can i start college essay with a quote

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How to Start an Essay With a Quote

Last Updated: September 7, 2022 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 449,784 times.

Writing an effective introduction can be one of the most intimidating aspects of writing an essay. While there are many different approaches to writing introductory paragraphs, you may want to consider beginning your essay with a quotation. Finding the right quotation and using it well within the framework of your own words can ensure that your essay is off to a great start.

Finding the Perfect Quotation

• Quote a person saying something that someone would not expect them to say.
• Quote someone who is not universally famous.
• Use a well-known quote but contradict it.

• Determine whether the audience will be familiar with the person who you are quoting. If it is someone obscure or you think they will not be familiar, consider providing additional (brief) details.
• Do not use a quote that could be offensive to the audience unless you plan to contradict the quotation.
• Strike a balance between assuming your audience knows everything and assuming they know nothing. You should be clear and informative but not insulting to the intelligence of your reader.

Quoting Correctly

• Use the quote as a sentence predicate. The subject of the sentence will be the person who said the quote, and the verb will most likely be a synonym of “said.” For example, "Jane Smith said, 'blah blah blah.'"
• Preview the content of the quote. Use your own (grammatically correct) sentence to preview or paraphrase what the quote will say, then insert a colon or comma, then the (grammatically correct) sentence-length quotation. For example: "Once Jane Smith said something completely awesome: 'the awesome thing she said.'"
• Begin with the quote. If you begin with the quote, be sure to place a comma after the quote and then provide a verb and attribute the quotation to the source. For example: "'Blah blah blah,' said Jane Smith."

• The quote only needs to be capitalized if it begins the sentence or if the first word of the quote is a proper noun, like the name of a person or a place.
• In American usage, end punctuation should be placed inside the quotation marks. For example, “this is the quote.”
• Paraphrased material (someone else’s idea put into your own words) need not have quotation marks around it, but should be attributed to the original speaker.
• If you introduce the quote with the speaker’s name and a verb, provide a comma before the beginning of the quotation. For example: "Jane Smith said, 'blah blah blah.'"

• Be particularly aware of quotations found on social media such as Pinterest, or on quote aggregators such as Brainyquote. These sources are notorious for mis-attributing and even making up famous quotes.

• You may also need to substitute a word (like a name rather than a pronoun) for clarity. If you need to substitute a word, place square brackets around the word to indicate that you made a change. For example: "Jane Smith said, 'blah [blady] blah.'"
• Be sure to keep the original intent of the quotation when making changes. Changes should be made only to preserve clarity or to change length, not to manipulate the content of the quotation.

Incorporating the Quotation into Your Introduction

• In your introduction, you need to be clear about what you're going to talk about and how you're going to talk about it.

• Be sure that the quotation you use supports your thesis.
• Be sure that using the quotation enhances, rather than distracting from, your argument. [12] X Research source

Community Q&A

• Find a quote that is meaningful to you, not just one you found in a list on the internet. If the context and wording of the quote speak to you, you’re more likely to connect it to your essay effectively. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 0

• Some college professors never want to see a quotation begin an essay. Because the method is often overused, there is some bias against it. You can overcome this by doing it very well. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 1

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/cliches/
• ↑ https://www.esu.edu/writing-studio/guides/hook.cfm
• ↑ https://www.ccis.edu/student-life/advising-tutoring/writing-math-tutoring/introduce-quotations
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/quotation_marks/index.html
• ↑ https://www.ursinus.edu/live/files/1160-integrating-quotespdf
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/quotations/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/quotations/
• ↑ http://www.otago.ac.nz/classics/otago055219.pdf

About This Article

To start an essay with a quote, introduce the quote by including the name of the author, such as, “John Keats once said…” When you include the quote, put quotation marks around it and make sure to put any punctuation inside the quotation marks. If the quote is long, you can use only part of it or remove sections as long as you insert an ellipses. Once you’ve introduced the quote and the author, provide some context for the quotation and how it ties into the thesis of your essay. For tips from our English reviewer on how to find the perfect quotation to start your essay, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Start a College Essay – 12 Techniques and Tips

August 1, 2023

Your college tours are scheduled, you’re knee-deep in SAT/ACT prep , application deadlines are quickly approaching, and then it happens: writer’s block hits you hard. You’re stumped, wondering how to start a college essay. It’s all too easy to overthink it when acceptances are on the line. But don’t fret! We’ve got you covered with 12 tips and techniques, plus answers to common questions like: Can I start my essay with a quote? Should I try to sound as smart as possible? Is it okay to use humor?

Keep reading for all you need to know about how to start a college essay:

• Common Mistakes to Avoid

How to Start a College Essay: The Content

How to start a college essay: the style.

• More Resources

How to Start a College Essay: Common Mistakes to Avoid

Since admissions readers are looking to be surprised and engaged right away, it’s safest to avoid these overused techniques.

1) Pulling out the dictionary

Chances are, your reader already knows the definition of the word you’re tempted to copy and paste from Merriam-Webster . Unless you’re starting with a word in a non-English language or a word that 98% of the population truly does not know, there’s no need to turn to the dictionary. Assume your reader is a smart person who is already in the know.

2) Choosing clichés

Clichés are boring in writing because they’re, well…cliché. Before you tell an admissions reader that all that glitters isn’t gold or there’s a silver lining to every cloud, remember that their job involves reading hundreds if not thousands of college essays. The way to impress them is to stand out as someone with unique insights, opinions, or creativity. Not sure if the phrase you’re using is trite or overused? Look it up online and see if there is an overabundance of results.

How to Start a College Essay (Continued) 

3) beginning broadly.

Since the dawn of time, students have been starting essays too broadly. Your college admissions essays are about you, your experiences, your values, and your goals. So, starting with general statements like “Different cultures have different traditions and values” or “We have to be the change we want to see in the world” don’t center you as the topic of your essay. If you’re writing your essay about, say, your Polynesian identity and your love of Hula dance or the summer you spent making vats of soup for a food kitchen, jump right into sharing a vivid memory from those experiences instead.

4) Leading with a quote

“Can I start my college essay with a quote?” is one of the most common questions we get. The problem with starting with a quote is the same as starting too broadly: you don’t center yourself as the topic of your essay. Since college essays are short, the quote itself and the many sentences it will take to transition to the rest of your content will eat up precious word count. Unless it’s a deep-cut quote that’s highly particular to you and your niche interests, quotes anywhere in your essay can come across as cliché.

A stand-out college admissions essay will grab your reader’s attention and immediately give them a sense of who you are, what you value, and what’s unique about you. Trying to decide how to start a college essay? First, take a look at our guide to the Common App Prompts . Then, use one of these five techniques to brainstorm content:

1) Share a challenge you’ve overcome

Since college is all about growth and learning, one tried and true strategy is describing a challenge you’ve overcome that you’ve learned a lot from. Example:

For my first three months of middle school choir, I was nothing more than a ventriloquist’s dummy, mouthing words with no sound coming out. I was terrified to use my voice. Then, one fateful morning, Mrs. Garcia asked me to solo in front of the whole class.

A strong essay about a challenge you’ve overcome will explain who you were before, how you overcame the challenge, and who you are now. Taking this approach allows you to demonstrate that you’re able to rise to meet challenges, learn through difficulty, and apply yourself even when you’re uncomfortable. A word of warning though: avoid writing about very common challenges like pushing yourself to beat your cross-country time, studying for the SAT/ACT or other big tests, or transitioning from middle to high school. Since so many students share these experiences as common ground, these topics will make it hard to stand out from the crowd.

Want even more tips on writing about a challenge you’ve overcome? Check out our full guide to the Overcoming Challenges prompt.

2) Show your funny side

Yes, humor works well in college essays! Poking fun at one of your quirks or (inconsequential) shortcomings can be a great way to reveal your personality. Example:

Every day, I begged. At bedtime, at breakfast, for my birthday, for Christmas—I begged for a skateboard. Mom said it was too dangerous, Dad thought they were too noisy, but still I dreamed of cruising the neighborhood and learning to ollie in our driveway. My 14th birthday was the day my begging finally ended. It was also the day I learned I have absolutely no sense of balance.

Opening with a humorous story paints a vivid picture of you right away, but where you take it from there matters. You probably wouldn’t want to write a whole essay about breaking your tailbone and this isn’t the right forum for a stand-up routine. But you could take an opening like this in a variety of directions that reveal more meaningful truths about you. For example, after this opener, this writer could go on to:

• Talk about other new skills they tried that they were able to land better than an ollie.
• Describe how they learned about balance in other avenues of their life.

3) Clear up a misconception about you

Although college essays are brief, you’ll want to squeeze in as much depth and breadth as you can. Starting by addressing an assumption or stereotype you’ve faced can be an efficient and engaging way to move past the superficial. Example:

Blonde. Four foot eight. Size five feet. Strangers and well-meaning friends sometimes offer me a booster seat or ask if I need help carrying heavy things. Little do they know I can deadlift 135 pounds. My first teen powerlifting competition is coming up this spring.

Clearing up a misconception allows you to surprise your admissions reader and share something meaningful about yourself in one stroke. When using this strategy, think about all the different layers of your identity. What assumptions do others make of you and what might casual acquaintances or strangers be surprised to learn? A word of warning: steer clear of being too critical of others. Although stereotypes and assumptions are difficult to bear, for this essay, you’ll want to focus on you —your accomplishments, skills, and passions—instead of others.

4) Invite us in

Are Shabbat dinners with your whole extended family the highlight of your week? Do you feel most alive when you’re at your keyboard composing a new song or when you’re at a Robotics Club meeting, throwing out wild design ideas with your team? When you invite us in, you’re letting your reader in on the places you’re most at home, most excited, or most yourself. Example:

When I was seven years old, my grandma sat me down at her sewing table and taught me how to sew back on the button that had popped off my sweater. I can still feel her hands on mine, showing me where to place the needle. It was the first of what became weekly lessons on backstitching, basting, hemming pants, and embroidery. I didn’t know it then, but it was the first day of my journey into fashion design.

To brainstorm for this technique, list experiences that have helped shape your values, goals, and interests. Think of things you do every week but also once-in-a-lifetime events. You’ll want to begin this essay by choosing one meaningful experience to share in the beginning of your essay. Use vivid details that help a reader imagine the experience for themselves and then explain why this experience matters to you.

