A hook is the first sentence or two of an essay, written so the reader wants the next one. The strongest hooks come from your own material: a moment with a time and place, a specific question, a claim someone could argue with, one surprising number, a line from the text you're analyzing. Below are ten types of hook, each tried on the same four essays so you can compare them, then two complete introductions that show how a hook leads into a thesis.
What a hook has to do
The hook's job is to earn the second sentence. It also sets the tone: a joke promises a lighter essay, a death toll promises a serious one, and the reader will hold you to whichever you chose.
A hook never works alone. Most introductions run in three parts:
- Hook. One or two sentences that make the reader curious.
- Bridge. One to three sentences of context: who, when, what the debate is, whatever the reader needs to follow you.
- Thesis. Your main claim. Purdue's Online Writing Lab notes that it usually goes at the end of the first paragraph.
The bridge is where most hooks fail. A striking first line with no road to the thesis reads as a trick, and readers notice. Every hook below was written backward from a thesis.
The four essays behind every example
Each type of hook is shown four times, on the same four essays, so you can see what changes when the subject does. All four essays are original samples written for this guide.
| Essay | Type | Thesis |
|---|---|---|
| EssayStop changing the clocks | TypeArgumentative | ThesisThe U.S. should keep standard time all year. |
| EssayThe scorebook | TypePersonal essay | ThesisKeeping score for my brother's team taught me to record what happened, not what I hoped. |
| Essay"The Yellow Wallpaper" | TypeLiterary analysis | ThesisThe narrator's secret journal is her one act of resistance. |
| EssayThe Molasses Flood | TypeHistory paper | ThesisBoston's 1919 disaster was a failure of oversight, not a freak accident. |
10 types of hooks, 40 examples
For each type: when it works, what goes wrong, and four hooks, one per essay.
1. Start in the middle of a moment
Put the reader in a specific time and place with something already happening, and skip the setup. Storytellers call this in medias res. It suits personal essays and history papers. In an argument, keep the moment to two sentences and make sure it is typical, not a fluke.
Argument. The Monday after the clocks sprang forward, I waited for the bus in the dark again. The week before, the sun had been up.
Personal essay. Bottom of the sixth, bases loaded, two outs: my brother watched strike three go by, and I had to write it down.
Literary analysis. In the nursery at the top of a rented summer house, a woman is writing in secret. When her husband approaches, she stops mid-thought, because "he hates to have me write a word."
History paper. At about 12:30 on January 15, 1919, people near Boston's Commercial Street heard what sounded like machine-gun fire. It was the rivets of a 50-foot molasses tank, shooting loose.
2. Ask a question you mean
Ask the one question your essay answers, specific enough that the reader can't shrug it off. "Have you ever wondered…?" fails because the honest answer is usually no. Ask one question, not three in a row, and answer it by the end of the paragraph or the essay.
Argument. Why does a country that complains about changing its clocks every March keep changing them?
Personal essay. What do you write in the scorebook when your little brother strikes out to end the season?
Literary analysis. Why would a doctor forbid his own wife to write?
History paper. How does a tank of molasses kill 21 people?
3. Make a claim worth arguing with
State your position before you've earned it, in one plain sentence. It works when a reasonable reader might disagree, and it commits you: everything after it has to back it up. This is the natural hook for an argumentative essay, because the claim is the essay in miniature.
Argument. Changing the clocks twice a year solves a problem the United States no longer has.
Personal essay. A scorebook is the most honest thing I have ever written.
Literary analysis. The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" does not unravel because she is ill. She unravels because she is not allowed to write.
History paper. The Great Molasses Flood was not a freak accident. It was a construction failure with years of warning signs.
4. Lead with one surprising number
One number, made concrete. Round it where you can, compare it to something the reader can picture, and cite it in the essay like any other evidence. Three statistics in a row is a table, not a hook. A number you counted yourself works too, as the scorebook shows.
Argument. Daylight saving time now runs for 34 weeks a year, about two-thirds of the calendar. "Standard" time has become the exception.
Personal essay. Last season my brother struck out looking eleven times. I know because I drew every one as a backward K, the scorer's mark for a third strike the batter never swung at.
Literary analysis. As Charlotte Perkins Gilman told it, the doctor who treated her depression allowed her "two hours' intellectual life a day" and told her never to touch a pen again. In 1892 she published "The Yellow Wallpaper."
History paper. In January 1919, a tank in Boston's North End split open and released 2.3 million gallons of molasses, enough to fill three and a half Olympic swimming pools.
5. Quote someone inside the subject
Quote the text you're analyzing, a primary source, or a person in your story. A famous line pinned to Einstein could open anyone's essay, and many such quotations are misattributed anyway. Keep the quote short, say why it matters in the next sentence, and cite it.
