Interesting ways to captivate examiner?

[jessdoc]

Hi,
my English teacher and tutor has told us that the best way to make your essays stand out to assessors (both in SACs and Exam) is to have a nifty one liner or a really captivating introduction.
Has anyone had a go at this technique before? How did it go and what did you do?

Thanks.
 

[heids]

Hmm, I'll have a go but obviously literally lauren will answer better

Sure, a 'hook'-style sentence at the beginning and an interesting intro is a real help, as first impressions on the examiner are important; I've heard that examiners often have an idea of the mark they'll give you by the end of the intro.  For text response, I developed a first sentence that I threw into most responses, tailored slightly to flow better into the essay topic - looking back at it now, it was probably too long and excessive, but my teacher liked it and I could normally get it to flow relatively well.  Something like 'By replacing agrarian lifestyles with machinery, the 1800s Ind. revolution created rapid population increase in Victorian London, widening the gulf between rich and poor.  Witnessing the ____ [something related to the topic, e.g. upper classes' increasing focus on selfish gain], Charles Dickens in his novella A Christmas Carol portrays the/challenges the... etc.' 

So I'd try writing a few of these intro sentences; spend a while with your teacher/tutor perfecting them.  Then practise using them, because if you can't get them to flow nicely into the topic without it sounding disjointed or irrelevant, they're worse than useless.  You don't want to risk sounding formulaic, or having an intro three times as long as you need.  Sometimes it's better to just plough in and directly address the question.  If you get too hung up on a great first line, you'll never get started!  And the rest of the essay is so much more important.

Remember, an intro is just a fragment of the entire thing (especially in language analysis, where it's more a structural requirement where you dump all necessary details and show a big-picture understanding of the author's contention and overall style of arguing).  More important is interesting body paragraphs, the actual analysis and discussion, where you leave the beaten track of shallow 'yes', 'yes' and 'no'.  So, for text response focus your effort on breaking down prompts and coming up with more insightful, unusual discussion (covering metalanguage, themes, characters and the author's views/values).  For language analysis, focus more on analysing why the author does what they do, and how it makes the audience feel/think.  For context, avoid Hitler and head for fancy metaphors, creativity, and unusual external examples.  No matter how catching your intro is, it's useless if your body paragraphs are shallow, cliche, summarising, or dead boring.

Note that in Context, I do think that a catchy intro (whether expository, creative or persuasive) is VERY important.  I'd definitely focus on that .

[jessdoc]

Hmm, I'll have a go but obviously literally lauren will answer better

Sure, a 'hook'-style sentence at the beginning and an interesting intro is a real help, as first impressions on the examiner are important; I've heard that examiners often have an idea of the mark they'll give you by the end of the intro.  For text response, I developed a first sentence that I threw into most responses, tailored slightly to flow better into the essay topic - looking back at it now, it was probably too long and excessive, but my teacher liked it and I could normally get it to flow relatively well.  Something like 'By replacing agrarian lifestyles with machinery, the 1800s Ind. revolution created rapid population increase in Victorian London, widening the gulf between rich and poor.  Witnessing the ____ [something related to the topic, e.g. upper classes' increasing focus on selfish gain], Charles Dickens in his novella A Christmas Carol portrays the/challenges the... etc.' 

So I'd try writing a few of these intro sentences; spend a while with your teacher/tutor perfecting them.  Then practise using them, because if you can't get them to flow nicely into the topic without it sounding disjointed or irrelevant, they're worse than useless.  You don't want to risk sounding formulaic, or having an intro three times as long as you need.  Sometimes it's better to just plough in and directly address the question.  If you get too hung up on a great first line, you'll never get started!  And the rest of the essay is so much more important.

Remember, an intro is just a fragment of the entire thing (especially in language analysis, where it's more a structural requirement where you dump all necessary details and show a big-picture understanding of the author's contention and overall style of arguing).  More important is interesting body paragraphs, the actual analysis and discussion, where you leave the beaten track of shallow 'yes', 'yes' and 'no'.  So, for text response focus your effort on breaking down prompts and coming up with more insightful, unusual discussion (covering metalanguage, themes, characters and the author's views/values).  For language analysis, focus more on analysing why the author does what they do, and how it makes the audience feel/think.  For context, avoid Hitler and head for fancy metaphors, creativity, and unusual external examples.  No matter how catching your intro is, it's useless if your body paragraphs are shallow, cliche, summarising, or dead boring.

Note that in Context, I do think that a catchy intro (whether expository, creative or persuasive) is VERY important.  I'd definitely focus on that .

Thank-you for your reply. I feel generally my essays are a bit... 'meh'... average. My ideas are generally there I need something to stand out from the crowd! Thank-you for your ideas, we have just started context and this is why I posted this question 

[heids]

Thank-you for your reply. I feel generally my essays are a bit... 'meh'... average. My ideas are generally there I need something to stand out from the crowd! Thank-you for your ideas, we have just started context and this is why I posted this question 

OK, some major ways then, in the last post I thought mainly of text response:

• more interesting/rich/varied vocab: to achieve this, read more widely (random other books, articles in newspapers, other people's essays), and build up a relevant vocab from your reading, go over it often and try to incorporate words
• more interesting examples rather than stock-standard WWII, Cold War, asylum seekers etc.; go and do some deep-ish research in areas that especially interest you, or read the news daily to compile a list of recent examples; see ~*Context External Examples Guide*~ for some great examples
• just generally more interesting writing, through using metaphors, imagery, varied sentence length and structure, and interesting turn of phrase - this can take practise and dedication, just sitting down with past essays and changing round your sentence structure/length, etc., and compiling a list of relevant metaphors and how you could throw them in
• do a creative/hybrid piece: for some suggestions, read some of literally lauren's suggestions and play round with all sorts of ideas like letters, reports, editorials, short stories and a mixture of these; maybe start the essay with a paragraph describing a historical example in a sensational way, or by inner monologue of character from your text, etc.
• still, a lot of it does come down to deeper IDEAS; even a boring essay with more interesting or unusual ideas is still more interesting than a totally stock-standard one, so brainstorm really thoroughly

I suppose the most important thing, though, is to figure out what your problem is.  What exactly is boring or average in your essay?  Is your sentence structure and language monotonous and repetitive?  Do you just state things at a pretty shallow level?  Are your examples really boring or average?  etc.  Sit down with your essays and brainstorm where your issues are, and write them down.  Get your teacher/tutor to help you with this.  Once you know exactly where you're going wrong, then you can more easily figure out how to fix it up !

EDIT: Just want to add, if you're looking for a 'magic formula' like those ads with the '1 weird tip to cut down body fat', you can keep looking.  There's no such thing...