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Writing Effective Journal Essay Introductions

By  James Phelan and Faye Halpern

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Authors and editors in the humanities know that journals are more likely to accept scholarly essays with strong introductions and that such essays are more likely to influence academic conversations. Yet from our experiences as journal editors and authors, we also know that writers often struggle with introductions.

That’s understandably so: not only is a lot riding on an essay’s introduction, but it also needs to accomplish multiple rhetorical tasks efficiently. And while everyone knows the general purpose of the introduction -- to state the essay's thesis -- many people have trouble determining how best to get to that statement. In this article, our thesis is threefold. First, there are many effective strategies for building up to that statement. Second, underlying these strategies is a smaller set of common purposes. And finally, working with an awareness of both the first and second principles is a sound way to write strong introductions.

Strategies and Purposes

Here is an illustrative list of strategies, neither comprehensive nor mutually exclusive.

The Problem-Solution Strategy. You start by identifying a problem and unpacking its key dimensions and then propose your solution in the thesis statement or statements. (You no doubt recognize that we have just used this strategy.) For another example, see Catherine Gallagher, “ The Rise of Fictionality .”

The Question-Answer Strategy. You interweave descriptions of noteworthy phenomena and questions that they raise; you then propose answers in your thesis statement or statements. Some examples include Peter J. Rabinowitz’s “ Truth in Fiction: A Re-Examination of Audiences ” and Sarah Iles Johnston’s " The Greek Mythic Storyworld ."

The Revision of Received Wisdom Strategy. You begin by respectfully setting out a plausible and generally accepted view about the essay's central issue; you then point out flaws in this view and formulate an alternative view in your thesis statement or statements. Examples are Gerald Graff’s “ Why How We Read Trumps What We Read ” and John Hardwig’s “ The Role of Trust in Knowledge .”

The Bold Pronouncement Strategy. You announce an especially arresting thesis in your opening sentence or sentences. You then proceed to provide the relevant context for that thesis. For examples, see Brian McHale, “ Beginning to Think About Narrative in Poetry ” and Susan Wolf, “ Moral Saints .”

The Storytelling Strategy. You use an anecdote that illustrates salient aspects of the essay's central issue and then link the anecdote to your thesis about that issue. This strategy is often combined with one of the others, especially No. 1 and No. 2. Examples are Miriam Schoenfield’s “ Permission to Believe: Why Permissivism Is True and What It Tells Us About Irrelevant Influences on Belief ” and Jane Tompkins’s “ Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Politics of Literary History .”

These strategies are ultimately means to accomplish three interrelated rhetorical purposes of strong introductions. All three are concerned with your readers, but the second also pays attention to your dialogic partners: the other scholars whose work you engage. Those three purposes are to:

• Immediately garner your audience’s interest. You and your readers know that problems beg for solutions, questions for answers. Revising received wisdom promises your audience something fresh and even perhaps contrarian. Making bold pronouncements invites your audience to see whether you can back them up. Telling stories asks your audience to engage in their instabilities and complications and to look for their resolution in your thesis and its supporting arguments.
• Situate yourself in the relevant scholarly conversations. Introductions aren’t the place for extensive reviews of previous scholarship, but they are the place for combining attention to issues raised by earlier commentators with giving your writing an argumentative edge. Questions, problems, revisions, pronouncements and storytelling in the service of argument -- all these rhetorical acts arise from the intersection between your distinctive take on your object of study and the takes of previous commentators. Consequently, regardless of your particular strategies, your introduction should orient your audience to the general intervention your essay wants to make in the scholarly conversation. Are you intervening by saying “yes and,” “yes but,” “no” or some combination of those responses?
• Help provide what Gordon Harvey calls a “motive,” which underlies and drives your argument. To put it another way, the strategies push you toward answering the “So what?” question. A strong introduction will signal to your readers that you’re aware of what’s at stake in your argument and why it matters. Although you can work with problems, questions, revisions, pronouncements and storytelling without addressing the “So what?” question, you are more likely to address it, at least implicitly, by pursuing the first two purposes. By pursuing all three, you are more likely not only to have your essay accepted but also to have it make a difference in your field.

Applying the Strategies

In practical terms, the main challenge of writing effective introductions is finding the sweet spot in which you properly balance your presentation of others’ work with your own ideas. We have two main suggestions for hitting that spot. The first involves a general approach to the challenge, and the second builds on it with more specific advice.

First, think of your introduction as needing both “a hook and an I,” a precept that becomes clearer when you think of introductions that have only one of those components. The “all hook and no I” introduction has paragraph upon paragraph (or even page upon page) describing how other scholars have viewed the issue the article addresses with little indication of how the author’s thesis fits into this conversation. Conversely, “the no hook and all I” introduction immediately launches into the author’s argument without establishing the current scholarly conversation that makes it meaningful.

