Expository Leads

Expository Leads

The Right Start

• Grab your audience’s attention

• Be clear

Cliché

a trite, stereotyped expression; a sentence or phrase, usually expressing a popular or common thought or idea, that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse, as sadder but wiser, strong as an ox, or faster than a speeding bullet

Don’t be boring or put your audience to sleep by using tired expressions everyone’s heard before!

Question Leads

Beginning a piece by asking the reader a question is very risky because that lead has been over-used and lost its uniqueness. It’s also difficult to avoid being cheesy since frequently the questions are rhetorical.

A rhetorical question is NEVER asked with the purpose of receiving an answer!

Quote Leads

• Maybe you want to start with a quote.

- from a text you are writing about

- connected to a point you are trying to make

- from a person you are writing about

Call to Action/Entreaty Leads

• Tell your audience of something that people should be doing – and tell the audience to do it!

Note: This is very useful for speeches and OpEd (opinion pieces in the newspaper).

Anecdote Leads

• Tell a short story related to your topic. This:

- can help make the topic clear

- can influence the audience’s emotions

Set-up/Background Leads • Provide background about the topic.

- tell who a main character is and the challenge s/he is facing

- tell the history behind a problem

Fact/Statistic Leads

• Introduce the topic with a shocking fact or statistic that will surprise the audience.

Misleading Leads

• Set up expectations, then surprise the reader.

Works Cited• Cliché Definition - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cliche