how to write an introduction paragraph for your essay

Description
If You Must, Send Them Down the Funnel: Many readers of this guide have learned how to write a standard five-paragraph essay in what teachers have called the "funnel" style. This skill is essential for standardized tests, where time is short and the point is to show that you can construct three meaningful paragraphs about the same topic. The funnel metaphor comes from the idea that your introduction makes some general observations and gradually narrows down to your three main points, one point to be discussed in each paragraph. Then the readers fall out of the funnel into ... well, instructors don't tell you what happens next. The conclusion is supposed to sum up and then provide one further idea that broadens back into the general point or extends somewhere else.