Determine who your audience is, and gather the appropriate language to use in the opening paragraph. For example, a thesis will include expository language to explain the subject with logical reasoning and persuasive writing to convince the reader to adopt the text's point of view, whereas a newspaper column will include more descriptive and narrative devices to connect the writer to the reader.
Grab the reader's attention with an interesting fact, question, anecdote or quote. It should be consistent with the point of view or personality you wish to project in the written piece. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay "Self Reliance," uses this anecdote: "I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional."
Write a persuasive statement to outline the text's main point. Use an authoritative, not passive, voice. For example, in "On a Women's Right to Vote" Susan B. Anthony uses the opening paragraph to declare her mission statement, "It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny."
Establish an organizational pattern for what will come after the opening paragraph. List the points, in the order they appear in the text, that support the main idea of the overall piece. This comes near the end of the opening paragraph before it starts to transition into the body of the essay.
Lead your reader to the next paragraph by giving them an intriguing reason to invest further attention to your writing. For example, Samuel Butler concludes his opening paragraph of "On What Gives Us Pleasure" with a theoretical statement that begs to be explained in the following text. The sentence reads, "A man had better stick to known and proved pleasures, but, if he will venture in quest of new ones, he should not do so with a light heart."