5) Nerd out about a problem you’ve solved

If you’ve hit the library stacks to find the answer to a burning question, stayed after class to ask your teacher for more homework, worked with a student club to improve a campus issue, or concocted your own science experiment, this might be the essay tactic for you. Example:

As a volunteer at my local pet rescue, I surprised myself by becoming a crusader for birds. Dogs and cats were adopted all the time, but the parrots, cockatiels, and parakeets sat in their cages for ages, chattering away and waiting for their forever homes. I realized it was an issue of awareness: no one knew our shelter rescued birds. Thirty YouTube tutorials and one online digital marketing class later, I had developed a ten-step social media strategy.

A great way to share your unique interests, this technique lets you showcase the curiosity and eagerness to learn you’ll be bringing with you to college. To brainstorm for this essay, think of times when you’ve worked solo or with a team to discover something new or solve a tricky problem. As you write about this experience, describe the initial problem, any difficulties you encountered, and the strategies you used to find a solution.

We’ve covered essay content, but you may still be wondering how to start a college essay that grabs your reader’s attention. Here are three key style tips that will help breathe life into your writing:

1) Share a story

As you can probably tell from the examples above, we recommend starting your essay off with an engaging story. Before you tell a reader that you’re an introvert who also loves performing in musical theater, you’ll want to tell the tale of the first time you braved the spotlight. Before you explain that you plan to major in political science, describe the town hall meeting you attended in the 7 th grade that started it all.

2) Use vivid descriptions

When we read, we’re most engaged when we feel like we can clearly imagine the scene. To draw a reader in, use the same storytelling strategies that fiction writers use: sensory descriptions, concrete details, and passing time.

• Sensory descriptions: Describe the smell of your mother’s biryani cooking on the stove, the temperature of the air at the start of your first half marathon. Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. Engage as many of the five senses as you can.
• Concrete details: Concrete details are particular descriptions of places, people, and objects. If you’re describing a service trip to Honduras, describe the buildings, streets, and food you ate so your reader can imagine it.
• Passing time: Making time pass means ensuring you have a clear sense of the beginning, middle, and end of your story. To keep things clear, put your details in linear order and make sure to include temporal transitional phrases like “When I was six years old,” “Later, in high school,” and “Now, as I reflect back.”

3) Use your own voice

When you’re wondering how to start your college essay, it can be tempting to write in the same style you use for academic essays. But the college essay is a personal essay, not an essay for school. For this style of writing, you’ll want to be clear, thoughtful, and grammatically correct, but you’ll also want to be personable, engaging, and, most importantly, yourself. With that in mind, skip the SAT vocabulary words and opt for a more conversational tone instead.

How to Start a College Essay: More Resources

Looking to learn even more about how to start a college essay? If you’re ready to get started on your supplemental essays, check out our walk-through of the Why This College essay and explore our blog posts discussing the supplemental essay prompts for 50+ schools . You may also wish to read our piece on How to End a College Essay .

• College Essay

Christina Wood

Christina Wood holds a BA in Literature & Writing from UC San Diego, an MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in English at the University of Georgia, where she teaches creative writing and first-year composition courses. Christina has published fiction and nonfiction in numerous publications, including The Paris Review , McSweeney’s , Granta , Virginia Quarterly Review , The Sewanee Review , Mississippi Review , and Puerto del Sol , among others. Her story “The Astronaut” won the 2018 Shirley Jackson Award for short fiction and received a “Distinguished Stories” mention in the 2019 Best American Short Stories anthology.

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How to start a college essay

Bonus Material: PrepMaven’s 30 College Essays that worked

If you’re applying to college, then you likely already know that the college admissions essay goes a long way to distinguishing your profile from the thousands of other applications in the college admissions process. 

If you want to wow those picky admission officers at selective colleges, you want an effective college application essay–and if you want an effective college application essay, you need a strong start that hooks readers. 

At PrepMaven, we’ve spent years coaching students on how to craft college essays that work, and we’ve seen countless students get admitted to Princeton, Harvard, and other elite universities after using our methods. 

We’ve already written up some of our best advice on brainstorming and structuring your college essay. In this post, we’ll specifically cover one of the hardest parts: how to actually begin your college application essay. 

We’ve also provided a link to our collection of 30 real college application essays that worked–take a look at these for real-life examples of the techniques covered in this post!

Download 30 essays that worked

Jump to section: Tips for getting past the blank page Techniques for effective openings The action scene The disorienting scene The surprising declaration The (unusual) quote The weird fact Final considerations Next steps

Tips for getting past the blank page

If you’re intimidated by the act of starting the college essay, you aren’t alone. The blank page is as terrifying and intimidating to professional writers as it is for you. 

Take it from Margaret Atwood, an astonishingly prolific writer who still said, “The fact is that blank pages inspire me with terror.” In this section, we’ll offer three ways to get started writing and get past that blank page.

Later in this post, we’ll highlight several specific ways you can begin your essay, with examples and analysis. “Techniques for effective openings” to jump to those techniques. 

It’s a tough thing to put a story on the page. It’s even more so when the story is personal and the stakes are high, as is the case with these college application essays. So, before we cover specific writing techniques you can use to begin your college essay, we’d like to suggest a few ways to get over that initial hump of writing the first word. 

Note that all of these assume you’ve got a topic in mind–if you don’t, check out our post here on how to brainstorm an effective college essay topic. If you’re still having trouble picking a topic, that’s something that can easily be worked through by connecting with one of our college essay experts. 

Before beginning your actual essay, take a stab at a few short free-writes that nobody will ever see. 

After selecting your topic, try writing anywhere from 100-250 words on two or more of the following prompts:

• Write a first-person description of the most important moment related to your chosen topic. 
• Why did you choose this topic? Why is it important?
• Narrate how your worldview has changed as a result of the events you plan to write about. 
• Write exactly what point you want college admissions officers to take away from your essay and choice of topic. 
• Conversely, describe what you don’t want admissions officers to take away from this essay. 

Remember: these are free-writes, not part of your essay! More likely than not, what you write here won’t find its way directly into the finished product. But, even if it might sound corny, this will help you start thinking more deeply about what you want to convey. 

More importantly, it’ll help you get over the initial hurdle of writing something . If nobody is ever going to read one of these free-writes, you don’t have to worry about making it pretty or neat. Just get some content on the page and let it shape your thinking. 

• Start in the middle

Often, it’s the introduction that’s hardest to come up with. But there’s no rule that says you have to write that part first! If you have a decent sense of where you want your essay to go, simply start writing from the middle of the essay. 

As you continue to write, you’ll always have the ability to go back to the start and craft a powerful opening paragraph or scene that sets up your entire essay. What’s most important at this stage is to simply start writing . If that means starting in the middle, so be it: you get to decide where you start and where you end. 

• Early on, don’t try to make it perfect… or even good!

We know: the stakes are high, the sweat might be starting to bead on your forehead. But while this pressure can be a good thing, it shouldn’t affect your first draft. Remember that no admissions officer will ever read your first draft. 

Does the first sentence you come up with sound awkward or silly? Perfectly fine. Does your introductory anecdote seem cliche? Sounds great. Do you think the first couple sentences don’t connect to each other at all? Absolutely no problem. 

When you begin writing, you are not trying to jump to a finished product as quickly as possible. The truth is that whatever you write now will get edited or revised countless times before you arrive at the final, polished version of your college application essay. 

When we work with students, it’s not uncommon to see an essay go through 10 or more drafts. At first, those changes might be massive–an essay might transform almost totally between drafts 1 and 2. As the work continues, all those clunky or awkward moments you didn’t like in your first draft will get tweaked and polished into something beautiful that you can be proud of. 

We’ve seen it happen with every successful college personal statement. Every time, students find it so much easier to work on the second draft than the first, regardless of how successful that first draft was. The mere fact of having something to edit makes all the difference. 

We can take some more advice from Margaret Atwood: “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.” 

Don’t wait for perfection: write. 

Techniques for effective college essay openings (with examples!)

While the above suggestions can help you get started writing, we also want to provide 5 specific techniques you can use to begin your essay. 

Of course, there are way more than 5 ways to start an essay. In this post, however, we wanted to highlight the 5 techniques that can easily and successfully be incorporated into just about any essay. You can think of these 5 as integral components of your basic toolkit. 

Depending on the topic of your essay and what structure you plan to use, some of these will work better than others. 

If you ever want someone with a proven track record of experience to show you how it’s done, you can always get matched with one of our essay tutors . Or, if you just want to take a look at openings like these in action, check out our free collection of 30 real sample essays below. 

I walked down the pale pink stone pathway, up a ramp, past the library building, and towards the Student Activities Center of the college campus, carrying a large brown cardboard box.

From: 30 College Essay Samples

If you’ve read any real sample college essays, you’ve seen this kind of opening. And with good reason: it’s tried, it’s true, it hooks admission officers while also setting up the story you’re about to tell. 

The idea is extremely simple. Identify a particular moment that can serve to introduce the topic of your essay. Then, begin by writing 1-2 sentences describing a specific action that you were taking, as in the example above. 

What’s so good about this kind of opening? Well, it immediately puts the spotlight on you and drops us in the middle of some event or incident that we want to learn more about. Where is this person going? What’s in the cardboard box? Why have they chosen to write about this particular moment at this particular place?

If you’re really not sure how to start, this is often one of the easiest paths to take. Describe in detail where you were and what you did, and you’ll have the makings of a strong piece of writing. 

The disorienting scene

The squeaks of whiteboard markers have now replaced the scritch-scratch of chalk, but the hubbub of voices is always the same. For millennia, the great thinkers of their day would gather and discuss. 

From: 30 College Essay Examples

This is similar to the first technique, with two differences. The first is that it doesn’t necessarily recount any action that you are taking (it doesn’t even need to talk about you); the second is that it explicitly aims to be a bit disorienting. 

In this case, it’s not totally clear what’s going on: where are we, what’s going on, and what does all this have to do with great thinkers? As is always the case, the primary goal is to hook admissions committees so that they keep reading. This kind of disorienting scene works by making us want to figure out what’s going on. 

A couple key things to bear in mind for this opening:

• Sensory details are key! Without the sensory details in this example, it simply wouldn’t work. 
• Don’t keep it disorienting for too long. Any longer than a few sentences of disorientation and you risk annoying readers. 
• Don’t make it so disorienting that we can’t get any sense of what’s happening. It’s a tricky thing to balance, but you want us confused enough to keep reading and not so confused that we think it’s just bad writing. 

The surprising declaration

I am an aspiring hot sauce sommelier.

We’ve used this opener as an example in some of our other posts, but it really is a great one: it’s weird, it’s unusual, it’s unique. And that’s exactly what you want with this kind of opening. Simply start with a surprising or bold statement about who you are or what you believe. 

