How is this for an opening paragraph?? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Being falsely accused and arrested for a crime may be the one of the worst, if not the worst situation a person could face in their lifetime. A situation like this could lead to the loss of employment, housing, peers, capital and at most freedom. The idea of being interrogated for hours, hand cuffed, thrown in jail, having your picture on every news outlet in the region, all happening to an innocent man is horrific. Imagine being judged by faces that didn’t know you, scared to walk out of your house, worried someone might become vigilante before your innocence is proven. This is exactly the situation I faced in November of 2010.

[Swimp]

Being falsely accused and arrested for a crime may be the one of the worst, if not the worst situation a person could face in their lifetime. A situation like this could lead to the loss of employment, housing, peers, capital and at most freedom. The idea of being interrogated for hours, hand cuffed, thrown in jail, having your picture on every news outlet in the region, all happening to an innocent man is horrific. Imagine being judged by faces that didn’t know you, scared to walk out of your house, worried someone might become vigilante before your innocence is proven. This is exactly the situation I faced in November of 2010.

Hoo boy, that's a lot of commas. You've got five sentences there and the middle three are all lists, back to back. It makes for kind of a monotonous start to an essay. Aside from that, there's a lot of awkward/stilted stylistic stuff going on, some of which I bolded above. Even so, I'd suggest writing the whole essay before going back and polishing. If you spend too much time honing each paragraph, you're just going to frustrate yourself. The first paragraph is often best left for last anyway.

[Anonymous User]

The other paragraphs are polished and ready to go. Truthfully, I got the idea to invoke a more straight forward opening paragraph on the horror I endured. I through that together really fast. Thanks for the points. Might see where it can go. I suppose I'm trying to channel John Grisham....

[collegebum1989]

Truthfully, I'm not a fan of abstract intros that discuss a conceptual issue and then relate to an experience. I think (my personal opinion here) that it's more effective more captivating to draw in a situation and then broaden te narrative as you go throughout the essay.

I say this because more writers will use the first approach of
writing about something abstract. As an admissions officer reading multiple essays we day, this could mean this intro gets repetitive.

Again, personal opinion, feel free to disregard.

[EvilClinton]

Being falsely accused and arrested for a crime may be the one of the worst, if not the worst situation a person could face in their lifetime. A situation like this could lead to the loss of employment, housing, peers, capital and at most freedom. The idea of being interrogated for hours, hand cuffed, thrown in jail, having your picture on every news outlet in the region, all happening to an innocent man is horrific. Imagine being judged by faces that didn’t know you, scared to walk out of your house, worried someone might become vigilante before your innocence is proven. This is exactly the situation I faced in November of 2010.

Not great.

[zabava]

What people said before, it takes a bit too long to get to the punchline (though you know its coming), but I do want to read more, which is good

[Tanicius]

Dude, just tell the story of what happened to you. That's all we need for an intro. It reveals far more about you than some disconnected conceptualization. Don't tell us how this affects someone. Show us.

[canarykb]

"may be the one of the worst, if not the worst situation a person could face in their lifetime" I would definitely take this out. I thinking saying you're the best at something or saying you've gone through the worst situation comes across as bragging and makes you seem a little immature. While this experience sounds awful, I can think of situations that would be worse - and I bet the adcomms have already read about them.