See the full course at The first paragraph in your essay is the introduction. After you write your introductory hook you have to write a bridge sentence. The purpose of that bridge sentence is to connect your hook with your thesis. Without a bridge sentence the gap between the hook and thesis can often be jarring and break the flow of your writing, so for a smooth introduction you need a bridge sentence. There are two main type of bridge sentence depending on the type of writing you are doing. For a typical informative persuasive essay you use a standard bridge, but if you’re writing an essay that is analyzing literature it is more common to use a literary bridge that introduces the title, the author, and the genre. You can remember that as the TAG sentence. So let’s take a look at some examples of bridge sentences.
First, we have the standard bridge sentence. Remember, we have to connect your hook to your thesis, so let’s make up an essay about vaccination programs. Let’s start with the hook: “As recently as fifty years ago, millions of people died from smallpox every year.” That’s fairly surprising information, so you can see this is a hook that’s using surprising information. Let me illustrate, or show you why, we need a bridge sentence, because if I were to skip right to the thesis you would see a big gap between these two sentences. “Worldwide vaccination programs must be organized to eliminate malaria, measles and hepatitis B.” Of course, any ready can see that there is a connection between these two sentences, but there is a bit of a gap when we’re talking about the deaths caused by smallpox to the vaccination programs, so let’s connect this with a bridge. “However, a global vaccination program eradicated this deadly disease in 1980. Worldwide vaccination programs must be organized to eliminate malaria, measles, and hepatitis B.” Let me read the entire introduction again so you can see how the bridge functions to connect the hook to the thesis: “As recently as fifty years ago, millions of people died from smallpox every year. However, a global vaccination program eradicated this deadly disease in 1980. Worldwide vaccination programs must be organized to eliminate malaria, measles, and hepatitis B.” The bridge connects to the hook by talking about how smallpox was eliminated to 1980, and it connects to the thesis by explaining that it was a global vaccination program that eradicated the disease. Of course, this sets us up to talk about worldwide vaccination programs. So, when you write your bridge make sure there’s a connection both to the hook and the thesis.
Now let’s look at tag sentences or bridge sentences that introduce literary works. These are a little more complicated because we have to do two things in this bridge. Not only do we have to connect the hook with the thesis, but we have to introduce the literary work. I’m going to write the introduction for an essay on the novel “1984”: “If you were to take a walk through the streets of London, your every move would be tracked by hundreds of cameras.” You can classify this hook as a combination of surprising information and an interesting story. Readers should be surprised to hear that every move they make is being watched, but also it’s a bit of a hypothetical scenario which you can easily imagine occurring. Now, let’s skip to the thesis: “Orwell uses Smith’s experiences to explore the themes of freedom, power and mob psychology.” Of course, this makes no sense to you because who’s Orwell? Who’s Smith? Why am I talking about these guys?” So, I have to write some bridge sentences to transition from the hook to the thesis. First of all, I need the TAG. I need to introduce the title, the author, and the genre: “The dystopian novel “1984” by George Orwell is set in an alternate reality where the government watches its citizens not only in the streets, but also in their homes.” You can see here that of course I’ve introduced the title, “1984,” the author, George Orwell, and the genre, a dystopian novel, but I’ve also connected to the hook by talking about in this novel people are being watched in the streets just like in London. Next, I need to provide a brief synopsis, or a brief summary of what happens in the story, so that anybody reading my essay can understand my points without having read the book: “The protagonist, Winston Smith, becomes increasingly rebellious towards the all powerful government until he is finally caught and forced to submit.” Now we have a complete introduction for an essay that’s analyzing a piece of literature.
Has laoreet percipitur ad. Vide interesset in mei, no his legimus verterem. Et nostrum imperdiet appellantur usu, mnesarchum referrentur id vim.
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