Crafting Effective Hooks With examples from students like

Crafting Effective Hooks With examples from students like you ; ) Writers Section

• Title your next available page “Three Things a Hook Should Be” • The underlined titles are the notes we need to take

A Hook should be one or two sentences • A student’s original hook: “Many people know the taste of fast food, yet many people do not know that the workers/cashiers who hand them this food are statistically more likely to be murdered during work than police officers. ” • By taking out extra information/words, the hook can become stronger: “Fast food workers and cashiers are statistically more likely to be murdered during work than police officers. ”

A Hook should be Specific • “Boom, you open your eyes and have no idea what your name is or where you are. ” • What is this paper going to be about? You should have a general idea from thesis.

A Hook should be Specific • “Emotions saved us millions of years ago, now they drive us insane. ” • The author is probably talking about fight vs. flight response, which is an evolutionary necessity. But some readers won’t know this or become confused by the word “insane. ”

…but not too specific • “Short term memory loss is when you can remember what happened 5 years ago, but not 5 minutes ago. ” • The paper is about memory and forgetting, so it may be hard for the reader to pull their focus off of this one type of memory loss.

Your hook should be your MOST INTERESTING fact • Look through your research- what is the fact that surprised you the most? • If nothing grabs you, you need to conduct further research

I’m Hooked • “Twenty million lives lost- they called it the war to end all wars. It ended nothing, instead, sparking more conflict. ”

I’m Hooked • “Humans would die if we had no genetic variation. ”

In your notebook • Write your hook! • Your introduction paragraph starts with your hook, has any background information needed, and ends with your thesis