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1. Introduce a key character’s name (and how they got it)Great opening lines intrigue us. They begin to form a world, yet leave enough unknowns for us to want more answers.
Sometimes, introducing a character’s name is all it takes to create this effect. Take this opening from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel A Pale View of Hills:
‘Niki, the name we finally gave my younger daughter, is not an abbreviation; it was a compromise I reached with her father.’
What this first sentence illustratesWhen using your first sentence to introduce a character’s name, you could include:
How they got their name. Is it your character’s birth name or a nickname? What does this tell the reader? What unknown could you include at this stage for curiosity’s sake?
Emotion. How does your character feel about their name? Does it have any special or emotional significance?
The above questions show that there are many possible ways to use the simple act of naming a character as an enticing opening.
2. Begin with a landmark personal or historical eventFinding sentences to start a story in characters’ backstories and histories is another good option.
Picking out a landmark, memorable event is a great way to show the experiences your characters carry with them. For example, in her beloved novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee begins by having her narrator, Scout, remember when her brother Jem broke his elbow.
‘When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.’
Why is this opening sentence effectiveThe beginning is intriguing because it doesn’t give much away. How did Jem break his arm? Why is the narrator beginning with this specific event? There are enough unknowns to make this starter interesting, even though there is no clear major conflict or dilemma. It is only in the second paragraph that Scout frames the story about Jem’s arm in wider context, as she says:
‘When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident.’
The story of Jem’s arm thus becomes a landmark event. It’s a memorable experience Lee uses to structure Scout’s recollection of other, equally memorable events.
This type of opening shows memory at work, as a character organizes and gathers their thoughts around key, stand-out occasions.
‘Landmark event’ opening sentences are particularly common in historical fiction. This is in part because historical fiction often explores interesting historical periods where major events were densely packed together. For example, a novel about one of the World Wars may well begin with a character describing listening to a radio broadcast about allied or enemy bombings.
This type of story opening is effective because it gives your reader:
A sense of the ‘when’ of your setting: The story is framed from the outset around a particular event or time in your narrator’s life
An idea of what events haunt your characters or what matters to them: Scout’s focus on others’ injuries and struggles is early indication of her compassionate nature which Lee continues to illustrate
3. Sow the seeds of your story’s worldIntroducing your fictional world is another good option when finding sentences to start a book. This is particularly true for genres where world-building is a large part of the story’s magic and effect (such as fantasy and science fiction).
Consider the first line of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy:
‘The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards.’
Why the world-building of Le Guin’s first sentence worksGuin’s Hemingway-like direct simplicity here gives us a single, clear image, as well as an idea of something magical or mysterious – the presence of wizards.
Yet there are still enough unknowns to create interest: Why is Gont famous for wizards? What is so renowned about them?
For example, she moves on to sharing the origins of the dragonlord and Archmage ‘Sparrowhawk’, sharing details about his childhood on Gont’s mountain.
Putting world-building in the first sentence is a good way to anchor readers immediately in a sense of place. It’s like spreading out a map of your world on a table, for your reader to get a helpful bird’s eye view to begin.
When starting with world-building, think about:
Unknowns you can introduce: We want to know what these famous wizards of Gont are famous for
Concrete imagery: What’s a strong, clear image that will help your reader remember something that defines this place?
[NB: Use the ‘setting’ section of the Now Novel dashboard to brainstorm details for your story’s world].
Some of the examples above aren’t particularly mysterious first sentences, it’s true. Le Guin’s is wonderfully direct. Yet, you could choose to begin with stronger mystery. Toni Morrison opens her hard-hitting epic about slavery, Beloved, with just three, well-chosen words:
‘124 was spiteful.’
How Toni Morrison’s first sentence creates mysteryThe number here holds great mystery. It could be anything – a number given to a prisoner, a law. Instead, we learn later that it is a house number. The home is the site of a terrible tragedy affecting its occupants. The uncertainty and clipped nature of the opening sentence aptly fits the uncertainty and almost unspeakable suffering that fills the home of Sethe and her family.
