. 
• Statistic: This is when you present a statistic to the reader in the first line. If the statistic is surprising or shocking, it will make them want to read more. 
• Anecdotal: Here, you can provide a short story or a scenario to paint a picture that the reader can relate to. An anecdotal hook requires creative writing and isn’t suitable if you want something short, snappy, and impactful. 
• Quotation: Another option is to hook the reader with a direct quotation from an authoritative source on the topic. Make sure the person you’re quoting is a trustworthy source, and check that it’s relevant to the thesis you’re presenting. 

If you don’t hook the reader, they will probably still read your essay. After all, the reader is likely to be your lecturer or professor, and they are required to read it to grade your work! 

This doesn’t mean that the hook isn’t important. On the contrary, your professor will be reading many assignments, potentially about the same topic. Therefore, if you start with an impressive hook, it will help your work stand out for the right reasons. 

Also, if you plan to publish an essay on a website or for peer review, a hook should be an essential part of your work.

How to start an essay: 5 options for stating your case

Whether you’re writing at the high school or college level, there’s more than one way to start an essay. You can begin by stating your thesis or with a quote from an academic that you hope to disprove. 

It’s important that you start your essay with the end in mind. In other words, make sure the beginning of your essay doesn’t contradict the conclusion. In this section, I show you some compelling ways to get things started. 

During my undergraduate degree in English Literature, I researched and wrote my dissertation about slave narratives. Therefore, I will use the topic of slave literature as an example throughout this article to show you how you how to start an essay related to this theme.

1: Begin with your thesis

A thesis is a statement in your assignment that you put forward to prove or disprove. In other words, it’s the central topic of your work, and you will engage with it throughout your essay. 

In most academic assignments, you must present both sides of the argument. You will present contrasting academic arguments that give balance and objectivity to your thesis. 

Therefore, starting your essay with a statement of your thesis is powerful. You can follow it up by stating how you plan to prove the thesis and which arguments you will present. 

For example: 

This essay will show that first-person slave narratives were a hugely beneficial literary tool to the abolitionist movements of the 18th and 19th centuries, helping slaves to secure their freedom. 

Your thesis must be concise and relevant to the topic in question. If you’re struggling to word your thesis but have a good idea in mind, use our thesis statement generator to help you. 

We also explain how to restate a thesis, which is a handy skill to know, as it will help you to end your essay strongly.

2: Use a quote

Some academics may caution you against using a quote to begin your essay. After all, is it a good idea to use someone else’s work to open your essay? 

I think that it can be a compelling opening when used correctly. For it to work, you must follow it up with a reason why you presented the quote. You can’t just begin with a quote and move on to a different topic entirely. 

For instance: 

“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave,” wrote Frederick Douglass at the height of the abolitionist movement. This is pertinent, given that, as this essay will show, educated slaves who produced slave narratives changed the course of history and helped to free themselves from legal slavery in the United States. 

I would spend time researching various quotations from excellent sources. Don’t just use any quotation you think might be relevant. To open your essay with a quote, it should: 

• Capture the reader’s attention. 
• Be relevant to your thesis. 
• Be from a trustworthy and high-profile source. 
• Not be too long – keep it brief, ideally under 20 words. 
• Help you make a crucial point. 

As I explain later in this article, you might consider leaving the introduction until you’ve finished writing the bulk of your essay. You can then pick relevant quotes from a source you’ve used several times to bring everything together. 

If you’re using quotes in your essay, make sure you know how to reference them correctly, be it in the APA, Chicago, or other styles. Read our blog post on using et al. for details on how to include multiple quotations from the same source.

3: Hook the reader with a shocking statistic

Deciding how to start an essay involves considering how to hook the reader. Is there anything you can present in the first line that will shock them? Perhaps there’s a statistic you’re aware of that will encourage them to read on. For instance: 

15 million men, women, and children died as a direct result of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, spanning 400 years, leaving a black stain on human history. However, eloquently written slave narratives provide a fresh perspective on this dark chapter, presenting the world from the viewpoint of those ruthlessly victimized and sold into bondage.

Ensure that the statistic is relevant to your thesis and take it from a trusted source. It’s a brilliant way to set up some of the arguments you plan to make in the essay; if it’s compelling, it will likely hook the reader.

4: Pose a question

Beginning your essay with a rhetorical question is a smart technique that gets the reader thinking. It encourages them to consider the direction you’re planning to take with your writing.

Also, when you ask a direct question, you’re encouraging them to think about an answer, engaging them from the very start. 

