Writing Homework Help

Introducing a Summary Response Essay

As noted in the reading, your introduction must transport your reader from their everyday life into your essay. A good introduction will include three parts:

1. A hook that grabs your readers’ attention.
2. Some context that gives your reader an idea of what your essay is about.
3. A thesis that previews your main point.

These three parts are important for all essay types, but how you approach each part may differ based on the type of essay you are writing. For a summary response, your hook should be related to your topic. For example, your essay is a response to an article on effort and success, right? So your hook might be a quote from a famous person about failure or it might be a statistic on how often we are likely to fail at a certain task. If your response will focus on effort more than failure, you could begin with a quote on the importance of effort to achieve your goals.

For the context, ask yourself, “What does my reader need to know in order to understand my essay?” Imagine your reader has NOT read the instructions or is NOT in this class. You need some sentences to let them know what your essay is about since they don’t have this entire unit to give them context. Include a few sentences that introduces the main concept (effort? mindset?). You could even introduce the article, author, and main researcher here.

The thesis should be the last sentence in your introduction paragraph and should sum up your response. A thesis is YOUR ARGUMENT. Don’t just tell me what the article is about here. Sum up how you have responded in ONE SENTENCE.