Shorter is usually better with these: surprise us, and let us stay surprised for a second! If you’re writing an essay about how you view the world or some element of your identity that’s important to you, you can almost always start off the essay with a statement like “I am…” or “I believe…”

It’s stunningly simple, and, done well, it can be stunningly effective, providing something like a thesis statement that you’ll explore over the course of your essay. But simplicity can be dangerous:

• The statement must be surprising . If it’s something obvious, boring, or cliche, then you risk jeopardizing your entire essay from the start. 
• The statement cannot be offensive . We know: that’s a loaded, subjective term. But you don’t want to try so hard to be surprising and edgy that you offend adcoms. 
• Finally, you have to be able to meaningfully explore the statement. This opening is just that: an opening. You have to make sure the rest of your essay successfully conveys some key personal experience that matters. 

For more successful essays that open with the surprising declaration, check our our collection of 30 real essays that worked below. 

Download 30 Essays That Worked

The (unusual) quote

Example 1: “What’s this white-ass boy doin’ in a black neighborhood?”

Example 2: “So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.” – Franz Kafka. Kafka, I’m afraid, has drastically overestimated the power of food. 

If you’ve read other guides, then you’ve probably noticed almost all of them tell you not to start by quoting someone. And, for the most part, they’re right. You do not want to start by quoting one of the tired, cliche quotes that everyone comes across and uses. 

It’s not, obviously, that the most famous quotes from Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, or JFK aren’t important–it’s that they’re so important everyone has heard them a million times. 

But the point to take away isn’t that a quote is always bad. A cliche quote, a boring quote, a quote that you don’t do anything interesting with– that’s bad. An unusual, unexpected, and totally original quote? That can work.

Take a look at our two examples above. They’re radically different, but what they share is that they’re not just some famous quotes a student saw in a textbook. 

The first is provocative, even vulgar–but you absolutely know there’s a brilliant story about to follow. 

The second, while it could be boring or cliche, isn’t. Why? Because the writer immediately inserts their own voice and criticism: they’re not just using the quote to prove some big point, they’re humorously arguing against the quote itself. 

It helps, too, that the quote is from someone well known enough (read Kafka if you haven’t already) but not quite as famous as the usual folks people cite. 

The lesson to take away from this is two-pronged: 

• Never start a college essay with an overly famous, cliche, or boring quote–especially if you don’t have anything new to say about it. 
• You can start an essay with a quote that’s personal, provocative, or otherwise unusual. 

It’s a tough needle to thread, but done well, this can make for a killer introduction to your personal narrative. 

Not sure whether the quote you’ve got in mind is cliche or not? The best way to find out is by asking someone who’s actually read countless essays– like one of our essay counselors , who’ve helped countless students navigate the college admissions process successfully. 

The weird fact

Over 13 billion pennies are made each year, and for the most part, they are indistinguishable from one another. Each copper-brown coin has the same feel, the same size, and even the same old Abraham Lincoln on one side.

This one, more or less, is self-explanatory: toss an unexpected fact or stat at the reader, and you’ll get them intrigued as to what the connection is between it and your personal experience. 

Often (as in the case of the example above), it’s a great way to introduce an unusual hobby or interest. If, say, you’re writing your college essays about your love for numismatics (coin-collecting), an unexpected fact about pennies can serve as the perfect opener. 

But, as has been the dominant theme up to now, it’s crucial that your opening fact is at least somewhat unusual or interesting. It’s also super important that you immediately follow up to explain its relevance. 

A few pointers:

• If you open with a fact, connect it to your larger themes ASAP . Compared to the other opening techniques we covered, this one buys you the least time: an admissions committee can very quickly get bored of facts and stats, so give them something else quickly.
• As always, what matters is what you do with this opening. Anyone can start with a wacky statistic–the question is how you can connect it seamlessly to your narrative in a way that convinces these hyper-selective universities that you’re a perfect fit.

Final suggestions

While each of those opening techniques has been proven to work countless times by our students, which one you choose might depend a bit on your choice of topic. 

It might help to think about why each of these openings works: at heart, they all help you do what a good hook must: 

• Capture the reader’s attention by being distinct from other essays
• Engage the reader’s curiosity by withholding a certain amount of information
• Set the tone and stakes for what the rest of your essay will talk about. 

At the same time, a hook has to avoid :

• Coming off as inauthentic or like you’re trying too hard to be clever
• insulting/offending/otherwise alienating the reader
• Being confusing or unrelated to the essay prompt

Because each essay is unique, the best opening can vary–we recommend talking this over with one of our college essay experts , who have a proven track record of success helping students gain admission to Ivy League schools and other elite institutions. 

Also bear in mind that these essay openers don’t just work for starting your Common App essay or personal statement; they’re just as valuable for all of your supplemental essays. 

Ultimately, these are techniques you can use to ensure that your opening gives admissions committees what they want. They won’t guarantee a perfect essay–but they will help you develop a strong opening that sets you up for a powerful, convincing piece of writing. 

As the beginning of this post suggested, the most important thing to do is: write! Use our techniques for getting past the blank page to get yourself warmed up. 

Then, play around with our specific, proven openers to try different beginnings to your college essay. 

If you ever need inspiration, then there’s no better place to look than our collection of 30 real essays that worked to get students into college, linked below. 

And if you find you want someone to make sure your essay is as competitive as it needs to be, then you can always reach out to our team of expert college essay coaches here . 

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How to Start a College Essay to Hook Your Reader

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What’s Covered:

What is the purpose of the college essay introduction, tips for getting started on your essay, 6 effective techniques for starting your college essay.

• Cliche College Essay Introduction to Avoid

Where to Get Your Essay Edited for Free

Have you sat down to write your essay and just hit a wall of writer’s block? Do you have too many ideas running around your head, or maybe no ideas at all?

Starting a college essay is potentially the hardest part of the application process. Once you start, it’s easy to keep writing, but that initial hurdle is just so difficult to overcome. We’ve put together a list of tips to help you jump that wall and make your essay the best it can be.

The introduction to a college essay should immediately hook the reader. You want to give admissions officers a reason to stay interested in your story and encourage them to continue reading your essay with an open mind. Remember that admissions officers are only able to spend a couple minutes per essay, so if you bore them or turn them off from the start, they may clock out for the rest of the essay.

As a whole, the college essay should aim to portray a part of your personality that hasn’t been covered by your GPA, extracurriculars, and test scores. This makes the introduction a crucial part of the essay. Think of it as the first glimpse, an intriguing lead on, into the read rest of your essay which also showcases your voice and personality. 

Brainstorm Topics

Take the time to sit down and brainstorm some good topic ideas for your essay. You want your topic to be meaningful to you, while also displaying a part of you that isn’t apparent in other aspects of your application. The essay is an opportunity to show admissions officers the “real you.” If you have a topic in mind, do not feel pressured to start with the introduction. Sometimes the best essay openings are developed last, once you fully grasp the flow of your story.

Do a Freewrite

Give yourself permission to write without judgment for an allotted period of time. For each topic you generated in your brainstorm session, do a free-write session. Set a time for one minute and write down whatever comes to mind for that specific topic. This will help get the juices flowing and push you over that initial bit of writer’s block that’s so common when it comes time to write a college essay. Repeat this exercise if you’re feeling stuck at any point during the essay writing process. Freewriting is a great way to warm up your creative writing brain whilst seeing which topics are flowing more naturally onto the page.

Create an Outline

Once you’ve chosen your topic, write an outline for your whole essay. It’s easier to organize all your thoughts, write the body, and then go back to write the introduction. That way, you already know the direction you want your essay to go because you’ve actually written it out, and you can ensure that your introduction leads directly into the rest of the essay. Admissions officers are looking for the quality of your writing alongside the content of your essay. To be prepared for college-level writing, students should understand how to logically structure an essay. By creating an outline, you are setting yourself up to be judged favorably on the quality of your writing skills.

1. The Scriptwriter

“No! Make it stop! Get me out!” My 5-year-old self waved my arms frantically in front of my face in the darkened movie theater.

Starting your essay with dialogue instantly transports the reader into the story, while also introducing your personal voice. In the rest of the essay, the author proposes a class that introduces people to insects as a type of food. Typically, one would begin directly with the course proposal. However, the author’s inclusion of this flashback weaves in a personal narrative, further displaying her true self.

Read the full essay.

2. The Shocker

A chaotic sense of sickness and filth unfolds in an overcrowded border station in McAllen, Texas. Through soundproof windows, migrants motion that they have not showered in weeks, and children wear clothes caked in mucus and tears. The humanitarian crisis at the southern border exists not only in photographs published by mainstream media, but miles from my home in South Texas.

This essay opener is also a good example of “The Vivid Imaginer.” In this case, the detailed imagery only serves to heighten the shock factor. While people may be aware of the “humanitarian crisis at the southern border,” reading about it in such stark terms is bound to capture the reader’s attention. Through this hook, the reader learns a bit about the author’s home life; an aspect of the student that may not be detailed elsewhere in their application. The rest of the essay goes on to talk about the author’s passion for aiding refugees, and this initial paragraph immediately establishes the author’s personal connection to the refugee crisis.

3. The Vivid Imaginer

The air is crisp and cool, nipping at my ears as I walk under a curtain of darkness that drapes over the sky, starless. It is a Friday night in downtown Corpus Christi, a rare moment of peace in my home city filled with the laughter of strangers and colorful lights of street vendors. But I cannot focus. 

Starting off with a bit of well-written imagery transports the reader to wherever you want to take them. By putting them in this context with you, you allow the reader to closely understand your thoughts and emotions in this situation. Additionally, this method showcases the author’s individual way of looking at the world, a personal touch that is the baseline of all college essays.

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4. The Instant Plunger

The flickering LED lights began to form into a face of a man when I focused my eyes. The man spoke of a ruthless serial killer of the decade who had been arrested in 2004, and my parents shivered at his reaccounting of the case. I curiously tuned in, wondering who he was to speak of such crimes with concrete composure and knowledge. Later, he introduced himself as a profiler named Pyo Chang Won, and I watched the rest of the program by myself without realizing that my parents had left the couch.

Plunging readers into the middle of a story (also known as in medias res ) is an effective hook because it captures attention by placing the reader directly into the action. The descriptive imagery in the first sentence also helps to immerse the reader, creating a satisfying hook while also showing (instead of telling) how the author became interested in criminology. With this technique, it is important to “zoom out,” so to speak, in such a way that the essay remains personal to you.

5. The Philosopher 

Saved in the Notes app on my phone are three questions: What can I know? What must I do? What may I hope for? First asked by Immanuel Kant, these questions guide my pursuit of knowledge and organization of critical thought, both skills that are necessary to move our country and society forward in the right direction.