When finding sentences to start a story with mystery, ask:
What is the mystery I want to convey? Morrison’s opening effectively conveys a sense of a mysterious spite that lingers after its painful cause is removed – a haunting produced by slavery’s legacy
How and when will I begin solving the mystery? Morrison unfolds the mystery slowly, at first saying ‘the women in the house knew it and so did the children’. By the middle of the page, we realize it is the house’s malignancy itself, the ghostly residue of the family’s trauma. Morrison describes how Sethe’s brothers ran away from home ‘as soon as merely looking in a mirror shattered it’
5. Start in the thick of action with dialogueMany novels in genres such as thriller and crime rely on swift pace to keep us hooked. John le Carré, widely hailed as one of the great authors of spy fiction, begins his international bestseller The Spy who Came in from the Cold thus:
‘The American handed Leamas another cup of coffee and said, “Why don’t you go back and sleep? We can ring you if he shows up.”
How Le Carré’s first sentence sets up good, swift paceImmediately we see two character’s in the middle of a tense scenario, as they await the arrival of their overdue contact. Note how Le Carré masterfully heightens the indeterminacy: The American says ‘if’ the man shows up.
Beginning with dialogue is naturally risky, as if your dialogue is confusing and your reader has nothing to anchor it to, they may be confused and frustrated more than intrigued. As Le Carre does:
Keep it clear and simple. Note the dialogue is clearly about a specific anticipated event (the arrival of an ‘off-screen’ character), and the present characters’ options for what they do next.
Reveal a bit about the speakers’ dynamic. From the way the American makes his suggestion as an option, it’s clear the other has at least equal authority and is free to choose what to do next. Although there isn’t much in the sentence, you can already tell this much.
Whether your narrator is cynical and disaffected like Salinger’s Holden in Catcher in the Rye or a butt-kicking bad-ass, a good opening first line in first person immediately ropes your reader into your narrator’s life and world view.
Take for example the opening to John Green’s bittersweet novel about teenage cancer patients, The Fault in Our Stars. The starting sentence:
‘Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.’
How Green’s first line establishes a strong narrator’s voiceThe tone of 16-year-old Hazel comes across as arch and dry. The mother’s ‘diagnosis’ of depression seems an oversimplifying or categorizing way to describe the various ways Hazel’s behaviour reflects the real issue – her dawning reality of possible death.
This idea is expanded as Hazel continues:
‘But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying (Cancer is also a side effect of dying. Almost everything is, really.)
Hazel’s voice is beautifully direct and honest, and the narrator’s voice from the opening sentence is strong. Green’s first sentence shows that a strong starting sentence introducing a narrating character:
Reveals personality. Hazel’s tone is honest and direct. Yet there’s something archly self-aware and almost darkly comical about her tone, too. The character has a voice we can describe
Indicates the character’s focus. It’s clear to us from the opening sentence and the subsequent paragraphs that Hazel is very much preoccupied with her condition
7. Begin with a character doing something unusualAlthough when finding sentences to start a story we might reach for description first, actions make equally effective beginnings.
This is particular the case when said actions are odd, quirky, strange, creepy, suspicious or otherwise unusual. ‘Unusual’ or extraordinary actions are not ‘I sit down to breakfast’ or ‘I open my eyes, having just woken up’. These are actions most perform every day.
Instead, an unusual action is something like the first sentence of Dodie Smith’s classic novel, I Capture the Castle:
‘I am sitting in the kitchen sink.’
Why I Capture the Castle has an unusual opening action sentenceThis simple action is strange enough to intrigue us to read more, kitchen sinks not being typical sitting places. The unfolding first paragraph gives us a glimpse into the character, the young, aspiring writer Cassandra:
‘That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cozy. I can’t say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can beinspiring – I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house.’
When starting with unusual actions, ask:
How can I develop this action further? What more could come of this action? For example, Smith could show us other ways Cassandra works at her writing. She could show her excited response to sending a poem or manuscript to a potential publisher, for example
Trying to find sentences to start your story? Get feedback on your ideas on Now Novel, and use the Central Idea prompts to find your next great idea.
Words To Start A Sentence
If you are new here please read this first.
Your ability to START a sentence WITHOUT much THINKING!
Just think about this: how many times have you found yourself in a situation when you have to say something in English but you just can’t say the FIRST word?
You kind of know what you want to say, but you just can’t START the sentence and as a result you start stressing out and you end up feeling as if you totally suck as an English speaker …
But try this simple strategy for a change:
Memorize the phrase “Well, to be honest with you…”
Whenever you’re asked a question, start your answer by using the above phrase…
You’ll realize that for some strange reason it’s much, much easier to provide an answer to the question once you’ve started it with “Well, to be honest with you…”!
In reality there’s nothing that strange about it.
