 Welcome to Hack Your Academic Essay Introduction Paragraph. This is the easiest way to write an academic introductory paragraph for an arts paper. If you're having trouble getting it all on paper, try this. Writing an essay can be as simple as filling out a form. But which form? This form. First, you fill out your thesis statement. Then, you unpack or contextualize your thesis statement if it's necessary. Then, you define your overarching key terms using academic peer-reviewed resources. Then, you state your media text if you need to that's going to illustrate the argument with a citation. And then, you tell your radio three or four main points that you're going to use in order to argue that thesis. So let's go through it step by step. What is your thesis statement? A thesis statement is simply an argument. Nearly all academic essays you write should contain an argument. Even if a question is asking you to analyze something, it often means you are still required to take a position on that analysis. This doesn't mean that it must be deeply political or complex, just that you are indicating what the purpose of the essay is for the reader. If an essay is asking you to explicitly argue something, then you can make your argument a bit more sophisticated and argumentative. You must be specific about what your argument is asserting, and then each main topic sentence or main point must relate back to that argument. So each main topic sentence is a fragment of the larger argument. For example, a thesis statement. I argue that the emergence of industrialization from the mid-19th century onwards helped to spurn a new movement in philosophy and the arts seen in the trend of modernism that was a break from enlightenment thought. Then you unpack or contextualize the thesis statement if necessary. Remember, not all arguments hold across all cultures and all time periods, and this is what we mean by context, so where and when your argument is taking place is important. Otherwise, the reader or the marker can easily undermine your argument by saying that this argument is not true in other parts of the world, so you need to qualify your statement by demonstrating that it is location and time specific. So here's one. In regard to my thesis statement, this specific process took place largely in the West. Further, because my essay is only 2,000 words and I don't have room to unpack the whole of the West, I will narrow down the context even more. For example, you could say something like this. This argument is seated within the socio-historical context of Europe and the US. Boom, so you seal that argument nice and near time. Define your overarching key terms using academic peer-reviewed resources. Now, there is academic work written on everything, so just find something that is already written, which is peer-reviewed, that means it has academic rigor, and that immediately demonstrates some sort of research independence or you can find something from your unit readings and then quote it or paraphrase it with a correct citation in the introduction. The reader needs to be on the same page as you when the marker needs to know that you know what the key terms mean. For example, you could write something like this. Joe Blow explains that modernism is understood as a trend of modernity, which emerges at a similar period as the expansion of industrialization. And then your citation goes here. In particular, I focus on the trend of modernism that emerges from the turn of the century up until the period of the Second World War. Further, Jessica Blow defines modernism as quote, a new style of thinking in philosophy and the arts which sought to redefine traditional approaches, and then you put a citation in there too. Next, you state your media texts that illustrate the argument with a citation. Now, this might not be necessary for everybody, but if you're going to use a case study that is one overarching example, you should probably state it at the beginning of the essay and cite it. For example, I will narrow my focus to a case study of the intertwining of psychoanalytic theory with painting in the work of Salvador Dali. And lastly, you tell the reader your three main points that you're going to use to argue the thesis, and these become the main topic sentences for each of the following body paragraphs. And this is really important. An academic essay is not a work of intrigue or suspense. You just tell the reader where you are going in your argument and how you're going to demonstrate it, how you're going to argue the thesis. So you state your three or four main points, which become your main topic sentences, and this demonstrates clear thinking, pre-planning, structure, and most of all, the reader can already follow your line of reasoning. For example, you might write something like this. In order to demonstrate this argument, I will first argue for the link between industrialization and modernity, drawing from the symbolism of the machinery in Dali. Then I will argue that modernity brings about re-evaluation of the traditional structures and values about the individual, which can be seen in the emergence of psychoanalysis. Finally, I will argue that psychoanalysis merges with artistic expression and ushers in a new trend in modernism, the original force of which is initiated through industrialization. And that's it. That's your introductory paragraph done. Just follow those points, fill out the form, and try not to stress.