Posing philosophical questions helps present you as someone with deep ideas while also guiding the focus of your essay. In a way, it presents the reader with a roadmap; they know that these questions provide the theme for the rest of the essay. The more controversial the questions, the more gripping a hook you can create. 

Providing an answer to these questions is not necessarily as important as making sure that the discussions they provoke really showcase you and your own values and beliefs.

6. The Storyteller

One Christmas morning, when I was nine, I opened a snap circuit set from my grandmother. Although I had always loved math and science, I didn’t realize my passion for engineering until I spent the rest of winter break creating different circuits to power various lights, alarms, and sensors. Even after I outgrew the toy, I kept the set in my bedroom at home and knew I wanted to study engineering.

Beginning with an anecdote is a strong way to establish a meaningful connection with the content itself. It also shows that the topic you write about has been a part of your life for a significant amount of time, and something that college admissions officers look for in activities is follow-through; they want to make sure that you are truly interested in something. A personal story such as the one above shows off just that.

Cliche College Essay Introductions to Avoid

Ambiguous introduction.

It’s best to avoid introductory sentences that don’t seem to really say anything at all, such as “Science plays a large role in today’s society,” or “X has existed since the beginning of time.” Statements like these, in addition to being extremely common, don’t demonstrate anything about you, the author. Without a personal connection to you right away, it’s easy for the admissions officer to write off the essay before getting past the first sentence.

Quoting Someone Famous

While having a quotation by a famous author, celebrity, or someone else you admire may seem like a good way to allow the reader to get to know you, these kinds of introductions are actually incredibly overused. You also risk making your essay all about the quotation and the famous person who said it; admissions officers want to get to know you, your beliefs, and your values, not someone who isn’t applying to their school. There are some cases where you may actually be asked to write about a quotation, and that’s fine, but you should avoid starting your essay with someone else’s words outside of this case. It is fine, however, to start with dialogue to plunge your readers into a specific moment.

Talking About Writing an Essay

This method is also very commonplace and is thus best avoided. It’s better to show, not tell, and all this method allows you to do is tell the reader how you were feeling at the time of writing the essay. If you do feel compelled to go this way, make sure to include vivid imagery and focus on grounding the essay in the five senses, which can help elevate your introduction and separate it from the many other meta essays.

Childhood Memories

Phrases like “Ever since I was young…” or “I’ve always wanted…” also lend more to telling rather than showing. If you want to talk about your childhood or past feelings in your essay, try using one of the techniques listed earlier (such as the Instant Plunger or the Vivid Imaginer) to elevate your writing.

CollegeVine has a peer essay review page where peers can tell you if your introduction was enough to hook them. Getting feedback from someone who hasn’t read your essay before, and thus doesn’t have any context which may bias them to be more forgiving to your introduction, is helpful because it mimics the same environment in which an admissions officer will be reading your essay. 

Writing a college essay is hard, but with these tips hopefully starting it will be a little easier!

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• College Application

How to Start a College Essay: Your Guide

If you're wondering how to start a college essay, you've come to the right place. We've got you! Your college essays are among the most important application components you have to submit, and they can play a huge role in the admissions committee's decision. It is, therefore, crucial that you write a compelling essay if you want to stand out, and one of the most challenging aspects of that is the beginning. After all, your  college essay introduction  will set the tone for the rest of your essay, so you want to make sure that it is off to a great start. In this blog, we will go over some Dos and Donts for writing college essay introductions, a few strategies that'll help you stand out, and we will share some examples to help you get inspired. 

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Article Contents 7 min read

Why is the college essay introduction so important.

During the college admissions process, applicants do not get to speak directly with the admissions board. You may get to talk to them directly if you're applying to a school that conducts interviews and you're called for one, but for the most part, your college essay is your only chance to tell the admissions committee about yourself and why you are a good fit for their school. This means that the opening paragraph of your college essay is also your chance to make a first impression - and you probably already know how important first impressions are. 

Furthermore, your college essay introduction should tell your reader what to expect from the rest of your essay and, in many ways, your application. Think of your college essay as a cover letter for your college application. If you were applying for a job, your work experience and academic background would be detailed on your  high school resume , and your cover letter would be the personal document that explains why you are the right person for the job. 

Your college application works similarly. Your college essay is supposed to provide the admissions committee with additional information about who you are and, in some cases, context. For example, let's say that you're trying to  get into college with a low GPA  because some extenuating circumstances affected your academic performance during high school. Your essay allows you to address that, and you can prepare the reader for this using your introductory paragraph. 

For example, take a look at the example in the next tab. Let's assume that this student's grades are far from ideal. With this opening paragraph, she manages to grab the reader's attention with the first sentence while simultaneously providing some context for what the admissions board might see on their transcript.

My economics teacher once told us that almost 78% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck. I didn't understand what that meant until two years ago when I spent what was supposed to be the first day of my sophomore year watching over my sick younger sister because my mother literally couldn't afford to miss one hour of work to care for her sick child. That was not the first time I had to skip school to watch my siblings or run an important errand, but it was the last time that I did not use that time to study and catch up on my reading.

How to start a college essay: The “hook”

For your essay to be compelling, it needs to grab the reader's attention from the very beginning. In other words, the first sentence needs to be an essay "hook" that will make them want to keep on reading. The hook for your essay doesn't need to be about a specific topic, but it should stir up some emotion in the reader. For example, it can be a joke that makes them laugh or a strong statement that makes them want to read on whether they agree with you or not. 

To help you come up with the "hook" for your own Supplemental or  Common App essays , we put together a few examples of different types of hook sentences that you can use. The list below is not exhaustive, but it will give you a good idea of where to start. So let's review them: 

The interesting question

As suggested by the name, this is a question you would pose at the beginning of your essay to engage the reader's curiosity. You can use this type of hook by asking a question you will answer in your essay or asking a question that catches the reader off-guard. Most people are naturally inquisitive, so they will want to keep reading to get the answer to your question or to find out why you asked the question in the first place. Either way, the question would have gained their interest.

Looking for more help with your essay? Check out this infographic:

Interesting question hook example:

Have you ever read your fridge's instruction manual?

The beginning of an anecdote 

Whether you are writing a  supplemental college essay  in response to a specific prompt or a  nursing school personal statement , one of the best things that you can do is include anecdotes in your essay. People tend to remember narratives, so starting your essay with a short, well-written story is a great way to stand out. Ideally, you want to tell a personal story about a formative experience or something that will help the reader know you a little bit better. Your first sentence should be intriguing, and it should make it clear that you are about to tell a story. 

However, if you choose to begin your essay with a story, you must be careful about the type of story you are sharing. Remember to consider your audience. You should only tell the story if it is connected to the rest of your essay and it adds value to the overall essay. You should also pay attention to the maximum number of words you can use for your essay. For example, if you are writing a Common App essay that allows up to 650 words, then you can probably use some words to tell a story. On the other hand, if you are responding to one of the  Brown supplemental essay  prompts, which asks students to write 250 words or less, you might want to use a different type of hook. 

Anecdote hook example:

Last year, I woke up on a gurney in the middle of an emergency room...

The fun fact or statistics 

You can also start your essay by providing real information about a topic of your choice that is related to your story and your essay. This is not only informative, but it once again plays on the curious nature of human beings. You should pick an interesting fact from an accurate and reliable source. So if you choose to use this type of hook to start a college essay, make sure you've taken the time to evaluate your source and confirm that it is credible.

Fun fact/statistic hook example:

One in every 20,000 people are born with albinism every year, and I am one of them.

You can also choose to start your essay with a quote. As with the other hooks, your quote should be related to the topics that you will discuss in your essay. For example, it could be a quote about the field of study you want to pursue, resilience, the importance of diversity, etc. The key is to use a quote that relates to your story and is likely to connect with the reader as well. So, choose quotes that are powerful and memorable, but not cliché. Also, keep in mind that the admission board is reading your college essay so they can get to know you. So, you should only use the quote to introduce and guide your essay, but do not spend too much time talking about what the quote means or who the author of the quote is. Make sure that the focus of the essay is still on you!

Quote hook example:

Tupac Shakur once said: "I'm not saying I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world." 

The joke or funny statement

Starting a college essay with something funny is not only a great way to make your essay stand out, but it also gives you a chance to let your personality shine through your sense of humor, thus humanizing your application and making a great first impression. If you do choose to start your college essay with a joke, remember that this is still an academic document, so make sure the joke is appropriate for the audience and related to your college essay.

So, if you're stumped and don't know how to start a college essay, consider googling jokes about your future major, future profession, or one of your hobbies. There are a surprising number of puns and funny statements that can help inspire you and that you can use to start your essay. That is, if they relate to your topic, of course. You can also think back to any funny experiences you've had or try to think of something funny about where you grew up, for example.

Joke/funny statement hook example:

My physics teacher once told me that engineers are people who solve a problem you didn't know you had in a way you don't understand.

Check out this video for some additional college essay tips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VotjIaT0DvY " css-class="video youtube " title="YouTube video">

How to start a college essay: Dos and Dont's

Maybe you've already written your essay, but you don't think the opening paragraph is attention-grabbing enough, or perhaps you just can't figure out how to start a college essay. Either way, you can benefit from working with a  college essay advisor  or consulting with a  college essay review service . These services are offered by admission professionals who can use their expert knowledge and experience to help you craft the most compelling essay possible, starting with an introduction that will definitely help you stand out.  "}]">

How to start a college essay: Opening paragraph example #2

“Tupac Shakur once said: "I'm not saying I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world." I have no doubt in my mind that his words, and those of many other artists who, like him, have used language to share their stories, struggles, and joys, have sparked the brain of many people who have changed the world in one way or another. Whether they are rapping or singing those words as Mr. Shakur did or writing poems and books like Maya Angelou and Charlotte Brontë did, words and language can be incredibly powerful, and I want to learn as much as I can about how to wield that power.”

This is a great way to start a college essay. The paragraph begins with an inspiring quote that is not extremely popular, and that can spark a number of different conversations. It would definitely make the reader curious as to where the applicant is going with their essay. By the time you get to the end of the first paragraph, you have learned that this applicant likely enjoys reading and rap music and that they intend to study something that is related to either language or literature.

Your college essay's introductory paragraph sets the tone for the rest of your essay because it is the first thing the admissions officers will read. It's, therefore, a great opportunity to stand out and make your application memorable.

You certainly can. However, you need to do this carefully. You should avoid very popular quotes about hard work or education as that usually sounds cliché. Furthermore, your quote needs to be related to the overall topic of your essay.

