Beginnings: The Funnel Model

A	B

You might have been instructed in high school to consider the first paragraph of an essay like a funnel that begins broadly and narrows down to your specific topic, presented in a thesis statement that appears at the end of the first paragraph. The "funnel" method of introducing an essay, as it has been called, was promoted by writing guru Sheridan Baker in a widely influential textbook entitled The Practical Stylist, first published in 1962 and still in print.

For the sake of illustration, these two funnel models will be called A) the funnel used to fill the crankcase on a tractor, and B) the funnel used to fill a Bunsen burner. When you are beginning to write essays in grade school or early high school, the tractor funnel is acceptable. You are learning that an essay has a beginning, middle, and end. The general beginning is meant to inform you that an essay needs to be structured; it doesn't start just anywhere. It begins with a statement about its general subject and then moves to a more focussed thesis statement that addresses a specific aspect of that general subject.

If you consider the practice for a moment, a broad general statement at the beginning of an essay does not serve your purposes well. It may put the essay somewhere on the map, but not on the particular highway to your destination. You want to move the vehicle of your thought as quickly as you can toward your point of arrival—your position on a topic. Your reader is expecting this of you, and is of limited patience. Thus, the closer you start to your chosen topic the sooner you arrive at the essay's argument. You respect the reader by identifying as early as possible what the essay is about and declaring where it is going.

For example, if you are writing an essay in English on the use of Popular Ballad conventions in the songs of Leonard Cohen and Stan Rogers, you might be tempted to start this way:

      Ever since the dawn of human history people have been telling stories in songs. Over time, as songs were sung and stories were told, particular conventions developed. These conventions define a genre of English literature known as popular ballads. The popular ballad form has had a lasting influence even on contemporary songwriters. The ballads of Leonard Cohen and Stan Rogers incorporate the formal conventions of the popular ballad. . . .

This is an introductory paragraph that begins too wide at the funnel mouth. It chooses the tractor crankcase funnel. A better strategy is to start closer to the end of the funnel, to use the Bunsen burner model. The mouth of that funnel could well begin at the last sentence in the example above:

     The ballads of Leonard Cohen and Stan Rogers incorporate the formal conventions of the popular ballad. Both contemporary songwriters draw on traditional ballad form and content. Cohen's "Ballad of the Absent Mare" and Rogers's "The Mary Ellen Carter" use traditional ballad stanzas, meter, and subjects, but give ballad conventions a contemporary twist.

In English essays, it is good advice to mention in the first sentence or two the author or text you are examining. In a history paper, you are well advised to avoid beginning with a vague declaration about what you assume to be a historical truth. Rather, begin by addressing the context out of which your historical analysis develops. Whatever your topic, your beginning paragraph needs to give your reader a clear indication of what your paper is about. To this end, the reader is best served when you avoid using the funnel that fills the tractor crankcase and come quickly to your big idea. If you choose to begin an essay with the funnel method, use the Bunsen burner funnel.