My personal writing goal for this semester is to become an overall better writer. I feel like that is very vague but I struggle with introductions for my papers. Normally, once I can get a paper started I am okay during the body section. But I struggle with introductions and conclusions in my papers. So I want to become better at writing those parts of my papers.
I think focusing on writing stronger introductions and conclusions is a great goal for WRIT 101!
One strategy that might help is to write the introduction after the rough draft. Once you have a working thesis statement, you can write the body paragraphs of your essay. (And, once you have the body written, it’s not as hard to write a draft of the conclusion.) Then, you can revise your thesis (if necessary) by comparing it to your conclusion. Finally, you can go back and write an introduction leading into the revised thesis.
Another strategy might simply be spending more time on prewriting and planning. If I’m stuck on how to write an introduction, 90% of the time, it just means that I’m not really ready to write the paper yet.