Absolutely! Starting your essay with a fun fact about yourself, the field of study you wish to pursue, the town you live in, or any other topic that is related to your overall essay is a great way to start a college essay.

Do not start your essay by introducing yourself or providing autobiographical information that can be found elsewhere in your application. Remember that your college essay is supposed to provide new information about you as the person the application numbers, so use the limited number of words that you have wisely.

You should start your college essay with a "hook" or "grabber," such as a fun fact, anecdote, joke, or even quote. We recommend reviewing different  College essay examples  and paying close attention to the opening lines to get a better idea of what an attention-grabbing opening sentence can look like.

College essays are one of the most important application components that you will submit. Except for college admissions interviews - which every school does not conduct - they are your only chance to speak to the admissions board directly in your own words. So it is important to write a compelling essay that shows strong communication skills and makes a good impression.

A strong college essay has an opening statement that grabs your attention, specific examples, a structure that is easy to follow, and no spelling or grammar mistakes. It should also tell a story and share new information about the applicant.

Here at BeMo, we can guide you and teach you  how to write a college essay , but we cannot write it for you. Now, we do need to warn you:  Can  you pay someone to write your college essay for you? Yes.  Should  you pay someone to write your college essay? No. This practice is both unethical and potentially counterproductive because if the college you applied to were to find out or find inconsistencies in your application, there would be severe consequences.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, starting my college essay with a quote - yay or nay.

Ok peeps, here's where I'm at: I found this perfect quote that really captures the vibe of what I want to write about in my college essay, and honestly, it kinda inspired the whole thing. Should I kick off my essay with this quote? Will it make me seem more insightful, or is it coming off as kinda unoriginal since I saw lots of people say it’s overdone? Thoughts?

Hello there! I totally get where you're coming from, as my own kid had a similar dilemma when they were applying. If the quote genuinely inspires you and sets the stage for your unique story, it can work. But it's vital to make sure that your essay says more about you than the person you're quoting. A compelling essay often includes personal reflections, experiences, and growth. If you choose to start with a quote, make sure that it seamlessly integrates into your narrative. Think about how it relates directly to your own journey. For example, my child started their essay with a short, famous phrase that jumpstarted a discussion on their personal experiences with creative problem-solving. It wasn't just a quote plopped into the intro for flair—it was a meaningful anchor for their story. Ultimately, it's about making sure your essay remains heartfelt and authentically yours. Don’t let the quote do the heavy lifting—your insights and voice should be the brightest stars. If the quote amplifies your message and serves as a succinct springboard into your tale, it can be a wonderful addition!

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How to Start a College Essay With a Quote

Just as a good movie, novel or advertisement with a catchy start makes you want to continue watching or reading, good essays grab the audience's attention at the beginning. The best essays often open with a hook, an idea that draws the reader in and generates interest about the topic. An appropriate quotation, properly connected to your topic and cited, makes a strong hook for a college essay.

Choose a Quote That Fits Your Purpose

Any quotation must clearly relate to your topic, including a quote used as an introductory hook. A quote seemingly unrelated to your point distracts your readers rather than drawing them in. Choose a quote that fits the tone and focus of the essay.

For instance, a humorous quote does not set up a paper on slavery well. Similarly, a quote about how attitudes about gender have changed through history likely creates too broad of an introduction for a paper about one specific feminist author's life. Select something interesting rather than quoting a dictionary definition, for instance.

Consider Your Audience

Choose a quote your readers can understand and relate to. If you choose a quote readers have never heard, the hook will likely have less impact.

For a general audience, a quote from a pop culture celebrity or popular program makes a good choice. For more specific audiences, select a source fitting the reader.

For example, a paper written for gamers could use a quote from a game designer like Steve Jackson while one aimed at artists might quote from a painter like Paul Gauguin.

Connect to Your Point

Avoid tacking a quote on at the start of your paper just so you can say you have one. Instead, explain the relationship of the quote to your paper's topic, giving relevance and value to the quote.

For a paper explaining how to train a dog, a quote from a famous dog trainer like Cesar Millan should be followed up with a comment about how this quote emphasizes that no dog's behavioral problems mean obedience is beyond reach, connecting the quote to the paper's point.

Acknowledge the Source

All quotes need proper acknowledgment to explain where you got your information and maintain your credibility. If the speaker is important, give that person's name in a signal phrase.

Add information about the source if needed for context, such as, "As Ancient Greek historian Herodotus said ... "

Then follow proper documentation format so your reader can find the source. For papers that use Modern Language Association (MLA) format, give the author along with a page number for print sources. An online MLA quote looks like this:

Mark Twain once wrote, "Human nature is all alike."

For American Psychological Association (APA) style papers, include the date and either a page or paragraph number for direct quotes, like this example:

Mark Twain (1940) once wrote, "Human nature is all alike" (p. 265).

• California State University Northridge: Attention Grabbers: Opening and Closing Gambits for Writing
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Quotations
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Introductions
• Purdue University: MLA Formatting Quotations
• Twain Quotes: Human Nature
• Purdue University: In-Text Citations: The Basics

Kristie Sweet has been writing professionally since 1982, most recently publishing for various websites on topics like health and wellness, and education. She holds a Master of Arts in English from the University of Northern Colorado.

How to Use Quotations and Citations in an Essay

Table of contents

• 1.1 Direct Introduction
• 1.2 Signal Phrases
• 1.3 Contextualization
• 1.4 Setting the Scene
• 1.5 Contrasting Views
• 1.6 Interjecting Commentary
• 1.7 Question or Challenge
• 2 Maintain the Flow of Your Writing While Using Quotations
• 3 Proper Use of Punctuation with Quotations
• 4 Impact of Formatting Quotations
• 5.3 Chicago
• 6.1 Start a Quote With an Active Verb
• 6.2 Use a Descriptive Verb
• 6.3 Select Proper Quotations
• 6.4 Don’t Overuse Quotes
• 6.5 Try to Paraphrase Long Quotes
• 7.1 Using a Quote as a Hook: When and Why?
• 8 Fine-Tuning Your Quotation Skills

Obviously, when we write an academic essay, we can’t create new information or take it from the air. In most cases, or always, there are sources for our thoughts. Therefore, we need to reference them. However, we may also want to quote this source directly in our work. And that’s when the need for correct quotation comes in.

Quotations play a pivotal role in essays, serving as a key technique for integrating information from external sources.

This article will guide you through several aspects of using quotations effectively:

• understanding quotation significance,
• mastering the art of accurate quoting,
• how to identify the original source from which the quotation was derived
• correct punctuation in quotes, and discerning the variations among different citation styles.

7 Strategies for a Smooth Transition into Quotations

Quotations are extremely vital in the academic environment. The quote in the essay is like a unique ingredient in your favorite meal. However, simply putting them in is insufficient. You must do things in such a manner that everything flows smoothly. There are a few ways to start a quote. Let’s have a look at some of them:

Direct Introduction

When you put quotes in an essay , simply state the source and introduce it directly. For example, you could say, “Eckhart Tolle, in ‘The Power of Now,’ said: ‘You create a good future by creating a good present.'”

Signal Phrases

Use signal phrases to attribute the quote to its source: “According to,” “As [author] argues,” or “In the words of.” For instance: “According to Shakespeare, ‘All the world’s a stage.'”

Contextualization

Give a little background before you embed a quote. “In the context of environmental sustainability, Jane Goodall states, ‘What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.'”

Setting the Scene

Sometimes, you want to create a picture before dropping the embedded quotation. Set the stage for the quote by describing the situation or background. For instance: “As the sun dipped below the horizon, reflecting hues of orange and pink, she whispered, ‘It’s moments like these that stay with us forever.'”

Contrasting Views

This is like presenting a contrasting viewpoint or argument. You could say, “While some argue for the benefits of technology in education, Neil Postman contends, ‘Education is suffering from… the intrusion of industrialism.'”

Interjecting Commentary

Provide a remark or analysis before or after it. For instance: “In the face of adversity, Winston Churchill’s famous words resonate: ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue those counts.'”

Question or Challenge

Ask a question before dropping the quote to create curiosity or stimulate thought: “What role does technology play in shaping our society? Marshall McLuhan sheds light on this with his statement, ‘The medium is the message.'”

Thus, using quotes isn’t just about putting them in. It’s about introducing them in a way that fits smoothly into your writing. By using the correct ways to embed quotes, they will not interrupt the flow of your writing. If you need more information on the subject, we have an idea. PapersOwl’s essay assistance is an excellent option to go deeper into the subject without losing your academic mind.

Maintain the Flow of Your Writing While Using Quotations

Incorporating quotes into your work should feel easy.

• Introduce the one you quote, and use signal phrases for smooth transitions.
• Mix your comments with the cited content.
• Use strategic punctuation (colons, semicolons, or ellipses) and insert quotes in an essay.
• Establish the reliability of the source.

This guarantees that your thoughts blend effortlessly with the quoted insights. Indeed, quotes should not make your life harder. It’s vice versa ─ they must help you upgrade your work.

Proper Use of Punctuation with Quotations

Punctuation with quotations is a crucial aspect. We use quotation marks to integrate quotes into an essay, which look like these “”. If you use punctuation incorrectly, it may cause some grammatical trouble. However, these rules are easy to remember.

• Period outside of quotes is a common mistake you can see. However, in American English, commas and periods typically go inside quotation marks. Colons and semicolons go outside.
• Question marks and exclamation points vary based on context. Use a question mark or an exclamation point within the closing quotation marks if the punctuation is related to the citation itself. If the punctuation applies to the entire sentence, place it outside the closing quotation marks to end a quote in an essay.

✏️ Example of a quote in an essay:

• She said, “Hello.”
• He said, “I may forget your name, but I never forget a face.”
• Marco asked, “Do you need this pen?”.

There are also single quotation marks, which can be confusing. In American English, they are exclusively used for adding a quote within a quote:

✏️ “One of my students always said, ‘Quotations are confusing,’” our professor said.

Impact of Formatting Quotations

Formatting quotations can enhance the overall visual appeal of your essay. One creative technique involves using block quotations for longer passages. This distinguishes the quoted material. Additionally, it provides a visual break, drawing attention to the content’s significance. It’s a great way to end a paragraph with a quote.

Consider employing formatting elements such as italics or bold text for emphasis. Additionally, experiment with indentation and spacing to get a neat and organized appearance.

Let’s compare two quotes in essays. The examples will aid in understanding the impact of formatting.

• In J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” Dumbledore imparts wisdom, “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
• In “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” Dumbledore says, “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends”.

The first quote looks more appealing and draws the reader’s attention to itself. Meanwhile, the second one has punctuation mistakes and may be lost in the text.

