Due Sep 23
Essay Introduction
For the very first HW assignment, I asked you to introduce your video by describing what it does and how. But that's not the same as introducing an essay. An essay intro is an invitation to the reader. Like a trailer for a movie, it helps readers decide whether this is something they want to read. So the most important task is conveying a sense of what the reader will learn by (1) defining the topic and (2) voicing a thesis claim about that topic. But you should also consider how to motivate your reader's interest: why is this an important topic for discussion? How will your thesis, once proven, change the world? In short, what is at stake in this essay?
Two distinct ways to approach this challenge:
- Open by introducing your essay's principal source, briefly characterizing it in such a way as to embody the larger issue at stake in the essay.
- Start by motivating interest in the essay's larger issue, waiting until the first body ¶ to introduce your essay's principal source.
For class, write an essay introduction, pasting it into the comment space below. If you choose option 2, above, include the first sentence of the ¶ that would follow after, so we can see how you plan to engineer the transition from an intro with a general focus to an essay body with a focus principally on just one source.