A Guide to English Introduction Writing
English is a very different subject from other essay writing subjects. Often, business, modern history, legal students who excel at their respective assignments may find it very challenging to find success in English when applying the same frameworks.
Unlike other subjects, the English analysis framework focuses on being concise, argumentative, while adding a layer of personal flair.
This guide aims to provide advice relating to the opening section of an essay while breaking down 3 key components to help improve your grades throughout your introduction.
Let’s get into it!
1 - The Thesis
With most English essay feedback, criticism may revolve around not having a thesis. Despite being an integral part to the introduction, what a thesis is, is rarely defined or made sense of, and the majority of schools usually breeze over it, and don’t properly explain how to write one.
A thesis is an argumentative statement which both engages with the question while presenting ideas that encompass your later body paragraphs.
This can be best explained with an example.
Lets consider the 2025 Common Module question for English Advanced on George Orwell’s 1984:
“Analyse how the representation of particular lives in your prescribed text enriches your understanding of the endurance of the human spirit.”
Step 1: Understanding the Question
The first step to addressing the question is to highlight the key words that require engagement.
‘Representation of particular lives’ means giving quotes/examples of collective or individual human experiences and unpacking why the author has portrayed these characters in a specific way
‘Enriches your understanding’ asks for personal engagement from students in relating back to their own assumptions of the text.
‘Endurance of the human spirit’ refers to the depiction of human qualities and emotions in both individual and collective experiences that encompass resilience and defiance.
Now we can move onto planning our essay.
Step 2: Linking to Main Essay Ideas
After noting down which elements of the question require engagement, the next step is linking your body paragraph ideas to the essay question through the thesis.
Lets look at two different approaches to the question:
C Level thesis - Orwell’s representation of particular lives in 1984 enriches my understanding of the endurance of the human spirit through the rebelion of individuals against greater totalitarian regimes.
What they’re doing wrong:
They’re just repeating the question and attaching their essay ideas to the end, which makes the essay seem preprepared while lacking any adaptation.
The key words aren’t defined - what is the endurance of the human spirit? Or the particular lives?
There’s no argument - no cause and effect. This is a statement, not an argument
A Level thesis - Through the representation of anomalous human experiences against collective unconsciousness, Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘1984’ enriches my understanding of the human spirits enduring quality by illustrating the persistence of human qualities of resistance against greater indoctrination.
Stepping up from the previous thesis, this gives personal insight into the key words of ‘representation of particular lives’ and ‘endurance of human spirit’, yet its lacking in showing how it relates to your understanding.
This can be addressed by adding a second sentence following your initial point. - …In challenging assumptions of the fragility of the human spirit, Orwell inspires hope towards humanity prevailing against corruptive forces.
Here’s the complete thesis:
2 - The Text Itself & Contextualization
After opening an essay introduction with a thesis, it is important to properly introduce the text and relevant context throughout your introduction.
Form Introductions
Often times students copy and paste fancy terms relating to their text, such as political satire, dystopian or postmodernism. Although it is highly necessary to show the marker your understanding of high level macro techniques and literary context, it’s important that you both understand what they mean and that it is relevant to the point your trying to make.
Orwell’s novel is a political satire, meaning it portrays elements of politics in an exaggerated fashion to criticise or comment on issues of his time. In 1984, the authoritarian government of Big brother and dystopian regime of Oceania largely reflects Orwell’s dislike for Stalin and Hitler’s controlling regimes.
Postmodernism, often tied with post-war timelines, is the rise of collective skepticism towards grand narratives. This means people are uncertain of whether they can believe in ideologies and imperatives after feeling disillusioned by the violence of war. Writers commonly reflect this by showing distrust in religion and politics in their novels while also displaying a rise of individual thinking and autonomy from the rest of society.
For an essay on 1984, such terms are relevant and can allow your analysis to be furthered while remaining concise - For example, you can introduce your text with “George Orwell’s postmodern dystopian novel ‘1984’.
Context
After briefly introducing the text with its relevant form and genre descriptors, it’s important to provide a concise, purposeful explanation of the political and historical context surrounding the novel. The key word here is relevance: context that is too broad or generic will sound pre-prepared, while targeted context will strengthen your argument and deepen your analysis.
When writing about 1984, especially if your paragraphs focus on ideas such as rebellion and totalitarianism, Orwell’s own world provides crucial insight. Consider how these two quotes from the text moments draw directly from real events of his time:
“adored the Party and everything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners…” This mirrors the indoctrination rituals of the Hitler Youth, who were trained from childhood to revere the Nazi regime and inoculated into antisemitic, Aryan ideals.
Orwell describes Big Brother as “a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache…”. This description is unmistakably reminiscent of Joseph Stalin, whose Cult of personality shaped Soviet political life (and who Orwell highly distained).
While these contextual details will naturally be woven into body paragraphs, they benefit from being anchored early in your introduction so markers can see from the outset that you understand the text’s political grounding, especially with an author like Orwell who has such a strong political purpose.
In addressing the political context of the time, a strong introduction could also mention Orwell’s personal essay ‘Why I Write,’ where he asserts: “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism.” His personal ideology and observation of Hitler and Stalins extensive indoctrination tactics, such as mass rallies, slogan-chanting, youth indoctrination, deeply influenced the world he constructs in Oceania.
By incorporating relevant political context, you position yourself to write body paragraphs that are more concise, more focused, and more insightful. You show markers that you not only understand what happens in the text, but why Orwell imagined such a world in the first place.
Here’s a sample of topic sentences integrating form and context:
3 - Linking Sentence
After a thesis statement, contextualization, and introducing your body paragraph ideas, a linking sentence is the final component in an introduction.
Leading up to the linking sentence, the majority of the introduction should have engaged with two components of the question such as ‘Representation of particular lives’ and ‘endurance of the human spirit’.
The linking sentence’s role is to make the connection between the first two components mentioned and the final component of the question. In this case, it would be elaborating upon how both body paragraph ideas in engaging with representation and endurance of the human spirit has shaped/enriched your personal understanding.
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