An effective tool for presenting information is to set up a quote in an essay. Besides, it can visually engage your readers.

Mastering Various Citation Styles with Finesse

In PapersOwl, we have already covered the citation rules topic. However, we would like to talk about it here since it can assist us in explaining a quote in an essay usage.

It is essential to mention the same author’s sources wherever possible. References serve as direct indicators for whatever information you are employing. Citing sources shows readers that a piece of information in your work is not your own.

The most popular citation styles are APA, MLA, and Chicago.

In APA format for the paper , we cite the author’s last name and the publication year in parentheses.

According to recent studies, sleep patterns significantly impact cognitive function (Johnson, 2020).

For citing while writing an essay in MLA style , we indicate the author’s name and page number, e.g., (Jones 45).

The novel explores themes of identity and self-discovery (Doe 72).

In Chicago style, citations can be either footnotes or endnotes. A full citation is added to the bibliography.

The economic implications of globalization are vast and multifaceted.¹

¹Smith, John. Globalization and Its Effects. Chicago: University Press, 2018.

Citation can sometimes be confusing. Not in the modern world, though. Now, you can check your references and citations in the citation generator online. It will help you write an outstanding essay with flawless quotes and citations.

Tips on Embedding Quotations in an Essay

You should also understand how to incorporate a quote into an essay naturally. You can not just put a paragraph from the book you’d read. Here are some tips:

Start a Quote With an Active Verb

To use quotes in an essay seamlessly, begin with an active verb. Use them to enhance subtlety and successfully communicate the speaker’s tone.

Use a Descriptive Verb

Incorporate descriptive verbs to increase the impact of your quotations. These verbs provide depth to your quotations and fill your story with context.

Select Proper Quotations

Add quotes in an essay that are relevant to your topic and give useful information. Moreover, make sure your quotes are brief and clearly support your views. Make relevance, trustworthiness, and clarity your top priorities.

Don’t Overuse Quotes

When you overuse quotes, it is a sign to your teacher that you don’t know how to paraphrase well. How many quotes per paragraph you should use depends on your work length. We recommend using one quote for every five paragraphs. The perfect approximate amount looks like this:

• 2 quotes for a 1500-word paper;
• 3 quotes for a 2000-word paper;
• 4 quotes for a 3000-word paper.

Try to Paraphrase Long Quotes

When dealing with lengthy quotes, try paraphrasing them for more concise integration. This ensures that you understand how to write quotes in an essay and explain them in your own words. At the same time, be careful not to change the meaning of the quote!

How to Start an Essay with a Quote

To start a paper with a quote, you must choose one that brings up the proper tone of your paper. The quotation source must be credible and fit your essay context. Finally, each phrase you pick must support your assertion while demonstrating your case proficiency. All of that’s important because the purpose of quotes is to make a good hook for essay and grab the attention of your target audience, which happens via knowledge and trust.

Using a Quote as a Hook: When and Why?

When crafting any type of paper, it’s crucial to use quotes that are not only attention-grabbing but also relevant to your topic. Many great essay examples written by PapersOwl specialists are proof of that. These experts know how to make quotes a powerful tool to engage readers. Taking into consideration their experience, we provide you with examples of when you could use one:

• When introducing a new topic or a newly found case: A good quotation will show relevance in such situations. It will gain people’s attention while showcasing new topics and establishing their importance.
• If you are in the writing process of a historical essay: In such situations, any quotation from any case-related historical figure may provide context and spark interest in readers.
• Personal experience: For such essays, quotations not only can grab one’s audience but serve as proof of your experience with this case. They show your perspective and give a deeper nuance when writing arguments, which affects those reading your paper.
• To support written arguments’ main point: It’s an outstanding way to start by hooking all readers up while backing up your claims.
• When challenging their beliefs: This is perfect for argumentative essays where you have to challenge their commonly held view. Such quotations engage with people and make them think and be eager to read more.

Using a quote relevant to your case is necessary, so always ensure you use a proper one that creates parallels between all sections. If you don’t see a proper connection, you can seek help from experts who edit essay theses. Many professional editors at PapersOwl can easily edit your text flow and create an effective introductory paragraph by providing reworded statements or better quotations. Additionally, they may help check all relevant sources for credibility, see if they deeply relate to your topic, and if they support your claims or bring controversy.

Fine-Tuning Your Quotation Skills

In summary, quotations are an important addition to your accurate academic essay . Using quotes in essays can improve your work. They also help you understand more about the subject of your paper. Thanks to this guide, it will be easy to embed a quote of any type into your academic work.

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How To Write a Quote In an Essay? Opening And Ending Quotes

EssayEdge > Blog > How To Write a Quote In an Essay? Opening And Ending Quotes

Embedding direct quotations in your essay is a great literary tool to reinforce your arguments and nurturing ground for developing the main ideas and further contemplation of the topic. However, using quotations also hides lots of pitfalls.

The statements of a brilliant thinker within your field are considered a way to make your essay stand out from the piles of other writings. No wonder a major number of students fall for that and aspire to use quotations from eminent persons. Nonetheless, over the course of time, using aphorisms within writing became the synonym for “triteness”. So, we collected some tips which will help to use quotations properly, make your statements more haunting, and not evoke sights in your essay readers.

However, if you don’t want to puzzle over all these rules but still want to stay on the safe side and not become accused of plagiarism, you can always reach out to the help of our essay proofreading service.

Table of Contents:

How to Start an Essay with a Quote?

It seems pretty compelling and pathetic for almost every student to cite someone at the very start of their paper. So, you probably also think that you can start an essay with a quote and be on a roll. However, in reality, there is no more worn-out way to start an essay. Firstly, the words said by another person don’t make you appear an egghead or well-read. In the age of the internet, it is worth nothing for everyone to open the first website that comes across and copy some quotes.

Moreover, starting an essay with a quote may make you appear passive and show that you don’t really understand what you are writing about. Putting quotations in such places often makes an impression that you try to replace analysis rather than support it by using quotes. Try to understand that the teacher or professor wants to see your thoughts and understanding of the topic. In order to distance yourself from the cited words and maintain your active voice in the essay, stick to the following phrases:

• According to [Name] …
• [Name] argues that “…”
• [Name] highlighted that “…”
• The argument of … is that “…”
• [Name] provides a compelling insight into the issue …

Although creating the introduction is probably the most arduous part of writing an essay, integrating citations into the main part of the text also has some specialties. Below you will find more advice that can help to nail your writing.

Don’t use too long quotations

Embedding long quotations will make your writing swamped with the statements of other people and show a lack of your own word count. If you find a quote that perfectly matches your paper, don’t just “copy-paste” it. It’s much better to select the most striking part of the quote than to paraphrase and analyze the rest. Such an approach will show both that you have read some literature on the topic and that you have your own thoughts and understanding.

Always support your quotes with argumentation and examples

Don’t give quotes a role that isn’t assigned to them in your text: quotes shouldn’t speak for you. They can’t stand as an explanation for your argument as such. On the contrary, the quotations must be surrounded by personal reflections. The citation must serve as a ground for further analysis. You can choose the quote that supports your major arguments and develop it into further ideas. Or choose the one that contradicts your previously made statements and try to prove this quotation wrong.

Need help? Check out EssayEdge editing services:

To recap, it’s crucial that citations in the text must be accompanied by your personal thoughts, arguments, and examples.

Stop citing Shakespeare

It’s essential to pick up the most appropriate quote that will fit well into the general text canvas and complement your ideas instead of interrupting them and confusing the reader. Don’t go for the quotation just because it’s famous. While searching through dozens of quotes, keep in mind that citations must be the glue used to tie the statements and arguments in your paper. This way, you definitely won’t suck up on choosing the right one.

Another piece of advice, or rather prayer – don’t use inspirational quotes from your Facebook account. It had become a platitude a long time ago. Also, steer clear of hackneyed and ubiquitous citations from well-known writers or philosophers. Today, you won’t surprise anybody with it, especially considering the fact that you don’t even have to read the full text to provide these quotes.

Cite Properly

Although using citations is quite a common practice, only a handful of people really know how to write a quote in an essay correctly. It’s always worth following some rules whenever you are using words that are in fact not yours. The neglection of indicating the original source can lead to accusing you of committing plagiarism. The most common referencing formats are APA, MLA, and Harvard. They usually include the second name of the author, the year of work publishing, and the page from where you took the quote. It’s quite a broad topic to cover these styles’ peculiarities in this article. So, if you are interested in the proper citation, use additional sources to find out more.

To Conclude

As you can see, citing only seems to be easy. In reality, it’s pretty tricky and takes a lot of details into consideration. Below you can find some popular questions that also bother those who are in the process of writing their paper.

What size of citation is desirable?

As was already mentioned, it’s better to avoid using long quotes. It’s actually preferable that your citation doesn’t exceed one line. This way, you will have enough space for your own thoughts.

How many quotes can I use?

Overusing quotes is a terrible idea, because it will make an impression that you can’t paraphrase well. Generally, one quote in every 750 words is a maximum that you should reach.

Can I quote my grandmother?

If it fits in the overall picture of your essay and doesn’t sound too cliché, then yes. However, it is still desirable to avoid such things as it was already done a thousand times before.

Can I use quotes inside quotes?

If you can replace it somehow, do it. Because it’s a pretty tempting thing which is accompanied by specific rules. Usually, the chance to write a poor example of such a quote is significantly higher than to do it properly and well-sounding.

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How to Use a Quote in an Essay

Table of Contents

MLA in-text citation how-to

You can take a quote from different sources of information, such as books, magazines, websites or printed journals. Using quotes in an essay serves three goals:

• Present additional evidence to support your point of view or oppose a claim or idea;
• Help a reader better understand a topic under analysis;
• Strengthen your argumentation on a topic using another writer’s eloquence.

Since quotes are mostly used in Humanities, you’ll have to follow MLA citation referencing guidelines. The Modern Language Association citation manual implies two types of quotes – short and long.

• Short quote – Is less than 4 lines of typed text and can be embedded directly into a sentence;
• Long quote – Is more than 4 lines of typed text and requires a separate content block in an essay without quotation marks.

Writing college essays, the recommendation is to use short quotes.

Parenthetical citation

Referring to the works of other authors in-text is done using a parenthetical citation . Such a method implies the author-page style of quoting. For example:

When it comes to writing, King suggests: “Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.” (5)

Given the MLA in-text citation already contains King’s last name, you shouldn’t mention it in the parenthesis. If the author’s name isn’t mentioned in-text, it has to be specified in a parenthetical citation.

