Academic and Nonfiction Writing Samples Help Contact

As we discovered in Academic Tips and Tricks, academic
writing elements overlap in form and function. But to avoid
getting all tangled up in types, we can approach college
paper writing slowly; we can start simply, breaking down the
parts and mastering them one at a time.

We Use Modes for Engaging Openers...
and I'm going to Use One Here, Out of Necessity...and
Spite

I once read a how-to article on web content writing, on
making a site that brings traffic (the attention of many). I
had already begrudgingly given in to the understanding that
web content writing is very different than academic
writing--it has different goals, different audiences, and
different elements that lend themselves to an 'A' piece of
writing. In fact, it is so different that to write for the web we
have to unravel all we have worked to weave, have to
unlearn all we have learned as college English writers.

But Don't Confuse Web Content Writing and Academic
Writing

So the writer of this article says to start web copy you skip
the opener and go directly to the main point (what we in
academia know as the thesis). Okay. This made sense, I
thought, as web readers read differently: they read fast,
they skim, they scan, they skip...to draw the most usable
info in the shortest amount of time. (Probably the way you
are reading now, hoping I get on with the point).

-I was with Mr. Web when he explained these facts.

-I was with him as he noted the research findings that back
up the rationale for sacrificing good academic exposition for
web text.

-And I was there with his tips and tricks, which were
great...until he went too far, editorializing about writers who
actually use openers:

He claimed that writers who rely on openers don't have "the
courage" to just get to the point. So he lost me.

Don't Let Anyone Shame Your Learning Writing Tricks

We can adapt to just about any rhetorical style. We can
adjust our notions of what makes for good writing. But we
should balk when a how-to writer insults other methods of
writing. We should even disregard implications of cowardice
as unnecessary ad hominem attacks. False attacks.
Fallacious and floppy and frivolous teaching. Screw that.

Readers of Academic Essay Writing Appreciate (even
Prefer) a Good Opener

Openers in academic writing, whether in a creatively
developed literary response or a historical survey, are
imperative. They are a gentler way of drawing in, luring our
readers. They are at first quite challenging to get right, but
our mastering them--which is possible--has nothing to do
with courage, which comes from the French word, "coeur,"
heart. We have plenty of heart. We're studying English, for
hell sake.

Against my wishes, then, this page opens (after a very weak
web-tailored tile) with a declaration and gets right to the
point. At first. But it also has a "grabber" slipped
in--because we're looking at grabbers and because, well, I
can't help it. I want to model decent prose for you.

Even better, I'll share with you some samples, as
promised.

In your academic essays, then, use an opener of one of the
following modes (keeping in mind a few have been left off
the list for next time).