Moreover, if you can interlace a shocking fact or unknown statistic in your opening line, it will help to set the tone for your essay. For instance:

Did you know that at least 100 slave narratives were published between 1760 and 1865, highlighting the inhumanity of slavery from the victims’ perspectives?

5: Tell the reader what you’re going to write about

Generally, an essay introduction aims to explain to the reader what they can expect. Though many students leave this until the end of the introduction, you can use it as the ideal starting line. 

For instance: 

This essay will show that slave narratives from the 19th century were a form of emancipatory literature, helping enslaved people create a new identity for themselves. 

Though not quite as captivating as beginning with a direct quote, question, or statistic, this is a decent way to kick things off. You can then bring in some of your sources or present the outline of your argument in the rest of the introduction.

How to start an essay: Expert tips to consider when writing your introduction

Each section of your essay is crucial, but the introduction needs to be strong and compelling. If you don’t hook and engage the reader from the start, you might struggle to make important points throughout. 

So, here are some expert tips that you should consider as they will help you start your essay with a bang: 

Leave the introduction until the end

The best way to write a relevant and accurate introduction is to leave it until the end. After all, you already know what you have covered in the essay. It’s much easier to present key points and arguments once you have made them. 

You may also identify a crucial theme or quote that you would like to use at the beginning. This is a professional writer’s insider tip, and many authors leave the start of their work until the end. 

So, rather than staring at a blank page for hours on end, leave the introduction until later and get straight into the body of the essay. When you make this a habit, you will find that your writing flows much more naturally.

Ask Arvin for the ideal structure

You can use Arvin’s AI Tools to create the ideal structure for your entire essay. This will include key things to cover in the first few paragraphs to ensure you start as you mean to go on. 

Below, I put Arvin to the test. 

I prompted the tool to create a structure for my essay entitled: The Importance of 19th Century Slave Narratives in the Abolitionist Movement. 

Within seconds, Arvin provided me with a full structure from introduction to conclusion that I could potentially use for my essay:

This is a highly productive way to use AI to help you with your essay writing. It gives advice on how to structure each section of your essay while helping you with a thesis suggestion and revealing some helpful sources.

Tone is everything

One of the reasons the introduction is so important is that it sets the tone for your entire essay. If you get the tone wrong at the start, it will be difficult to recover. 

For example, if you’re writing an essay about slave narratives, a serious, formal, and almost somber tone is required. 

Kicking things off with a jolly, upbeat, informal tone would be highly inappropriate. 

So, before starting your essay, spend some time considering its tone. Start as you mean to go on and ensure that it’s appropriate for the essay title in question.

Proofread your introduction thoroughly

When writing academically, your introduction should be grammatically correct and free from spelling mistakes. This is true of the entire essay, too. 

You can proofread as you go or leave it until the end of your assignment. Either way, you must take time to check the accuracy of your work. 

Arvin’s free AI Grammar Checker is the perfect tool for this. It catches grammatical and spelling mistakes that standard word-processing grammar checkers miss. You will almost certainly lose marks if your essay is littered with spelling mistakes, so make sure you proofread your essay before submitting it.

The verdict: How to start an essay to engage the reader

There are numerous ways to engage the reader at the start of your essay. I think that presenting your thesis at the very start of your work is a great way to begin. 

Alternatively, you might consider starting with a shocking statistic, an open question, or a quote from a reliable source. Each of these techniques can help hook and engage the reader while setting the tone of your work. 

More generally, I recommend leaving your introduction until the end of your essay. It’s so much easier to write the introduction after the main body of your text. So, get straight into your main argument and revisit the introduction at the end. When you adopt this habit, you will find it so much easier to write a compelling and engaging essay introduction.

How to start an essay FAQ

What is a good starting sentence for an essay?

The first sentence in any essay should hook the reader. In other words, it should be interesting, engaging, and relevant. As shown in this article, you can hook the reader in several ways. Using a statistic, quote, or open question is a brilliant way to begin your essay.

What is a good introduction for an essay?

Alongside a hook, your introduction should clearly present the topics that you plan to cover later in the assignment. You should also clearly state your thesis and touch on the arguments you will present. The best introductions are clear, concise, and accurate while setting the tone for the remainder of the essay.

What is a good phrase to start an essay?

I recommend getting straight to the point. Start with a phrase like “This essay…” or “Here…” You don’t need to use specific phrases to present your thesis or make your initial argument. The best essay introductions are clear and concise, so don’t add filler content or fluff from the outset.

What is a strong way to start an essay?

The strongest way to begin an essay is to use a relevant hook to engage the reader from the beginning. This is something we’ve explored throughout this article, and it’s about using statistics, quotes, or questions to your advantage.