Since the dawn of mankind hooks have been used for fishing. They have relatively little use in academic writing. Too many intelligent students think that their essay needs a good “hook” at the start of the essay to catch their readers’ attention and draw them in. I don’t like that, I find it dishonest, and it devalues the entire essay. “My essay is so boring that I have to initially deceive the reader to make them read it.” Have some faith in yourself and write something that people want to read.
Most people decide whether to pick up a book by reading the title, which serves as the hook. The potential audience walks through a library looking at titles or sits at a computer scrolling through search results, so a grandiose first statement cannot serve as the hook if the title fails to pull them in. The first few paragraphs of the introduction have to include enough relevant information and ideas to get the potential reader to continue reading. In a way students have it easy, the TA is paid to read past the first sentence. But when a student has 5-7 pages, double-spaced they cannot afford to waste page space with unnecessary sentences. And believe it or not, what students learn in university has relevance in the real world.
Imagine that you are a tired student in a library trying to last-minute an essay about nuclear deterrence. You see a book entitled “Nuclear Deterrence in a Multipolar World” so you take it off the shelf and read the first sentence: “Since the dawn of mankind experts have disagreed on whether nuclear deterrence can achieve stable security in a multipolar system.” You then put the book back on the shelf because you think the author is full of it.
Now let’s reword that sentence to grab the reader’s attention. “In the post-Cold War multipolar system, in which multiple nuclear-armed states compete for regional influence without enforced allegiance to a superpower, deterrence models have to be updated to meet the needs of the 21st century.” That sentence could use a shortening, but it gives the basic elements of topic, time period, and general argument. If I want to read about the dawn of mankind I’ll go to Jared Diamond.
Most grabby, hook sentences add nothing and their removal only improves the essay. I’ll point out here that I am discussing academic style writing. If you want to work for the Daily Express then please ignore my little rant. If your high school teacher taught you how to write good hooks then be thankful that you received a good education, but understand that they have limited use beyond high school.
Ian Weatherall 