Revise everything you have written until the following requirements have been met.
100. Indicate within the first few sentences what the composition is about.
Some of the more common devices used by experienced writers in beginning a composition are listed below. You can begin almost anything you will be called upon to write in one of these ways or in a combination of two or more of them. Use a different beginning for each composition you write until you have tried a considerable number of them. After some practice you can quickly select the one beginning that is most appropriate both to your material and to your reader.
- 1. Make one or more startling assertions.
- 2. Ask one or more questions.
- 3. Say something clever.
- 4. Make one or more suppositions.
- 5. Contrast one thing with another.
- 6. Use direct discourse.
- 7. Use an incident.
- 8. Sketch in the background.
- 9. Introduce one of the characters.
- 10. Employ a preliminary summary.
- 11. Plunge your reader into suspense.
- 12. State the conclusion the reader is to reach.
- 13. Give personal details about yourself.
- 14. Talk about your reader.
- 15. State your reflections on the subject.
- 16. Explain why you are writing.
- 17. Invoke aid in accomplishing your purpose.
- 18. Quote a familiar saying.
- 19. Parody a familiar saying.
- 20. Quote what someone has said or written.
- 21. Quote what purports to be what someone has said or written.
101. Keep the same point of view throughout.
Wrong. If one wishes to enter a canoe safely, he should grasp both gunwales and lower himself to the seat. You should then push off from the shore.
Better. To enter a canoe safely, grasp both gunwales and lower yourself to the seat before pushing off from the shore.
Wrong. As he stood looking down the river he saw a house-boat plowing along; while behind him a fleet of coal barges sent ripples toward the shore.
Better. As he stood looking down the river he saw a house-boat plowing along. Turning around he noticed a fleet of coal barges sending ripples toward the shore.
Wrong. The taxi driver has an excellent opportunity to observe the life about him. All kinds and conditions of men and women make use of him at all hours of the day and night. Some think him merely a part of the machine he drives, some consider him no better than the dirt under their feet, and some—to be sure they are not many—treat him as if he were a living, breathing human being like themselves.