It’s just a simple matter of enabling yourself to START a sentence, and once the words start flowing, there’s no stopping them!
Repeat them.
Memorize them.
Do some spoken English practice with yourself.
Use them in your daily English conversations with others.
And you’ll realize that using these phrases as a way of starting your English sentences makes a HUGE difference in your fluency, you can take my word for it, my friends ❗
Universal English Sentence Starters: Statements, Disagreeing, Breaking the Truth DisagreeingNEW! No offense, but… – another phrase used to let the other person know that what’s going to follow will potentially offend them, so always limit these kinds of conversations to the bare minimum and use this English sentence starter only when really necessary: “NO OFFENSE, BUT I think you looked way better at the last party – just my opinion!”
NEW! Well, it’s all nice and well, but.. . – it’s always a good strategy to agree to disagree, so basically what you’re doing in this English sentence starter is – you’re pointing out that by and large everything is nice and well to make it easier for the other person to stomach the truth that’s about to follow: “WELL, IT’S ALL NICE AND WELL, BUT for some reason I just don’t think Alex is the type of guy our daughter should be hanging out with!”
NEW! We’ll just have to agree to disagree! – this is a great phrase to use in a situation when it’s obvious that both of you have a completely different opinion and you just won’t come to an agreement. This should be the final statement in the conversation and there’s no point to continue the argument beyond this point.
Expressing UncertaintyObviously, you can’t start using all 35 English sentence starters within a matter of days, but even if you manage to learn and use 5 of them, you’re going to notice a definite increase of your oral fluency!
Cheers,
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!
P.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out the English Harmony System HERE!
Is It Ever Okay To Start A Sentence With ‘And’?
It’s perfectly acceptable to begin a sentence with “And,” as well as the other words that we are often taught to avoid such as “but” or “or.” Writing samples tracing back to the 9th century, including Bible translations, break these “sacred” rules, which stem from attempts to curb school children from stringing too many unrelated sentences together.
Whether or not one should avoid using certain words at the very beginning of a sentence is one of those tidbits of grammatical information that nestles in some corner of our brains, dimly but persistently reminding us that we are probably doing something wrong. (The truly painstaking nitpicker will point out that the opening line of this piece begins with one of those words, , that has been declared unfit to begin a sentence.)
Many people content themselves with the trusted maxim “do not begin sentences with or .” If you are interested in learning whether or not this is a sensible rule, well, it is not. And if you don’t much care whether the rule is sensible or not, and just want to keep telling people that they are wrong when they use certain words to begin their sentences, well, you are in luck, since there have been many more prohibitions against sentence-initial words than just and and but.
The Beginning of And/But in the BeginningFirstly, has it ever been wrong to begin a sentence with and or but? No, it has not. We have been breaking this rule all the way from the 9th century Old English Chronicle through the current day. Many translations of the Bible are filled with sentence-initial ands and buts, and they even may be found in some of our more beloved-and prescriptive-usage guides. The 1959 edition of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style begins two sentences in a row with these prohibited words, and does so with nary a trace of self-consciousness.
But since writing is communication, clarity can only be a virtue. And although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one. -William Strunk Jr. & E. B. White, The Elements of Style, 1959
Can You Begin a Sentence with These Words?If you are one of those people who prefers to avoid people who begin their sentences with these words, and if you would like to further curtail your sentence-initial word choices, there have been a large number of other words that we have previously been told not to use in that position. Here is a smattering:
Do not begin a sentence with however or a similar unimportant word. -Jacob Cloyd Tressler, English in Action, 1929
Do not begin a sentence with “also” or “likewise.” -George Hitchcock, Sermon Composition, 1908
Or never begins a sentence, paragraph, or chapter. -James Brown, The American System of English Grammar, 1826
Never begin a sentence-or a clause-with also. -J. M. D. Meiklejohn, The Art of Writing English, 1899
Teach the elimination of but, so, and, because, at the beginning of a sentence. – Documents of the School Committee of the City of Boston, 1916
A sentence should not commence with the conjunctions and, for, or however…. -George Payn Quackenbos, An Advanced Course of Composition and Rhetoric, 1854
FANBOYS (For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So)Some people may remember learning the mnemonic FANBOYS when studying the coordinating conjunctions for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. And some instructors also still use this as means of explaining which words should not be given the chance to lead the parade. But it’s slightly ridiculous to insist that these words should never be used to begin a sentence, when a thousand years of English writing has shown this to be a fine way to start off.
