from Barry Lane's The Reviser's Toolbox ~ printed in the October 1999 MCTE News File Folder with permission
Leads in Expository Writing
What's the most boring way you could begin a research report
about the human brain? A rattlesnake? The United States Constitution? We all
know.
. . . In the report I will tell you about. . . "
Now that we know that, let's experiment with difference places to start.
• Start with a Snapshot. When you paint a picture, you draw the reader in . Notice the difference between these two leads to a report about ice-skating.
Boring
Ice-skating is my favorite sport.Better
It's ten degrees below zero and the river is frozen a foot thick. It makes snapping sounds like the limbs of trees cracking. A long figure glides along the
black ice, moving toward the city. The only sound is the scraping of each blade as it bites into the river. That's me doing my favorite sport, ice-skating.
• Start with an important observation. Don't start in the general. Put your most surprising or important observation into you opening.
General
The human brain is a complex and amazing organ.Better
Seeing stars, it dreams of eternity. Hearing birds, it makes music. Smelling flowers, it is enraptured. Touching tools, it transforms the earth. But
deprived of these sensory experiences, the human brain withers and dies. (Inside the Brain --- Ronald Kotulak)
• Start with a strongly stated question your readers might have.
In some ways all writing is about trying to answer our best questions.
A strong
question is one we all want to know the answer to.
Weakly-stated
In this paper I will attempt to answer the question why history is important.Better
What's the point of studying history? Who cares what happened long ago? After all, aren't the people in history books dead?
• Put your connection with the subject in the lead. Why are
you attracted to the subject? Do you have a personal reason for writing about
this
subject? What specific memories of the subject come to mind?
General
The problem of longitude was one of the greatest scientific challenges of its day.Better
Once on a Wednesday excursion when I was a little girl, my father bought me a beaded wire ball that I loved. At a touch, I could collapse the toy into
a flat coil between my palms, or pop it open to make a hollow sphere. Rounded out it resembled a tiny Earth, because its hinged wires traced the same pattern
intersecting circles that I had seen on the globe in my school room -- the thin black lines of latitude and longitude. (Longitude --- Dava Sobel)
• Flaunt your favorite bit of research in the lead. Start with the facts that made you smile, laugh, go "ahaaa" or just plain grossed you out.
General
Did you ever wonder why God created flies?Better
Though we've been killing them for years now, I have never tested the folklore that with a little cream and sugar, flies taste very much like black
raspberries.