lead is to capture the reader s attention
The purpose of a lead is to capture the reader’s attention and implicitly suggest the purpose of your paper. The attachment has three good leads to a paper on dental habits of young adults. Which lead do you think is most successful and why do you think so? Also write about 5 sentences explaining your point-of-view of the leads given,
1. I haven’t felt like smiling recently. It isn’t that I’ve been particularly melancholy or deprived of
necessary joy. I’ve actually been hesitant to smile because lately I’ve felt insecure about my
teeth. I brush and floss every day and see my dentist twice a year, just like any responsible
hygiene patient does – but that doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. My teeth need to be
white. Now when I feel the corners of my mouth pucker upwards and I start to grin at someone,
I can’t stop thinking about my teeth. What once was a simple visual expression of happiness has
become a symptom of my overall doubts about my appearance.
2. Julie Beatty wants people to look at her as a more confident, strong person, so she’s doing the
only logical thing. She’s shelling out over $12,500 for an overhaul on her teeth. While it sounds
completely ridiculous to change a person’s oral structure to create a different persona, Julie is a
member of a booming group of people who are looking to change their smiles to change their
lives. Whether or not Julie’s straightening, whitening, and tooth reshaping will change her
success as an executive is still unknown, but the popularity of cosmetic dentistry and smile care
is an undeniable new phenomenon.
3. I can feel individual molecules of air battering at my teeth. It’s the middle of the night, but I
can’t sleep because of the constant pain in my mouth. Even the weight of my lips pressing down
on my teeth is agonizing, like I’ve spent the day being hit in the mouth with a hammer and have
exposed nerves protruding throughout. I haven’t been beaten up, though. The cause of all my
agony is a 10 percent peroxide gel I’ve been smearing into trays and putting on my teeth for the
past week to whiten them. All this pain is due to my vanity and desire for a bit more pearliness
in my pearly whites. As I watch the numbers of the clock roll from 2:00 to 4:00, I wonder why
I’m putting up with such dental distress just for a more gleaming smile.