If you’re going to create a silly-sounding acronym to list these words, then go whole-hog and list all of the words that schoolchildren have been told not to put at the beginnings of sentences over the past 200 years. We crafted one for you that helpfully looks like a web address: WWWFLASHYBONNBAN, which stands, obviously, for whether, well, why, for, likewise, and, so, however, yet, but, or, nor, now, because, also, nevertheless.
5 Ways To Start A Story (With Examples)
Read 5 types of story beginnings and tips for making your own effective:
1: Introducing readers to a memorable narrator-protagonistThis is a popular way to start a story about a character coming of age or grappling with internal conflict. These novels typically use first person narration. From the first line, the reader gets to know a characterful narrator.
For example, Salinger’s Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye (1951) has a strong voice and clear, disaffected teen persona:
‘If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.’
This opening is effective because we get a strong sense of the character’s personality in his terse use of curse words, slang and adjectives (‘crap’, ‘lousy’). Being addressed directly by the narrator creates a sense of closeness and familiarity. This effect is similar to Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Reader, I married him’ in Jane Eyre.
Another strong example of this story opening type, the protagonist/narrator introduction, is Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955). Nabokov begins his novel with his depraved anti-hero, Humbert Humbert, musing on the name of Lolita, the young object of his obsession:
‘Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.’
Nabokov’s opening is strong because personality and character psychology are present from the first line. When you start a story with your main character introducing themselves, remember to:
Give them a distinctive voice: The grandiose language of Humbert Humbert fits the character, as do Salinger’s teen’s own cynical words.
Show what matters to your character/narrator from the start: Holden values authenticity (‘if you want to know the truth’). We get a visceral sense of Humbert’s creepy obsession with Lolita through his rapture at even saying her name.
2: Beginning a novel with crucial memoriesOften novels open with narrators recalling memories that are core to the plot. This is especially common in novels where a single, unforgettable event casts its shadow over the rest of the book (e.g. the murder in a murder mystery).
Framing an event in your story through a character’s memory gives it weight. When you begin your novel with your main character remembering an earlier scene, it’s thus important to choose the right scene.
Choose a scene that shows a dilemma or choice, or a powerfully emotional experience that is bound to have consequences for your character. For example, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (2003) opens with the 15-year-old narrator Christopher finding his neighbour’s murdered dog:
‘It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they’re chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog.’
Haddon’s opening is effective because it builds up to the revelation that the dog was killed violently. It’s effective because it raises questions we want answered.
When you begin with your narrator recalling a key memory, remember to:
Choose a scene that immediately starts giving the reader keys to understand the rest of the book. Haddon’s narrator proceeds to hug the bleeding dog, for example, so that we start to realise that Christopher is unusual
Show the reader the memory: Haddon does not just say ‘Christopher found his neighbour’s dog, killed with a garden fork.’ We discover the dog through Christopher’s eyes, and this increases the scene’s impact
3: Starting a book with ambiguous actionConsider the opening of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451:
‘It was a pleasure to burn.
‘It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venemous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history.’
The first sentence is ambiguous – who, or what, is burning? The next slowly fills in context: We learn a character is using kerosene to burn something, to destroy ‘history’, but we still don’t know what exactly. We only learn by the end of the paragraph that the character Montag is burning books.
This way of beginning a story is effective because Bradbury prolongs a mixture of suspense and confusion, yet the character’s action itself is clear.
If you begin a book with ambiguous, teasing action:
Give the reader answers to at least one (or some) of the ‘5 w’s’. We might not immediately know who is doing the burning (or what they’re burning), but Bradbury gives us a strong why: Pleasure. The relish with which Montag burns the books is clear
By the end of the first paragraph, give the reader a little more clarity, as Bradbury does
4: Leading into your story with a purposeful prologue‘Prologue’ literally means the ‘before word’. This separate introductory or prefatory section in a novel has several uses:
Giving broad historical context that paves the way for the main story
Showing a scene or event preceding the main narrative, whose consequences ripple through the following story
Donna Tartt uses the second type of prologue to excellent effect in her mystery novel The Secret History (1992). Her prologue tells us that a character is murdered, that the narrator is somehow complicit, and that he will narrate the events that led up to the murder in the coming narrative.
This teaser makes it clear that motive, rather than identity, is the main mystery behind the killing. Tartt’s prologue wastes no time in revealing key information that shapes our expectations for the main story:
‘The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation. He’d been dead for ten days before they found him, you know.’