When it comes to writing, there’s a quote I like the most: “Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.” (King 5)

According to MLA guidelines, at the end of the essay, there has to be the Works Cited page . It contains the full reference featuring author’s full name, the full title of the source, the volume, the issue number, the date of publishing, and the URL (if the source was found online). Here’s an example of the full referencing in the Works Cited:

King, Larry L. “The Collection of Best Works.” Oxford University Press, vol. 2, no. 3, Jan.-Feb. 2017, http://www.prowritersdigest.com/editor-blogs/inspirational-quotes/72-of-the-best-quotes-about-writing.

How to start an essay with a quote?

Starting an essay with a quote is a matter of controversy. Experts in the pro camp suggest that a quote at the beginning of an essay helps make a powerful statement right from the start. Moreover, an interesting, captivating quote grabs the reader’s attention right from the start.

Experts from the against camp suggest that when you begin an essay with a quote, you miss on the opportunity to present your own take on the subject matter. In their opinion, when writing the introduction, you have to rely only on your words. Whereas quotes are most useful in the main body, serving as an additional argumentation. In conclusion, a quote can be placed, too.

How to use quotes in the middle of an essay?

Main Body is the place you’re meant to state a quote or two, depending on the length of a paper. A standard 5-paragraph essay will imply you to use 2-3 quotes in the main body. More quotes aren’t necessary for such a short assignment. Two quotes in the main body will do just fine.

In the main body paragraph, a quote is placed in the middle of the passage . First, you introduce a focal sentence of a paragraph highlighting your point of view regarding a topic. After that, you provide the evidence data and argumentation, among which is a relevant quote. And finally, you smoothly transit to the next body paragraph or the conclusion. Here’re three examples of how to present a quote in one of the main body paragraphs.

Accurate integration of a citation in a text is key. Or the whole passage will sound off.

People who want to become a writer don’t really need any piece of advice. “Those (…) who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it.”

College essay quotes have to be naturally embedded in a text .

People who want to become a writer don’t really need any piece of advice: “Those (…) who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it.”

There’s also the way to write an essay with quotes in the smoothest way possible.

People who want to become a writer don’t really need any piece of advice. They simply “know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it.”

See how organically a quote is inserted in a sentence? That’s the best-case scenario of using a quote in a sentence.

How to end an essay with a quote?

Sometimes, ending an essay with a quote is better than merely restating your thesis statement. Citations can be taken from both primary and secondary sources. Good quotes to end an essay might be of your course professor’s. According to essay writing websites , quotations taken from the words of subject authorities and thought leaders will do great, too.

A quote ending an essay helps meet 5 objectives:

• Provide a solid closure to your essay;
• Fortify your point of view;
• Give one final argument in favor of your thesis statement;
• Establish your authority on a topic;
• Helps your essay stand out.

Having a quotation at the end of an essay gives a good chance to score an “A”.

15 tips for using quotations in an essay

• Look up quotes in academic sources in the first place;
• Rely on the printed matter rather than internet sources;
• Avoid citing information from Wikipedia;
• Give context to every quotation you use;
• Always use quotation marks to avoid plagiarism-related troubles;
• Explain why the quote you’re about to use in a text is important;
• Seek to integrate quotes smoothly in a sentence for the best effect;
• Each quotation has to be attributed to the original source using parenthesis;
• Gather 10-15 quotes relevant to your topic and then sift through 5 quotes that will serve you best;
• Use the exact wording, punctuation, capitalization and sentence structure as in the original;
• Watch your punctuation when using quotes in a sentence;
• Avoid misquotations, as it’s a sign of a careless attitude towards the assignment;
• Use an ellipsis (…) to withdraw a part of a quote you don’t actually need;
• Try to use short quotes rather than long;
• Avoid quoting quotes, as it’s where students make mistakes most often.

5 motivational quotes for essay writing

Inspiration is a staple in every great writer’s routine. As a student, you might find drawing inspiration a bit too difficult. Here’re a couple of inspiring essay motivation quotes to help you break through the writer’s block. Or you can buy argumentative essay if doing the task yourself isn’t an option.

“I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.”

“It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.”

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

“Making people believe the unbelievable is no trick; it’s work . … Belief and reader absorption come in the details: An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand for everything.”

“To defend what you’ve written is a sign that you are alive.”

Many times life catches us off balance. Lots of written homework. Tight schedule. Sudden illness. Personal matters. Writer’s block. An instructor returned the essay for revisions. At the moments like these, it’s always a good idea to have someone to cover your back. GradeMiners can always write you a new essay, rewrite an existing draft, perform an ending an essay with a quote, or proofread your text for mistakes, typos, as well as correct the use of quotations. Let us know if you need anything, and we’ll help you out!

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Can You Start An Essay With A Quote? (What You Should Know)

by  Antony W

February 28, 2023

The opening paragraph can make or break your essay. Start with a hook and you stand the chance to grab your reader’s attention.

Implement some guesswork and write the introduction haphazardly, and you could lose them completely. But can you start an essay with a quote?

You can start an essay with a quote, but you must do so with caution. Accompany the quote with a clear explanation to help a reader understand how and why it fits in your work. More importantly, ensure the quote you include in your essay is from a credible scholarly source.

Understand that relevant, helpful, and equally credible quotes can capture the attention of a reader, not to mention easily related the thesis statement of your essay.

Key Takeaways

• Quotes can help to spike readers’ interest, making it a powerful writing technique that gets them to read the rest of the essay.
• If you include any quote in your essay, you must show how it fits into your work so that your readers understand its relevance.

Our custom essay writing service can help you get an essay on any topic completed on time. Whether you struggle with introducing your work or you’re not good at choosing the best quote to start the essay with, you can hire one of our expert writers for assistance.

What Types of Quotes Can You Include in an Essay?

You can use direct, summary, or paraphrase quotes in the introduction of your essay.

• A direct quote contains all the words of a speaker. You should write it exactly as it is.
• Paraphrased quotes are reworded statements written in your own words without changing the intended meaning.
• A summary quote is one written in brief, and it retains the message of the original quote.

You can use any type of quote in your essay. Just make sure you don’t interfere with its original meaning as intended by its author.  

How to Choose a Good Quote to Start an Essay

Here’s how you can find the best quote to start any type of essay :

1. Choose a Quote Relevant to the Topic

Read the essay prompt to understand the nature of the assignment.

The first few minutes of going through the assignment brief should make it easy to choose a quote that’s relevant to the central theme of the topic.

Also, ensure that the quote is memorable because it will retain readers’ attention and give them the interest to read the rest of the essay.

2. Get Your Quote from a Credible Source

It’s easy to brainstorm and make up your own quotes.

Such quotes can be interesting enough to draw attention, but they won’t fit in an academic essay because they’re your own thoughts.

The quote you choose to start an essay with should come from a credible scholarly source.

If your teacher asks you where you got the quote from and you tell them you made it up, they’ll more than likely not read the essay past the introduction.

3. Use Clear, Short Quotes

It doesn’t make sense to start an essay with a long quote that a reader will struggle to remember.

Even if a quote is interesting enough to fit the central theme of the essay prompt, you should avoid it in favor of a short, clear quote.

If a reader can memorize the quote within the first 30 seconds of reading, go for it.

Such a quote is good for your essay because it enhances clarity, making it easy for the reader to understand the meaning and support for your argument.

4. You Should Explain the Significance of the Quote 

If you choose to start your essay with a quote, don’t explain to explain its significance in the paper.

There are two advantages to doing this.

First, explaining a quote further helps to strengthen your essay. Second, more explanation enables you to present the clarity so you don’t lose a reader, not to mention make your content easy to understand. 

5. You Should Provide Relevant Reference to the Quote 

Since a quote is someone else’s thoughts, you need to attribute it to the right author.

Besides, your readers will want to know where you got the quote from, and you must make it easy for them to find it. 

When Not to Start an Essay with a Quote

Some students prefer to start their essays with quotes because they find the phrases engaging, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But purpose-written opening sentences tend to have a broader latitude than quotes, and therefore more powerful than the latter. 

Again, quotes communicate someone else’s thoughts so much so that they tend to undermine your creativity. So it’s best to shy away from them if you have something more engaging and enlightening to share with your readers.

There’s also the problem of limited range of expression, as you don’t have the room to expand on another author’s quotations besides summarizing or paraphrasing it.

Because quotes require attribution, they can cause a reader to look aside, so you risk losing their attention during that first moment with your writing.  

Final Thoughts on Starting an Essay with a Quote

If one thing is for sure, it’s that’s you can start a great essay with a quote relevant to the theme of the topic. As long as you can find and attribute great quotes, you’ll be set and ready to write an essay that your instructor will find interesting to read.

However, if you want more freedom to express your thoughts and share something more enlightening with your target readers, then there’s no point starting your essay with a quote.

Get Essay Writing Help 

Writing an essay when you have tons of additional assignments to complete can be tough. That’s the case especially when you’re short on time but have a tight deadline to beat. You can simply reach out to us and we’ll help you get your essay assignment completed in good time.

At Help of Assessment, we have an established team of writers who dedicate their time and effort to writing high quality essays that will pique your instructor’s interest and earn you the marks you deserve. Plus, we’re far more affordable than many academic writing services online, and we put more effort in writing high quality essays for all our clients.

About the author 

Antony W is a professional writer and coach at Help for Assessment. He spends countless hours every day researching and writing great content filled with expert advice on how to write engaging essays, research papers, and assignments.

Understand How to Start an Essay with a Quote

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Preparing the introductory paragraph is one of the most challenging tasks in the essay writing process. When compared to other essential sections, the introduction plays a vital role because it is the opening part of an essay that has the responsibility to pull the readers inside the essay. Basically, there are different approaches available to begin the introductory paragraph of an essay. But if you know how to start an essay with a quote, then you can easily grab the attention of your readers. Most of the time, the unique and creative quotation added at the start of an essay will stir the curiosity of the readers and will make them read the entire essay.

Never begin your essay without a catchy hook. A catchy hook is a powerful tool that has the vibes to grab the reader’s attention and generate interest in the topic. The hook can be a quote, a fact, a statistic, etc. However, using a quote that is relevant to the topic is one of the most effective ways to begin an essay.

Are you aware of how to start an essay with a quote? If you don’t have any idea, then keep on reading this blog post. Here, in detail, we have explained how to find an ideal quote and open an essay with that

What is a Quote?

It is a brief phrase or a section that is taken from the writing or speech of another author or speaker. It is one of the useful tools that is mostly used to write essays, blog posts, and articles. Additionally, the quotations can be utilized during speech delivery.

