How to Write a Good Hook
It goes without saying, essay writing is a fascinating process that requires a lot of time and effort. Your task is to pick a winning topic, decide the target audience, and create content that will be interesting to read. Without any doubt, it is reasonable to admit that a successful college essay should be well-structured and grammatically correct. Nevertheless, scholars admit that not less important thing that should be considered during writing is a stylistic aspect. It is a crucial phenomenon that can attract a lot of readers. Nowadays, we can come across different tutorials that teach us the rules of credible style. We do not have an intention to tell you the crucial points related to this issue. Are you ready to find out a new thing that will improve the quality of your work and invoke people to read it? Keep reading the article and learn how to define “hook.”
What is a Hook
Do you know how to make a hook in real life? Perhaps, it sounds funny, but in the case of essay writing you have to do the same – to grab the audience.
There are many definitions to this literary technique. Be calm as we will not annoy you with these boring interpretations. Briefly speaking, the definition of a hook is concise and easy, in particular, this is one or two sentences at the beginning of the introduction. The aim of such device is to grab reader’s attention. It is undeniable that writing hooks is an essential part of the essays of different types and disciplines. The reason for it is obvious: despite the theme, each content needs to be attractive and start unusually. Everybody will agree when the essay tells about complicated physical phenomena it is far more interesting to realize its essence if its style is neat and “friendly.” Moreover, the beginning of such type of writing is a crucial point of its success.
The question related to the procedure of making winning hook is rather controversial. There is a statement that the basic information that is integral to make a good hook is the data about the target audience. We are sure of the opposite. Here is the list of the steps that will help you cope with this task.
- Identify your audience. Before you start writing the hook sentences and whole essay you should be sure of your audience, their age, and social status. You will agree, the content that is interesting for teenagers will be considered boring for adults. Moreover, you have to predict if the information will be useful for both boys and girls. Another key thing to know is the message that you aim to convey.
- Think about the purpose of the writing. The hook and thesis should coincide the general aim and theme of the paper. It is a type of forbidden thing to create an attractive hook and then present boring statistic. You have to follow the only style for the hook and rest of the content.
- Treat seriously to the choice of hook. Do not consider it as the joke or funny story. These two initial sentences have to be interesting but at the same time grammatically correct and well-built. It is not enough to paste anecdote. There is no hesitation that good readers will not pick the essay with “trash” hooks for home reading. Mention this thing.
- Identify the structure that you need to establish. The length and quantity of the hook sentence depend on the wordage and type of essay. If it is a course or research paper, you have to write two or three sentences in order to make the paragraph logically built. On the other hand, when the essay is short it is not professional to make a long hook that will substitute the whole paragraph. That is why you have to be analytic and evaluate the structure of the paper.
- Create your hook. This is final and the most significant step. Now you have collected all information that is important for making the best hook. You are armed with data related to the target audience and essence of your future essay. So, do not postpone and try your skills.
Types of Hooks
Different statements and various quotations can serve as the hook sentences. The main rule is that they should be interesting and attract readers’ attention. Another key thing to know is that you should pick such type of hook that will logically enrich the context of the whole paragraph and convey the main plot. We have prepared for you the list of the possible variants that can be the best hooks for your essay.
- The literary quotations. This type of hook will make your paper qualitative and establish your authority as an author. You start with the hook quotes about the book or poem that you are using; undoubtedly, it will make the content fresh and interesting. Moreover, feel free and use words of the author in order to prove that you work with credible sources while writing.
- Quotes from famous people. The statement of famous people will invoke the target audience to keep reading your paper. The quote from an authoritative and influential person can help support evidence.
- Short funny story or anecdote. Do not hesitate and use this type of source. At the first glimpse it sounds unprofessional; remember, if you use a funny story at the beginning it doesn’t mean that your whole writing should be comical. Everybody will agree that exciting beginning will make your paper original and grab readers’ attention.
- The Hook questions. That is a perfect way to create an attractive content. There is no better method to invoke people to read a wordage work than to put the well-constructed question. It goes without saying, audience will be obsessed with a great desire to find out the answer that is why they will read the whole paper. We highly recommend you to create a short and precise question in order to avoid the convoluted situation as everybody should realize its main thought.
- Work out the scene. It can be easily applied in practice. You are required to create a small intro where you give information about the life story of the protagonist. You can also describe the one day when a particular adventure occurred, for instance. In most cases, people respond well to such visual examples.
- The interesting fact or definition. That type of hook tells readers the fact that they might don’t know. Your task is to submit the surprising statement that will be discussed in the essay’s body. Without any doubt, such winning hook will encourage people to read the text and reveal more information about this interesting phenomenon.
- State Your thesis and synthesis. This hook can be considered as the most complicated as you have to use the analytical mind in order to work out a good thesis that will make a bridge from your intro to the main body. Do not write long and complex sentences. Your task is to make up the statement that will be grammatically correct and well-understandable.
- Statistics .Here you can submit tables, diagrams, and other visual profs to your content. These will help readers find out that your information is credible and based on the statistical data.
- Reveal a Common Misconception. This is a unique way to hook the target audience. How does it work? At the beginning of the paragraph, you present a hesitation related to the truth of some phenomenon; it can be the assumptions about the general facts.
Are you sure of the shape of the Earth?
Essay Hook Examples
Enlisting the possible variants of the hooks, we can create a wide range of the examples. The integral aspect of it is an interesting, attractive, and existing message. You can pick such anecdote, in particular, that will grab the readers of different age and social status, for instance: “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.”
Your hook should be entertaining and instructive at the same time; that is why do not forget to use pace, mystery, and suspense. Your “duty” is to teach readers something new but without annoying facts and boring statements. “Spain, though hardly a literary juggernaut, translates more books in one year than the entire Arab world has in the past one thousand years.”
Another key thing to know is that when you pose a question, it is significant to be sure of its answer. Do not try to confuse your audience as you can discourage them to keep reading the paper. “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 suicide?”