By immediately framing the story around Bunny’s murder and its aftermath, Tartt’s prologue directs our attention to the ground the coming story will cover. Not the fact of Bunny’s death but the swirl of events that spin out from this crime. It marks out a path into reading and making sense of the story.
Do you want to include a prologue in your book? Ask:
Do the events in the first section of your book need telling before the main action. If yes, why? In Tartt’s case, giving away key events in the prologue is smart, structurally. Because the identity of the murder victim (and at least one person responsible) is revealed early, the main narrative of the story is free to focus on character motivations and consequences and not just crime-solving
Would your story flow better if you told earlier events via character flashbacks or a prologue? Try writing a scene as a prologue, then write the same scene as a flashback. Which fits the scene better?
5: Strong ways to start a story: Opening with the unexpectedTake Bradbury’s beginning to Fahrenheit 451 above, ‘It was a pleasure to burn.’ It’s unexpected. This is partially because of its inner contradiction. We know that getting a burn from a hot plate is painful, and the idea of pleasure is thus surprising. The ambiguity of ‘it’ means we don’t know initially whether the narrator is describing an odd pleasure in burning himself or burning something else.
Examples from famous books reveal this has always been one of the popular ways to start a story. For example, Dodie Smith opens I Capture the Castle (1949):
‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.’
The narrator Cassandra’s choice of sitting place is unusual, intriguing us to read the next sentence. Whichever way you choose to begin your novel, getting the reader to read the second sentence is the first, crucial feat.
Start your own novel now: brainstorm story themes, settings and characters and get helpful feedback from the Now Novel community.
35 Perfect Ways Of Starting Sentences In English!
If you are new here please read this first.
Your ability to START a sentence WITHOUT much THINKING!
Just think about this: how many times have you found yourself in a situation when you have to say something in English but you just can’t say the FIRST word?
You kind of know what you want to say, but you just can’t START the sentence and as a result you start stressing out and you end up feeling as if you totally suck as an English speaker …
But try this simple strategy for a change:
Memorize the phrase “Well, to be honest with you…”
Whenever you’re asked a question, start your answer by using the above phrase…
You’ll realize that for some strange reason it’s much, much easier to provide an answer to the question once you’ve started it with “Well, to be honest with you…”!
In reality there’s nothing that strange about it.
It’s just a simple matter of enabling yourself to START a sentence, and once the words start flowing, there’s no stopping them!
Repeat them.
Memorize them.
Do some spoken English practice with yourself.
Use them in your daily English conversations with others.
And you’ll realize that using these phrases as a way of starting your English sentences makes a HUGE difference in your fluency, you can take my word for it, my friends ❗
Universal English Sentence Starters: Statements, Disagreeing, Breaking the Truth DisagreeingNEW! No offense, but… – another phrase used to let the other person know that what’s going to follow will potentially offend them, so always limit these kinds of conversations to the bare minimum and use this English sentence starter only when really necessary: “NO OFFENSE, BUT I think you looked way better at the last party – just my opinion!”
NEW! Well, it’s all nice and well, but.. . – it’s always a good strategy to agree to disagree, so basically what you’re doing in this English sentence starter is – you’re pointing out that by and large everything is nice and well to make it easier for the other person to stomach the truth that’s about to follow: “WELL, IT’S ALL NICE AND WELL, BUT for some reason I just don’t think Alex is the type of guy our daughter should be hanging out with!”
NEW! We’ll just have to agree to disagree! – this is a great phrase to use in a situation when it’s obvious that both of you have a completely different opinion and you just won’t come to an agreement. This should be the final statement in the conversation and there’s no point to continue the argument beyond this point.
Expressing UncertaintyObviously, you can’t start using all 35 English sentence starters within a matter of days, but even if you manage to learn and use 5 of them, you’re going to notice a definite increase of your oral fluency!
Cheers,
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!
P.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out the English Harmony System HERE!
Sentence Starters: Useful Words And Phrases To Use As Sentence Starters • 7Esl
Sentence Starters! When writing an essay in the English language, it is very important that your writing flows and sounds good. There are a variety of ways in which you can do this, one such way is by using sentence starters. In this article, we are going to be looking at some sentence starters which you can use as a way of creating much more interesting and engaging written work in English.
What Is A Sentence Starter?
