Writing A Good Introduction Is The Best Way

According to Stanley Fish, What Should Colleges Teach? Part 3, he speaks on how most college writers come to college unprepared and unaware of certain things because of what they was not taught in high school. He states “I cannot see, however, why a failure of secondary education relieves college teachers of a responsibility to make up the deficit. Quite the reverse. It is because our students come to us unable to write clean English sentences that we are obligated to supply what they did not receive from their previous teachers.”

Now, this is where I come to agree with Fish. Ever wonder why most of us college writers struggle so much with the introduction of our paper?

I say this might be because of the lack of freedom we had in our early years in school before college. They say an introduction only needs three sentences and your thesis and you are good to go. Teachers would start out our introduction for us and then tell us to finish it with the chosen prompt. Most college writers are used this method so much that when they come to college and have the freedom to write what they want on their own will they are totally lost and confused. So now the question is: how is a good introduction done and how can a college writer start out a paper with a good introduction?
After going through many different observations and interviews with teachers and other college students, I best believe that college instructors main focus should be on how to write a good introduction as a college writer. The earlier this should start, the better. 

The following were the most perceptive on the topic: 

• Tutoring Observation at the OSU Newark Writing Studio
• Surveyed college students 

I attended the Writer’s Studio at The Ohio State University at Newark campus to observe a tutor and her student have a session about an assigned paper. After the observation, I interviewed Nikki, a former OSU Newark campus student who had returned because of her love for writing and the need to help other students with writing. As a former student she has been in most student’s situation before and knew what college writers usually went through. When I met up with her, we discussed about the session. She worked with her student Adelaide Abbey, on a research paper for her English class. I asked her about what she had said to Adelaide on writing a good introduction. Then I asked why is supporting your thesis so important when writing your introduction and how does it fit in your writing?


Following that I made a survey through the website Survey Monkey where I was able to ask different college students from other schools about college writing. In total I surveyed 17 people which kind of put me in shock because I did not think people would take them, even other students from other schools took their rime to participate. One of the questions that I asked was “what you struggle with most when writing a paper?” and “what are the first steps that you take when starting to write a paper?” Getting those responses made me move onto to asking this question: “when writing a paper which one of the following options do you do first?” The most checked response was to make an outline, which I taught was very helpful.

Overall I have to agree with what Fish says in his essay but he needs to add the fact that most of these colleges lack the teaching of writing a good introduction. It’s the most important thing that you need for a paper besides the conclusion. Most of fishers ideas were on point but not the best advice.