In May of 1940, as war raged across Europe, a squad of infantrymen belonging to the famous Manchester Regiment encroached upon the village of l’Epinette in northern France.īoth German and Allied forces sought to capture the strategically located village, and the Manchester Regiment came under heavy fire from the Nazi soldiers. Just as you should think carefully about the quotes you use in your introductions, choose your statistics with similar care. Merely tossing in a statistic about how many daily active users Facebook has, for example, will not have the same effect. In the banner ad example above, this stat isn’t just memorable because of the staggering odds against you clicking on a banner ad, but because it’s framed within the context of surviving a plane crash – a particularly striking hypothetical scenario, and one that aligns closely with the survival instincts I mentioned earlier. Take care, however, to select your facts and statistics carefully. Something to consider next time you despair about In particular, there’s a scientific principle known as the von Restorff effect (named for the German pediatrician Hedwig von Restorff who first wrote of the phenomena in the early 1930s) which states that people tend to remember unusual things much more effectively than routine, expected things. When it comes to content, whether a 500-word blog post or a 4,000-word long-form journalistic feature, some emotional triggers are more effective than others. Why Is This Type of Introduction So Effective? However, the real reason using facts or statistics as an introduction works is because it pushes our emotional buttons. This makes sense it establishes the general topic of the piece in a fun way and offers the reader something snappy and memorable. It’s also one of the most commonly used introductions in a lot of marketing writing.
This technique is another powerfully effective way to grab your reader’s attention from the outset. Doesn’t work out.”Įverybody loves trivia, and even if you’re a hardcore Hitchcock fan, you might not have known the fun fact above. “In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it’s like – yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon. “With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon,” Elon Musk said during an interview at MIT’s AeroAstro Centennial Symposium in 2014. If we follow this convention (which we should, unless we have a very good reason not to), our example quote from Musk (with additions italicized) would read: As anyone who’s ever worked with me as an editor could tell you, I’m a stickler for the correct attribution of quotes, which demands that, in most cases, the person being quoted should be identified after the first complete sentence. It’s worth noting that this technique can be a little tricky or unorthodox within the context of established journalistic conventions. (Note that this particular quote was not used as an introduction in any piece I’ve found or read on the topic, and is used solely for illustrative purposes.)
HOW TO INTRODUCE A QUOTE IN A ESSAY HOW TO
Yes, it’s a little sensationalist – Musk certainly knows how to leverage provocative language to great effect – but it’s also a lot more interesting than most of the introductions I’ve read in articles on the topic. The quote above is one of many such memorable insights offered by technologist Elon Musk about the potentially existential threat posed by AI. Tesla CEO Elon Musk in conversation at MIT’s AeroAstro Centennial Symposium in 2014. Truth be told, I’m not the biggest Catcher fan (despite my personal appreciation for Salinger’s immense literary talent and commitment to being a hardcore recluse). I chose to open this post with a quote not because I’m a fan of Catcher in the Rye. There are, however, some general techniques that lend themselves well to marketing copy that can be extraordinarily effective. This is by no means a comprehensive or definitive list there are almost as many ways to introduce your writing as there are ways to write. In this post, we’ll take a look at five of the many different ways you can open a blog post, article, interview, white paper – pretty much anything with words.
Sure, you need a tempting headline to catch your reader’s eye, but without a strong, compelling introduction, the best headline ever written won’t save you. We hear a great deal of talk about the importance of headlines, but much less is said about the value of a great introduction. I am, however, going to talk about introductions, and how to write them well. This is a marketing blog, not a book club. I’m not here to talk Salinger or the writing life or the greats of 20th century American literature.
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