In the most simple terms, a sentence starter is a phrase that is used at the beginning of a sentence and can introduce information contained within it. There are thousands of different sentence starters that you can choose and one of the most important rules is to avoid using the same words at the beginning of each sentence. This will allow you to create work that sounds much more interesting and not at all repetitive. You can achieve this by using the extensive list of sentence starters whenever you are writing an essay or other sort of work in English.
There are various ways of using sentence starters, so before we begin looking at some examples we are going to take a look at some useful tips for getting the most out of your sentence starters.
As we mentioned, avoid using the same word repeatedly at the start of multiple sentences.
Think about what type of sentence you are writing. Is it an information sentence? Does it ask a question? Does the sentence compare or contrast existing information? Is the sentence putting something in order? Does it conclude something? By working out the type of sentence it is, you will be able to better decide on your sentence starter.
You should also ask yourself how the sentence relates to the previous one. This will allow you to further choose a relevant sentence starter.
Once you have finished writing your essay, or other pieces of writing, it is very important that you go over it and make any necessary edits and adjustments. This will help you to make the most of sentence starters and ensure that there is no repetition and that each sentence starter has been sued correctly. You should initially write without thinking too much about it and then make changes when you edit.
Examples Of Sentence Starters
As we mentioned, there are thousands of sentence starters that you can use when writing in English, we are now going to look at some of the most common and useful ones. We will do this by category to better help you select the right one.
Introduction Sentence StartersIf your sentence is being used to introduce some information, you can use one of the following sentence starters.
The essay discusses…
In this essay/article/document…
The theme of this essay/article…
We will be discussing…
Conclusion Sentence StartersWhen writing a concluding sentence, you might consider one of the following options.
In conclusion…
To summarise…
We have seen that…..
It has been demonstrated that…
To sum up…
Comparison and Contrast Sentence StartersIf you are writing a sentence to compare or contrast, then these sentence starters will get you off on the right foot.
However…
Nevertheless…
That being said…
Then again…
On the other hand…
Although…
In comparison…
Whereas…
On the one hand…
Other than…
Outside of…
Rather…
Still…
Cause And Result Sentence StartersIf you are looking to write a sentence which shows the result or cause then you might consider using one of the following sentence starters.
As a result…
For this reason…
For this purpose…
Otherwise…
Since…
So that/then…
Subsequently…
This means that…
Therefore…
That is why…
Because…
Due to the fact that…
Sentence Starters To Emphasise
Above all…
As usual…
Generally speaking…
For the most part…
In this situation…
No doubt…
Obviously…
As a rule…
Especially…
Sentence Starters For Additional IdeasWhen you are writing a sentence which will add new information, you might choose one of these sentence starters.
Furthermore…
Also…
Then…
In addition…
Moreover…
As well as…
Coupled with…
Another reason…
Indeed…
Identically…
Likewise…
Additionally…
Sentence Starters For Rare Or Common IdeasWhen you are adding information which is either very common or extremely rare, you may want to indicate this within your sentence starter. This can be done in one of the following ways.
A few…
Rarely…
Unusually…..
Seldom…
On occasion…
Quite often…
Inconclusive Sentence StartersIf you are presenting information which is not conclusive, you could use one of these sentence starters.
Perhaps…
There is some evidence to suggest that…
It may be…
It could be…
It is possible that…
Sentence Starters To Show ExamplesWhen you are writing a sentence which will give an example of something, there are many sentence starters you could use. Let’s take a look at some of these now.
For example…
Such as…
For instance…
As an example…
You might consider…
For one thing…
Especially…
As an illustration…
To illustrate this…
Markedly…
In this case…
This can be seen…
Specifically…
Sentence Starters To Show Time And OrderIf you need to show order or time within a sentence then you should use one of these sentence starters to do this.
Firstly, secondly, thirdly…
Earlier…
Afterwards…
First of all…
Finally…
In addition…
In the first instance…
After this…
Additionally…
With this in mind…
Finally…
To begin with…
Learn more with the useful list of transition words in English.
Conclusion
Using a well-selected sentence starter when writing an essay in the English language can bring many benefits. It will allow you to create a piece of writing which is coherent, interesting and above all, diverse. It will depend greatly on the type of sentence that you are writing as to which sentence starter you use and using a good variety within your essay will make it much more engaging for the reader. Once you have finished writing, it is a good idea to go back over your work and check that your sentence starters make sense and are being used correctly.
Sentence Starters Infographic
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