In general, there are numerous famous quotes on a wide range of subjects, including friendship, life, knowledge, love, and so on. You can look up the most famous quotes from any celebrity, past or present, especially when preparing your written assignments or speeches based on your topic.

There are generally three types of quotes: direct quotes, summary quotes, and Paraphrase quotes. You can start an essay with any kind of quote. The most important points from the first quote are briefly explained in the summary. The paraphrase consists solely of rephrased statements that convey the same meaning as the originals. Direct quotes are the spoken or written words that are quoted.

When writing an essay, students frequently prefer direct quotes over the other two of these three types. However, you can use any of these types of quotes appropriately to preserve the original citation’s intended meaning.

Learn How to Start an Essay with a Quote

Wondering how to begin an essay with a quote? Cool! The below-mentioned tips will provide you with a clear idea of how to begin the introductory paragraph of an essay with a quote.

Give preference to your target readers

Before you begin searching for the quote for your essay, first understand the mindset of your target readers and then select a quote suitable for them. The quote that you select should be easy for your readers to relate to and understand. Never choose a quote that is insulting to your readers unless you plan to refute the quote.

In order to catch the attention of the general audience, you can pick quotes from a pop culture celebrity or renowned personality. But to engage with a specific set of audiences, find a quote from a source that matches the interest of your target readers. Remember, the quote you use at the start of your essay should be clear, informative, and shouldn’t offend the intelligence of your readers.

Avoid picking a quote that is unfamiliar to your target audience. Choosing a less popular quote will not create any impact on your readers while they read the opening paragraph of your essay. If you feel that the quote you have selected would be unfamiliar to your readers, provide more details on that quote.

Get to know the context of the quote

Don’t randomly use quotes that are appealing to you. Before you finalize a quote, identify the original context of that quote. If you have a proper understanding of that quote, then you can determine whether or not that quote would be appropriate to use at the start of your essay.

Identify a quote relevant to the purpose of your essay

The quote that you have selected to use at the beginning of your essay should be relevant to the purpose of your essay. If you use any irrelevant quote at the start of your essay, then your readers will not even read your essay completely. Note that, using a quote mismatching to your essay purpose may easily distract your audience. Say, for instance, if you explain a sensitive topic with a humorous quote, then it won’t work for the readers. So, while selecting a quote, make sure to consider the purpose and the tone of the essay.

Never use clichés and popular quotations

Your readers will quickly get bored if you use popular quotes in the same way as every other person. Also, it might make your readers think that you haven’t put any effort or haven’t taken your target audience into account. So, whenever you choose a quote, say a big no to clichés and frequently used quotations.

Link your quote and point

When selecting a quote to start an essay, give preference to the quote that satisfies your arguments or main points. Your selected quote should sync with your essay topic or thesis. Also, you should remember to explain how the quote supports your opinion or argument about a particular essay topic.

Say, for example, while writing an essay on entrepreneurship topics, suitable to your main points or arguments, you can use quotes from a successful entrepreneur.

Cite the Sources

You must acknowledge the source of all the quotes that you have used in your essay. Specifically, you should mention where you took that quote and who said that quote. Note that, citing the sources would increase the credibility level of your essay.

To present the quotes in your essay, use a proper citation format or style such as the Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA) style, etc. The standard citation format or referencing style would help the readers to effortlessly identify the source of your quote.

By following all the above-mentioned tips, you can come up with the right quote to start an essay. No matter what quote you have selected for your essay, before including it at the start of your essay, check whether it is matching to the focus of your essay. Usually, the hook statement at the opening of your essay should be specific, clear, engaging, and concise. So, never choose unimpressive opening quotes that offer a boring feel to your essay.

Examples – How to Start an Essay with a Quote

You shouldn’t just use the quote at the beginning of the introduction. Use appropriate quotation marks around the quote and punctuate it when you write it. If you don’t give credit to where the quote came from, you run the risk of being accused of plagiarism.

In accordance with the standard reference or citation style, whenever you use a quote in your academic essay, you must cite the original source and the author’s name.

We have provided a few examples to demonstrate how to properly cite a quote’s source using the appropriate citation style or format.

Franklin D Roosevelt once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.

“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”.(Martin Luther King, Jr., “I have a dream” speech, August 28, 1963). This quote from the great Martin Luther King’s speech still remains as a dream. Even in this modern digital world, no change is born; someone somewhere is suffering from racism and discrimination issues and waiting for justice.

Mark Twain (1940) once wrote, “Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful of your life” (p. 235).

“The best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful” (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, 1864). It looks like human nature is a constant. Maybe Dostoyevsky would have changed his thoughts if he had a chance to live around grateful people.

Essay Introduction Quote Selection

Basically, selecting a quote for beginning an essay is a tedious process that is time-consuming. But whenever you search for a quote, make sure to refer to printed books or credible online websites. The internet is loaded with a lot of fake information and the quote you pick might not be actually a quote. So, whenever you use a quote, check for the original source and the name of the person who said that quote.

For starting an essay, there are many catchy methods available but using a quote as a hook is one of the best methods to grab the attention of the readers. Remember, you may fail to impress your readers if you use a quote mismatched with the essay topic. Therefore, in order to identify an ideal quote suitable to the main points of the essay, invest more time and effort.

Final Words

Hopefully, by now, you will have gained a better understanding of how to start an essay with a quote. In case, you don’t know what quote to use in your essay, or if you are unsure of how to start an essay with a quote, then call us immediately. On our platform, we have numerous talented academic writers to offer reliable and cheap essay writing help services online.

To get our essay help, simply book your order by sharing your requirements with us through the order form available on our website. Based on what you send us, we will provide the best assignment writing help for all the academic issues you suffer from

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Paul Auster, American author of The New York Trilogy, dies aged 77

The writer of The New York Trilogy, Leviathan and 4 3 2 1 – known for his stylised postmodernist fiction – has died from complications of lung cancer

‘A literary voice for the ages’: Paul Auster remembered by Ian McEwan, Joyce Carol Oates and more

Paul Auster – a life in quotes

Paul Auster – a life in pictures

Paul Auster, the author of 34 books including the acclaimed New York Trilogy, has died aged 77.

The author died on Tuesday due to complications from lung cancer, the Guardian has been told.

Auster became known for his “highly stylised, quirkily riddlesome postmodernist fiction in which narrators are rarely other than unreliable and the bedrock of plot is continually shifting,” the novelist Joyce Carol Oates wrote in 2010.

His stories often play with themes of coincidence, chance and fate. Many of his protagonists are writers themselves, and his body of work is self-referential, with characters from early novels appearing again in later ones.

“Auster has established one of the most distinctive niches in contemporary literature,” wrote critic Michael Dirda in 2008. “His narrative voice is as hypnotic as that of the Ancient Mariner. Start one of his books and by page two you cannot choose but hear.”

The author was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1947. According to Auster, his writing life began at the age of eight when he missed out on getting an autograph from his baseball hero, Willie Mays, because neither he nor his parents had carried a pencil to the game. From then on, he took a pencil everywhere. “If there’s a pencil in your pocket, there’s a good chance that one day you’ll feel tempted to start using it,” he wrote in a 1995 essay .

While hiking during a summer camp aged 14, Auster witnessed a boy inches away from him getting struck by lightning and dying instantly – an event that he said “absolutely changed” his life and that he thought about “every day”. Chance, “understandably, became a recurring theme in his fiction,” wrote the critic Laura Miller in 2017. A similar incident occurs in Auster’s 2017 Booker-shortlisted novel 4 3 2 1: one of the book’s four versions of protagonist Archie Ferguson runs under a tree at a summer camp and is killed by a falling branch when lightning strikes.

Auster studied at Columbia University before moving to Paris in the early 1970s, where he worked a variety of jobs, including translation, and lived with his “on-again off-again” girlfriend, the writer Lydia Davis, whom he had met while at college. In 1974, they returned to the US and married. In 1977, the couple had a son, Daniel, but separated shortly afterwards.

In January 1979, Auster’s father, Samuel, died, and the event became the seed for the writer’s first memoir, The Invention of Solitude, published in 1982. In it, Auster revealed that his paternal grandfather was shot and killed by his grandmother, who was acquitted on grounds of insanity. “A boy cannot live through this kind of thing without being affected by it as a man,” Auster wrote in reference to his father, with whom he described himself having an “un-movable relationship, cut off from each other on opposite sides of a wall”.

Auster’s breakthrough came with the 1985 publication of City of Glass, the first novel in his New York trilogy. While the books are ostensibly mystery stories, Auster wielded the form to ask existential questions about identity. “The more [Auster’s detectives] stalk their eccentric quarry, the more they seem actually to be stalking the Big Questions – the implications of authorship, the enigmas of epistemology, the veils and masks of language,” wrote the critic and screenwriter Stephen Schiff in 1987.

Auster published regularly throughout the 80s, 90s and 00s, writing more than a dozen novels including Moon Palace (1989), The Music of Chance (1990), The Book of Illusions (2002) and Oracle Night (2003). He also became involved in film, writing the screenplay for Smoke, directed by Wayne Wang, for which he won the Independent Spirit award for best first screenplay in 1995.

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In 1981, Auster met the writer Siri Hustvedt and they married the following year. In 1987 they had a daughter, Sophie, who became a singer and actor. Auster’s 1992 novel Leviathan, about a man who accidentally blows himself up, features a character called Iris Vegan, who is the heroine of Hustvedt’s first novel, The Blindfold.

Auster was better known in Europe than in his native United States: “Merely a bestselling author in these parts,” read a 2007 New York magazine article , “Auster is a rock star in Paris.” In 2006, he was awarded Spain’s Prince of Asturias prize for literature, and in 1993 he was given the Prix Médicis Étranger for Leviathan. He was also a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

In April 2022, Auster and Davis’s son, Daniel, died from a drug overdose. In March 2023, Hustvedt revealed that Auster was being treated for cancer after having been diagnosed the previous December. His final novel, Baumgartner, about a widowed septuagenarian writer, was published in October.

Auster is survived by Hustvedt, their daughter Sophie Auster, his sister Janet Auster, and a grandson.

• Paul Auster

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Paul Auster obituary

‘I remember Paul Auster’: a tribute by Jonathan Lethem to his friend

‘Getting a book idea feels like a buzz in the head’: Paul Auster – a life in quotes

Brooklyn’s bard: Paul Auster’s tricksy fiction captivated a generation

‘This might be the last thing I ever write’: Paul Auster on cancer, connection and the fallacy of closure

Paul Auster: ‘The gun that killed my grandfather was the same gun that ruined my father’s life’

Baumgartner by Paul Auster review – love, ageing and loss

Paul Auster: ‘It’s distress that generates art’

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