I’ve read thousands of essays. Not an exaggeration. During my years teaching composition at a mid-sized university and later working with graduate students preparing applications for programs across the country, I developed an almost supernatural ability to predict where an essay was headed within the first three sentences. Most of the time, I was right.
I spent three years reading terrible introductions. Not exaggerating. As someone who’s worked in academic editing and later transitioned into freelance writing, I’ve encountered enough weak openings to fill a library wing. Most of them commit the same crime: they bore you to death before you’ve finished the first paragraph. The thing nobody tells you