2. Hook
Map
Thesis

3. Hook:
Purpose is to grab the
reader’s attention.
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•
•
•
•
•
•
Facts
Scene
Description
Problem
Contrast
Background
Dramatic Event

4. MAP:
Purpose is to lead
the reader to your point by
giving the background to the
issue or back conversation that
compels the topic to be
discussed.

5. THESIS:
Purpose is to state
your claim or point to be proven.
What’s your point?

6. Introduction
The United States should
remain an island of plenty in a sea of
hunger. The future of mankind is at stake.
We are not responsible for the rest of
humanity. We should not accept
responsibility for all humanity. We owe
more to the hundreds of billions of homo
futurans than we do to the hungry millions
—soon to be billions—of our own
generations.

7. Considered Mark Twain’s masterpiece and also one
of the foremost pieces in American Literature, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is narrated by Huck Finn
who fakes his own demise to get away from his appalling
drunken father. Together with a runaway slave called
Jim, Huck makes his way down the Mississippi on a raft.
On the aimless journey, Huck and Jim become involved
with a series of contrasting characters such as the
fraudulent “Duke” and “Dauphin.” Like Tom Sawyer, it is
an adventure novel, but together its disparate elements
become a complex moral commentary on the “American
Experience” as seen through the eyes of an innocent
boy. In Huckleberry Finn, Twain uses dialect and
symbolism as he leads his readers to see the need for a
more human society and for better understanding of
human relationships.

8. Facts and plot
scene to hook
readers’
interest in the
story
Tells the reader
why it is a worthy
discussion and
literary techniques
and patterns of
writing.
Main claim you
are going to
prove.
Considered Mark Twain’s masterpiece and
also one of the foremost pieces in American
Literature, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is
narrated by Huck Finn who fakes his own demise
to get away from his appalling drunken father.
Together with a runaway slave called Jim, Huck
makes his way down the Mississippi on a raft. On
the aimless journey, Huck and Jim become involved
with a series of contrasting characters such as the
fraudulent “Duke” and “Dauphin.” Like Tom Sawyer,
it is an adventure novel, but together its disparate
elements become a complex moral commentary on
the “American Experience” as seen through the eyes
of an innocent boy. In Huckleberry Finn, Twain uses
dialect and symbolism as he leads his readers to see
the need for a more human society and for better
understanding of human relationships.

9. You can engage your readers’ interest with
some background information. This
approach works well when you know the
audience is already interested in your
topic and there is no reason not to come
directly to the point. It is especially useful
on exams where there is no need or time
for subtlety.

10. With inflation taking its toll, many companies
have understandably been forced to raise
prices, and the oil industry should be no
exception. But well-intentioned individuals begin
wondering whether high prices are justified when
increases occur as frequently as they do. It is at
this point that we should start examining the
pricing policies of the major American oil
companies.

11. You can introduce using a definition
(Keep in mind the lead “According to
the dictionary…” is OVERUSED).
This technique is useful for research
papers or examinations where the
meaning of a specific term is crucial.

12. Democracy is a form of government in
which the ultimate authority is vested in an
exercised by the people. This may be so
in theory, but recent elections in our city
have caused much concern for the future
of democracy here. Extensive votingmachine irregularities and ghost voting
have seriously jeopardized the people’s
faith in the democratic process.

13. Begin with a story or
anecdote that leads into
or prepares for your
claim.

14. Upon meeting the famous author James
Joyce, a young student stammered, “May I kiss
the hand that wrote Ulysses?” “No!” said
Joyce. “It did a lot of other things, too.” As this
exchange shows, Joyce was an individual who
valued humor. This tendency is also present in
his final work, Finnegans Wake, where comedy
is used to comment on the human condition.

15. What was it like to live through the
holocaust? Elie Wiesel, in One
Generation After, answers this question
by presenting a series of accounts about
individuals who found themselves thrust
into Nazi death camps. As he does so,
he challenges some of the assumptions
we hold in our somewhat smug and
highly materialistic society.

16. It is three times the number of people
who belong to the Southern Baptist
Convention, nine times the number who
serve in the U.S. armed forces, and more
than twice the number who voted for
Barry Goldwater for President in 1964.
What is it? It’s the number of people in
the U.S. who admit to having smoked
marijuana: a massive 62 million.

17. If it is well chosen, it
can interest your
audience in reading
further.

18. “The rich are different,” said F.
Scott Fitzgerald more than fifty years
ago. Apparently, they remain so
today. As any examination of the
tax laws shows, the wealthy receive
more benefits than do the middle
class or the poor.

19. “The rich are different,” said F.
Scott Fitzgerald more than fifty years
ago. Apparently, they remain so
today. As any examination of the
tax laws shows, the wealthy receive
more benefits than do the middle
class or the poor.

20. “Eat two chocolate bars and call
me in the morning,” says the
psychiatrist to his patient. Such
advice sounds like a sugar fanatic’s
dream, but recent studies have
indeed confirmed that chocolate
positively affects depression and
anxiety.

21. One of every seven women living
in Smith County will be raped this
year, according to a recent report
prepared by the Country Rape
Information and Counseling
Services.

22. “I think onstage nudity is
disgusting, shameful, and damaging
to all things American,” says actress
Shelley Winters. “But if I were
twenty-two with a great body, it
would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic,
and progressive religious
experience.”

23. A group of young women were
questioning Saturday afternoon shoppers
about their views on the 1982 defeat of
the equal Rights Amendment. One old
man in overalls answered, “ERA? Well, I
like it just fine. But you know, I can’t pick
it up on my darned old radio after dark.”
That was the problem—too few people
knew what the ERA really stood for.

24. With one eye blackened, one arm in a cast,
and third-degree burns on both her legs, the
pretty, blond two-year-old seeks corners of
rooms, refuses to speak, and shakes violently at
the sound of loud noises. Tammy is not the
victim of a war or a natural disaster; rather, she
is the helpless victim of her parent, one of the
thousands of children who suffer daily from
America’s hidden crime, child abuse.

25. Texas’s first execution of a woman
in 22 years is scheduled for
September 17 at Huntsville Unit of the
State’s Department of Correction,
despite the protests of various human
rights groups around the country.

26. The Romans kept geese on their
Capitol Hill to cackle alarm in the event of
attack by night. Modern Americans,
despite their technology, has hardly
improved on that old system of protection.
According to the Safety Council report,
almost any door with standard locks can
be opened easily with a credit card.

27. A two-hundred pound teenager quit school
because no desk would hold her. A threehundred pound chef who could no longer stand
on his feet was fired. A three-hundred pound
truck driver broke furniture in his friends’ houses.
All these people are now living better, happier,
thinner lives, thanks to the remarkable intestinal
bypass surgery first developed in 1967.

28. I realized times were changing for
women when I overheard my six-year-old
nephew speaking to my sister, a
prominent New York lawyer. As we left
her elaborate, luxurious office one
evening, Tommy looked up at his mother
and queried, “Mommy, can little boys grow
up to be lawyers, too?”

29. Some people believe that poetry is
written only by aging beatniks or
solemn, mournful men and women
with suicidal tendencies. The Poetry
in the Schools Program is working
hard to correct that erroneous point of
view.