Argument. "You don't save daylight," my grandfather says every March as he moves the kitchen clock forward. "You just move breakfast."
Personal essay. "Just put it down as a hit," a dad behind the backstop told me after the shortstop's throw sailed into the parking lot. I wrote E6.
Literary analysis. The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" can say it only to her journal: "John is a physician, and perhaps . . . perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster."
History paper. "Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage," the Boston Post reported. Shapes were struggling in it, the paper went on, and no one could tell which were people.
6. Describe a scene closely
Give two or three concrete details in the order a person would notice them, and let them carry the feeling. It is show, don't tell applied to a first sentence. Skip "Imagine…": it asks the reader to do the work your details should be doing.
Argument. It is 7:40 on a Monday in March. The streetlights on Elm Street are still on, the crossing guard is holding a flashlight, and a line of kindergartners is waiting to cross in the dark.
Personal essay. The scorer's seat at Field 3 is a folding chair behind the backstop, close enough to hear the umpire's knees crack. For two seasons I sat there with a pencil and a book of empty diamonds.
Literary analysis. The narrator's room has barred windows, rings in the walls and a bed that is, she believes, nailed down. Its wallpaper is "a smouldering, unclean yellow."
History paper. By afternoon, several blocks of the North End stood two to three feet deep in molasses. As the January air cooled it, it thickened around everything it had caught.
7. Correct a common belief
Say what most readers assume, then what's true. The gap between the two is your essay, set up in two sentences: a small case of juxtaposition. Pick a belief people actually hold. A straw man is easy to spot, and teachers spot it first.
Argument. Ask why we change the clocks and someone will say "for the farmers." Farmers were among the people who disliked daylight saving time most.
Personal essay. People assume the scorekeeper is the one person at a youth baseball game with nothing at stake. Try keeping score when the batter is your brother.
Literary analysis. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is often praised as horror, but nothing in it needs a ghost. The frightening part is a treatment plan.
History paper. The Great Molasses Flood sounds like a punch line. It killed 21 people and injured about 150.
8. Draw an analogy
Compare your subject to something the reader already knows, so an abstract point becomes physical. Use one comparison and keep it short. If it takes a paragraph to explain, it's the wrong one.
Argument. Changing the clocks is jet lag without the trip: twice a year, a whole country shifts an hour and waits for its body clocks to catch up.
Personal essay. A scorebook is a diary written in a shorthand that has no symbol for "almost."
Literary analysis. The narrator's journal works like a flight recorder. It keeps running while everything around it fails, and it is the only honest account of what happened in that room.
History paper. A 50-foot tank of molasses is a dam in a city street: harmless while the wall holds, and only as safe as the people who built it.
9. Start at the end
Give away the outcome and make the reader want the how. It works for narratives and histories, where the how is the essay. In an argument, open with an outcome from somewhere else: a bill that passed, a town that tried the idea.
Argument. In March 2022, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, by unanimous consent. The House never voted on it, and the clocks kept changing.
Personal essay. By the end of my second season as scorekeeper, I could draw a backward K next to my brother's name without pressing hard enough to tear the page.
Literary analysis. "The Yellow Wallpaper" ends with the narrator creeping along the wall of her room and her husband lying in a faint across her path. "Now why should that man have fainted?" she asks.
History paper. A court-appointed auditor eventually found the company, not anarchists, responsible for the tank that flooded Boston's North End. Getting there took three years of hearings.
10. Use a dry, funny line
A wry observation suits personal essays and lighter arguments. Make it about your subject, never a joke borrowed from the internet. With a serious subject, the humor can only come from how strange the event sounds, as in the last example, and never at the expense of the people involved.
Argument. Every November, most Americans gain an hour of sleep and spend it working out how to change the clock in the car.
Personal essay. I volunteered to keep score because it was the only job at the field that came with a chair.
Literary analysis. "John laughs at me, of course," the narrator writes, "but one expects that in marriage." It is the funniest line in "The Yellow Wallpaper," and the most frightening.
History paper. Few history papers have to begin by convincing the reader that the subject is not a joke. This one does.
From hook to thesis: two full introductions
Here are two of the hooks above, carried through to the end of the first paragraph. The first is academic, with a formal thesis. The second is personal, so the point arrives as a turn rather than a stated claim. For whole essays built this way, see these argumentative essay examples and narrative essay examples.
Hook. Daylight saving time now runs for 34 weeks a year, about two-thirds of the calendar. "Standard" time has become the exception.
Bridge. The current schedule comes from the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and took effect in 2007. Congress has repeatedly considered ending the switch, and most of those bills would keep daylight saving time all year. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine argues for the opposite: permanent standard time, which it says better matches the body's clock.
Thesis. The United States should stop changing its clocks, and it should keep standard time, not daylight saving time, all year.
