Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Leads!
by William Zinsser
Remember: you are writing for a professional expert audience. This reader is reading to find out the depth of your knowledge and your ability to construct a thesis and defend it. This is the person who assigned the paper in the first place! Avoid at all costs telling them something they already know without couching the facts within your angle and argument. The purpose of the lead is to make the reader care about your thesis and curious enough to read the rest of the paper to find out if you can make your case.
Remember: The body of the paper will defer to the experts through quotations, paraphrases, and other evidence. Your lead is your opportunity to show your skills up front!
Remember: You have to ALWAYS AVOID telling the reader something obvious that he/she already knows!
Weak and boring leads often begin such and such a story by soandso the writer offers blahblahblah There is a time and place for simple and declarative identification of factual detail, but not in your first sentence!
Angle-facts within your take on the argument the SO WHAT! Thesis-the conclusion to your argument this better address the SO WHAT.
A strong thesis: Takes a stand Justifies discussion Expresses one main idea Is specific
(and appropriate for the development of your argument in the required length of the paper)
be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring.
Ernest Hemingway