Day 6: Hook your reader
From Martha B. Coven, author of Writing on the Job
Photo by Martha B. Coven
Imagine that the editor of your favorite newspaper, magazine, or blog hears about your academic work and invites you to contribute a piece for publication. It might be a short essay or a persuasive piece like an op-ed.
How would you begin that piece? What would draw the audience in and make them want to keep reading?
Is there a story you could tell — an anecdote you discovered in your research, or a personal experience?
A compelling data point?
Something surprising you’d want to share?
A provocative question?
What about a metaphor or analogy?
Journalists call this the hook for a piece of writing, and once you develop one, you may discover all sorts of uses for it: explaining to your family what you do, cocktail party chatter (really!), social media posts, or even giving your next talk or lecture.
Happy fishing!
If you are interested in more writing tips, follow me on Threads (@mbcoven) and check out my book at writingonthejob.com. It includes a chapter on how to write an op-ed and other forms of commentary.
Martha B. Coven, author of Writing on the Job
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For a general audience that includes people outside academia, my hook would be about the knowledge professions more broadly: that we live in a moment of both crisis (show this by concisely citing a range of examples from different industries) and opportunity (summarize the key features of our current moment that make exciting new knowledge-building approaches possible). This large-scale crisis and opportunity set the stage for Story-Argument, an approach to knowledge work that is actually very ancient, yet holds new potential in our digital age. Thanks for this great prompt, Martha!
I’m co-authoring a policy-related newsletter article at the moment, and one of the other authors has raised the question of what our “hook” could be. The list in “Hook your reader” is so helpful. I don’t have the hook yet, but I’m feeling much more confident about finding one before my turn at revising the draft comes around next week.