Hook. I volunteered to keep score because it was the only job at the field that came with a chair.
Bridge. The shorthand took a week to learn: a number for every position, a K for a strikeout, a backward K when the batter never swung at strike three. The batter I watched most closely was my nine-year-old brother.
Point. What took two seasons was learning to write down what actually happened, especially when it happened to him.
Notice what the bridges do. Neither adds a new idea. They give the reader just enough context to understand the thesis, and then they stop.
Which hook fits which essay
Any type can work anywhere in the right hands, but some fit an essay type better than others. Start from the table.
| Essay | Strong choices | Use with care |
|---|---|---|
| EssayArgumentative | Strong choicesClaim, number, common belief | Use with careLong personal stories |
| EssayPersuasive | Strong choicesScene, question, a quoted person | Use with careJokes about the other side |
| EssayPersonal or college | Strong choicesMoment, scene, the ending first | Use with careStatistics, famous quotations |
| EssayLiterary analysis | Strong choicesQuote from the text, claim, question | Use with carePlot summary, author biography |
| EssayHistory or research | Strong choicesNumber, scene, primary source | Use with careHumor about the victims |
| EssayExpository | Strong choicesQuestion, number, analogy | Use with careDictionary definitions |
| EssayCompare and contrast | Strong choicesAnalogy, common belief | Use with careA separate hook for each subject |
A college application essay has the strictest test: the hook should be something only you could write. If your first line could open a stranger's essay, start again from a moment, a detail or something a person said to you. Speeches follow different rules, because listeners can't reread. See how to start a speech.
Openings to cut
The UNC Writing Center's list of introductions to avoid includes dictionary definitions, sweeping "dawn of man" openings and simply restating the assignment's question. These are the usual suspects, and what to write instead:
Instead
- Start inside your subject, at a specific time and place.
- Define the word the way your essay uses it, if it needs defining at all.
- Ask the one question your essay answers.
- Quote someone inside your subject: the text, a source, a person in your story.
- Let the thesis announce the topic at the end of the paragraph.
- Use one number, and cite it.
- Answer the prompt instead of repeating it.
Cut
- "Since the dawn of time, people have…"
- "Webster's Dictionary defines courage as…"
- "Have you ever wondered…?"
- A famous quotation that could open any essay
- "In this essay, I will discuss…"
- A statistic with no source
- The prompt, restated word for word
How to write your own hook
- Write the thesis first
You can't aim a hook without a target. Draft the thesis, or the whole body, before the introduction. The UNC Writing Center suggests writing the introduction last, or at least revising it once the essay is done. The essay outline template gives the hook and the thesis their own lines.
- List your raw material
Write down everything you could open with: a moment with a time and place, a number you can cite, a line from your text or from a person in your story, a belief your essay corrects. The most specific item usually wins.
- Draft three hooks of different types
Pick three types from the list above and write each one through to the thesis. Finished openings are easier to compare than first lines.
- Test the bridge
If you need more than three sentences to get from the hook to the thesis, the hook points somewhere else. Choose another one rather than stretching the bridge.
- Read it aloud and cut the warm-up
First drafts often start a sentence early. If your second sentence is stronger than your first, delete the first. Then read the paragraph aloud and listen for the point where you'd stop paying attention. When the opening holds, the title is next: see how to title an essay.
Drafting hooks in Strokes
If you write in Strokes, keep the candidates in the essay itself: a heading called Hooks above the introduction, with three drafts under it. Select one and press ⌘K to ask for a shorter version, or the same idea as a question. The AI Assistant beside the page can read the whole draft and tell you whether the hook actually leads to your thesis. Ask it to check, not to write. The hooks that work come from your own material, and your school sets the rules on AI use. Version history keeps every draft, so the hook you cut on Tuesday is still there on Thursday.
Frequently asked questions
What is a hook in an essay?
The first sentence or two of an essay, written to make the reader want to keep going. It is followed by a few sentences of context and then the thesis, which usually ends the first paragraph.
How long should a hook be?
One or two sentences in most essays. A short scene in a personal essay can run three or four, but if the hook takes up most of the introduction, the context and the thesis get squeezed.
Can you start an essay with a question?
Yes, if it is a specific question your essay answers, such as 'How does a tank of molasses kill 21 people?' Avoid questions the reader can answer with a shrug, and check the assignment, since some teachers discourage rhetorical questions in academic writing.
Is it OK to start an essay with a quote?
Yes, if the quotation comes from inside your subject: the text you are analyzing, a primary source, or a person in your story. Famous quotations are often misattributed and could open anyone's essay. Cite the quote and explain it in the next sentence.
What is a good hook for a college essay?
A specific moment, detail or line of dialogue from your own life that leads to what you want the reader to learn about you. Statistics and famous quotations rarely help, because they say nothing about you.
