Whether you’re writing a school essay, web article, or professional report, you need to start with a good introduction. Why? Think about your own experience as a reader. If the first two or three sentences don’t grab your attention, will you keep reading? It’s not nice! Without a strong introduction, you’ll page to the next article, navigate to the next site, or pick up the next proposal. So if you want your writing to do its job, you need to start with a strong introduction. Here are five steps to help you do it.

1. Don’t neglect the prewriting process.

Prewriting should take up most of your time as a writer, unless you’re very experienced at what you’re writing about (and even then, your writing will be much stronger if you go through the prewriting process). Prewriting begins with research, research, research. He wants to do more research than he thinks he needs to, and then, after you think he’s definitely done enough research, do some more research. After the research comes the steps to form a general thesis, then a general outline, then your first draft. There’s a lot more to say before you write, but for now, stick to those four steps: Research, Thesis, Outline, Draft. As you’ll see below, you can’t write an introduction without a thesis, and you can’t write an introduction without knowing where your report will go after your thesis. My advice? Write your introduction last!

2. Your thesis is the star of the show.

If your report were a debutante ball, all the effort involved in organizing the party would be the pre-writing process; the atmosphere, the music, the attendees, the fruit punch, etc. they would be the body of your report; but the debutante herself would be your thesis. She may be just one person among hundreds of other guests, but all the other guests are there for her – she is the star of the show. The job of your introductory paragraph or introductory section is to present her thesis. Therefore, all of her introduction should build her thesis.

No matter what your thesis is, your introduction must perform certain tasks, which are now listed below.

3. Present a problem, then solve it with your thesis.

For example, if you are writing about the new and improved mousetrap you have invented and want to sell, your thesis might be: “My mousetrap is better than all the other mousetraps on the market today.” So his introduction should start by stating that there is a problem with the existing mousetraps.

So your first sentence could be,

“Nobody likes having mice in their house, but unfortunately most mousetraps don’t effectively get rid of mice” (the problem).

If the first sentence or paragraph of your introduction presents a problem, the next few sentences should begin to guide the reader to solve the problem. Continuing with the mousetrap example, the next few sentences could read:

“In a traditional mousetrap, the mice usually eat the cheese without getting caught.” (This is what’s wrong with the existing traps.) “My mousetrap contains cheese inside a trapdoor, which the mouse automatically activates when it enters the trap. The mouse is then trapped inside, along with the cheese.” (Wow, your mousetrap sounds like an improvement!) “So my mousetrap is better than all the other mousetraps on the market today.”

5. Once you have stated your thesis, tell your reader what else they will learn when they read your report.

Do you remember learning the five paragraph essay in high school? There were some parts of this standard writing format that were horrible and should never have been taught to poor, unsuspecting high school students. However, there are parts of this writing method that are useful and that I still use today. One of them is: tell your reader what you are going to say, say it and tell him that you said it. Now, in some writing philosophies, you tell your reader what your report is about before you get to the thesis, and your thesis is the last sentence of your introduction. I personally don’t like this method. I prefer to state my thesis and then give my reader a reason to read the rest of the report. Using the mousetrap example again, after establishing the thesis, you could go on to tell the reader how he will show that her mousetrap is the best in a second introductory paragraph:

“First, I’ll examine the three best-selling mousetraps on the market and their significant flaws. Then, I’ll explain the research and development process for my mousetrap. Finally, I’ll present two case studies of companies that have successfully implemented my traps for mice.”

I think readers appreciate what they’re getting into, don’t they?

A well-written introduction will propel your reader into the rest of your article or report. No matter how important the information in your report is, it won’t matter much if no one reads it! So do your writing a favor: Follow the five steps above and write a clear and compelling introduction to every article, essay, and report you write.