What Is The Best Way To Start An Expository Essay: 5 Great Suggestions


You have the topic in mind, the resources, and the will, but now you need to know that best way to start an expository essay to get your teacher’s attention. Here are five great suggestions to help you get started.

Of course you know by now that an expository paper requires you to investigate an idea or event and then evaluate or support it with evidence in a clear and concise manner that allows the reader to follow the argument and understand the conclusion. But, first you need to get the reader to want to read your writing.

  1. Get the reader’s attention:

    2. Show how the topic is relevant to the reader’s life through examples they will recognize.

    Perhaps your assignment is to discuss whether NASA has had a purpose beyond putting a man on the moon. You could start you writing by showing some of the current technology we have due to NASA:

    NASA has had lasted an effect on the world beyond setting a man on the moon. Without NASA, we would not have the small computers on your desk, the thin coats you wear to school on a cold winter day, or the insulation that keeps your home warm.

  2. Compare and contrast

    3. Show through comparison and contrast how NASA changed our lives before and after the program started.

    Before NASA the concept of space travel was relegated to comic books and science fiction; mere dreams. Now, after 50 years of NASA those flights of fancy have been surpassed by reality.

  3. Define the topic to be discussed in your essay
    4.

    Set up the paper by telling the reader who or what you will be talking about by providing the background and topic in one fell swoop.

    The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, also known as NASA handles science and technology of space and air in the United States since it became part of the government structure in 1958.

  4. Show cause and effect
    5.

    The cause and effect approach allows you to encourage your reader understand how one thing leads directly to another thing.

    The relative small size of NASAs ships into space required scientists to rethink the technology they used to fit into smaller, confined spaces. Computers that once filled entire rooms needed to be made smaller, yet require as much capability as their larger predecessors.

  5. Ask an interesting question

    6. Spark the reader’s imagination by asking a question about NASA and then answer it with your paper.

    What would American be like today if NASA hadn’t sought to put a man on the moon?

Any one of these 5 great suggestions will provide you with a means to create an expository essay that will spark your reader’s interest about the topic and encourage your instructor to give you a grade worthy of your effort.