“It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John & myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.” This is the opening line to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Students are often familiar with the hooks in fiction texts, but then become unfamiliar with those in nonfiction texts. In fiction, characters must be introduced, mystery must be created, and storyline should be introduced. Regardless of the text that follows, the opening line should have a powerful impact on the reader.
The reader’s interest should be peaked by the hook of an essay, and the reader should be hooked before they even know it. “Write your opening sentence like it is a gunshot- blam! - and you’ll have your reader’s attention immediately. Make it powerful enough and as the smoke of the gun clears the reader will read on with the shot still ringing in their ears.” (Christopher Jackson 2009). Jackson uses this analogy brilliantly to describe the effect a successful hook should have on the reader, just as a gunshot would have on your ears. The opening line should be broad enough so even a reader who is unfamiliar with the topic of the paper will have arising curiosity. One students essay started with “Imagine being trapped by your own fate…” This hook leaves room for various audiences to develop interest while simultaneously making the reader think. Rapper, Jaamal West, is a CEO with over ten years of experience in the music industry and he described a rule used in the music writing industry. It’s called the 80/20 rule, which states that the hook only makes up for 20% of the parts in a song but is responsible for 80% of the results. This rule can also be applied to the process of hook writing for essays and literature, and prove...
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Guare, Kathryn. "Writing Craft: The Challenge of Writing an Opening Line." Alliance of Independent Authors (2014): n. pag. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. .
Jackson, Christopher. "The Most Important Sentence: How to Write a Killer Opening." Fuel Your Writing (2006): n. pag. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. .
J.G. Ferguson Publishing Company, ed. Careers in Focus: Advertising & Marketing. N.p.: Ferguson, 2004. Print.
Marshall, Patrick. "Advertising Overload." CQ Press 2014: n. pag. CQ Researcher Online. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. .
Ohio Career Information System. U of Oregon, 2014. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.
West, Jaamal. "Writing a Great Hook." The Official How to Rap Manual. Learntorap.com, 2014. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. .
___________. "The Essentials of Spontaneous Prose." Casebook on the Beat. Thomas Parkinson, ed. New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell Company, 1961. 65-67.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." In Literature and Its Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters, Eds. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 230-242.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman immediately gives readers the most important elements at the beginning of the short fictional story. At the opening of the story, the narrator states how her husband John has brought their family to live in an ancestral home for the summer. The narrator considers the house to be strange, but John is quite too practical to see things the way that she does. He already fails to believe that the narrator is actually sick. The narrator begins to take readers on her ever-changin...
Gilman, Charlotte P. "The Yellow Wallpaper." The Sundance Introduction To Literature. By Joseph F. Trimmer. N.p.: Thompson Wadsworth, 2007. 1089+. Print.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Booth, Alison and Kelly J. Mays, eds. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: Norton, 2010. 354-65. Print.
While reading the essays that my peers wrote about “The Death of the Funeral Business” by Sandy Hingston I was able to come up with the conclusion that my style of writing is very different than others. We were all writing about the same article but we all took different directions while writing our analytical response paper. My peers and I took a very small detail of the article and we analyzed it to show the purpose of Hingston. The fact the we were all able to find a small detail of the article that most of us missed is quite amazing. Sometimes when we read something we are so distracted that we skip through very small but important details. Out of the four samples that I read the one I liked the most was the second one. When I first started
Some books are page-turners, urging the reader to abandon all responsibility to instead feverishly finish in one day, regardless of the length. Other books are picked up time after time to have only their first chapters read, leaving the subsequent pages crisp and untouched. What do the page-turners have that the others do not? According to three prolific novelists – K.M. Weiland, Michael Kardos, and Tim O’Brien – the success of a work of fiction comes down to whether or not it contains an effective introduction. In her book Running Out of Time, Margaret Peterson Haddix includes the elements of a compelling opening and utilizes the technique of begging a question, demonstrating her understanding of the importance of a powerful introduction.
Gilman, Charlotte. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Literature a World of Writing: Stories, Poems, Plays, and Essays. Ed. David Pike, and Ana Acosta. New York: Longman, 2011. 543-51. Print.
Choosing a topic or finding the inspiration for material is the first step for writing an essay, book, article, blog, or any other form of written matter, and this step can often be the most difficult. Where do these ideas come from? Do they appear from thin air or does a higher power intervene, bestowing these lightning strikes of inspiration only on those deemed worthy? Does the writer do something to help themselves find inspiration and these beginnings? Michael Smith writes, “Beginnings don’t just occur. Beginnings have to be coaxed. They have to be lured and tricked and seduced. Or they have to be wrestled into submission, bludgeoned until they beg for mercy. They get dropped in the gutter, kicked to the curb, thrown out with the bathwater. And they get rescued, revisited, revised and revivified” (66). The process of writing can be almost painful for many individuals. Amongst college students, lack of inspiration and the struggle to find something meaningful to write about is often cited as a source of writing related stress. By examining where professional writers, both fiction and nonfiction, derived their inspiration, it is clear that most often inspiration is found in personal experiences, and may hold a key in helping college students find inspiration for their own works.
Analysis of an Advertising Campaign We are swarmed by advertising. Companies constantly battle to compete for the sale of their product. Adverts appear in every form of media including radio; television; Internet; billboards; newspaper; flyers and magazines. The advertiser wants us to buy their product above their competitors. The basic aim of advertising is to convince the target audience that their product is the best in the field and superior to the other products of similarity.
The first essay I ever wrote was hard for me to write. I didn’t know the first step of how to put a paper together. I would start writing and get frustrated that my ideas are not coming together.I knew what I wanted to say but my thoughts weren’t translating into the paper. Looking back on this class, I have realized just how much my writing has improved since the beginning of the quarter I chose narrative analysis and arguments to show how much I improved this year and know my strength and weakness I had in this school year.
Zyman, S. and Brott, A. (2002). The End of Advertising As We Know It, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, Page 9, Page 10, Page 19
In spite of the rigors associated with a career in marketing the outlook for the profession is bright. Marketing is a vital necessity not only for business firms, but is also needed and utilized by governments, educational, religious, social service, and nonprofit organizations or institutions. Perhaps the most alluring aspect of a career in marketing is the fact that it provides a great number and variety of job opportunities, and can offer opportunities to both number crunchers as well as intuitive creative people as well.
Advertising." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.
A writer sits down on his hickory brown leather upholstered chair in a lowered den of a cape-cod house in the country. He slips his bifocals up the ridge of his nose and pulls his typewriter with both arms to a comfortable typing distance. He is now ready to write and write with style. He has in mind that his certain eloquence will provide cohesion, concision and elegance that will be clear and concise so the reader will be able to determine exactly the message he is portraying. He begins with the intent to be clear, concise and understood.