How To Begin A College Essay

If you want to know how to start a college essay, just follow these steps.Make sure you have a clear understanding of the assignment, choose an appropriate topic, define your audience, clarify the purpose of the essay, conduct the necessary research, and then formulate a thesis about your topic.

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If your reader is one paragraph in and thinking, “I don’t have a clue what this student is talking about,” you’ve moved from arousing interest to creating confusion.

It’s certainly possible and often effective to begin your essay with a description that piques interest without necessarily revealing exactly what the description is about.

If your essay is about persistence, explain how you personified that trait.

Use your available space to give the necessary details. Some students try so hard to be creative, or to entice the reader with a sense of intrigue, that they sacrifice clarity.

Imagine you were telling a friend a story about life as a pitcher on the baseball team.

You wouldn’t start with, “Often in life, we face difficult situations that ultimately benefit us.There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.Starting a college-level essay can be a bit tricky, especially if you don’t feel inspired or organized enough to articulate your thoughts.Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas.He received his Ph D in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014.But pirating someone else’s writing is plagiarism, and every college I can think of would frown on an applicant who steals other people’s work without crediting the source.There’s always that chance that your reader could recognize what you’re sharing.Opening with a definition, like “Persistence is defined as…,” will probably not be a strong start.Your reader doesn’t need you to define words, they need you to tell a story that will help them learn all about you.One of the most common struggles students encounter is resisting the urge to squeeze everything they’ve seen, done, and heard into their essay.But your application essay isn’t your life story in 650 words.