This advice about avoiding the no hook and all I introduction may initially seem to run counter to the bold-pronouncement strategy we outlined above, but a closer look reveals that it is a distinctive variation, a “first I and then hook” progression. The strategy involves moving from your arresting assertion to the context that sharpens its stakes. At the same time, this possible objection helps clarify the situations in which it makes sense to employ the bold-pronouncement strategy: those in which readers of the journal will immediately recognize the striking quality of the thesis, the ways it seeks to take the scholarly conversation in a substantially new direction.

Why might authors go for just the hook or just the I? You might opt for the all-hook intro because you want to demonstrate up front your mastery of a body of relevant scholarship. A noble rationale, but one that often has the unfortunate effect of suggesting to readers that you are so immersed in that scholarship that you haven’t figured out your own point of view.

You might opt for the all-I intro because you want to give your readers credit for knowing a lot about the relevant scholarly conversation rather than rehearsing points you believe they are already familiar with. Another honorable justification, but one that often has the unfortunate effect of suggesting that you are actually not familiar with what other scholars have said.

We also want to note that using the hook and an I approach is ultimately less a matter of sheer quantity -- X number of sentences or paragraphs to others, and Y number to your ideas -- than of argumentative quality. Good introductions do not just repeat what other scholars have said; they analyze it and find an opening in it for their contribution.

Effective uses of the hook and an I can create that opening in numerous ways: they can point to significant aspects of your object or objects of study that previous work has overlooked; they can indicate how previous work explains some phenomena well but others less well; they can point to unrecognized but valuable implications or extensions of previous work; or they can begin to make the case that previous work needs to be corrected. The list could go on, but the key point is that you want to make your audience see the same opening you do and pique their interest in how you propose to fill it.

Consequences

This approach to introductions has ripple effects on the larger activity of writing an effective essay.

Introductions and abstracts. We often find that authors use their first paragraphs for their abstracts. We do not recommend this tactic, because, as we have discussed in a related article , introductions and abstracts have different purposes. As we say, abstracts are spoilers not teasers, because they give your audience a condensed version of your whole article: what your claim is, why it matters and how you will conduct your argument for it. Introductions, by contrast, are teasers that soon stop teasing. The tease comes with the hook, the construction of the opening for your argument, and ends with the full expression of the I, the articulation of your thesis statement or statements.

Order of composition. We have all heard the advice that one should write the introduction last. But as with most rhetorical matters, one size does not fit all. “Intro last” can be good advice when you’re writing an argument with many moving parts, and you need to write in some detail about all the parts before you are ready to craft your hook and I. “Intro first” can be good advice when you recognize that you need to do for yourself the kinds of things that we’re recommending your introduction needs to do for your reader. Beginning to write by constructing the opening you want to fill and how you want to fill it can be a productive way to guide your whole argument.

Two-way traffic between the introduction and the rest of the argument can also be an effective strategy. In such cases, the draft of the introduction guides the conduct of the argument, and then the details and directions of the argument lead you to revise that draft. And so on for as many rounds as you need to make everything as clear and compelling as possible.

Choosing a strategy. As for the issue of how to choose among viable strategies, again we say that there’s no one right answer. In other words, for most scholarly arguments more than one strategy can be adopted in the service of a strong introduction. Thus, you can try out different strategies in order to decide which one will be most likely to help you to convince your audience of the significance of your answer to the “So what?” question.

Introductions are often difficult to write. Some of the difficulty comes with the territory: writing an effective introduction requires you to have a thorough grasp of your own argument and why it matters for your audience. But we hope we can lessen that difficulty: our ideas about the underlying purposes of introductions and about the various ways to achieve those purposes aim to show you that good introductions are neither random nor mysterious. There are principles and patterns to follow, even if there’s no magic formula. We hope that your work with those principles and patterns can help you construct introductions that both you and your readers will regard as strong and appealing.

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• Example of a great essay | Explanations, tips & tricks

Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks

Published on February 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction , focused paragraphs , clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion .

Each paragraph addresses a single central point, introduced by a topic sentence , and each point is directly related to the thesis statement .

As you read, hover over the highlighted parts to learn what they do and why they work.

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Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay, an appeal to the senses: the development of the braille system in nineteenth-century france.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

In France, debates about how to deal with disability led to the adoption of different strategies over time. While people with temporary difficulties were able to access public welfare, the most common response to people with long-term disabilities, such as hearing or vision loss, was to group them together in institutions (Tombs, 1996). At first, a joint institute for the blind and deaf was created, and although the partnership was motivated more by financial considerations than by the well-being of the residents, the institute aimed to help people develop skills valuable to society (Weygand, 2009). Eventually blind institutions were separated from deaf institutions, and the focus shifted towards education of the blind, as was the case for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, which Louis Braille attended (Jimenez et al, 2009). The growing acknowledgement of the uniqueness of different disabilities led to more targeted education strategies, fostering an environment in which the benefits of a specifically blind education could be more widely recognized.

Several different systems of tactile reading can be seen as forerunners to the method Louis Braille developed, but these systems were all developed based on the sighted system. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris taught the students to read embossed roman letters, a method created by the school’s founder, Valentin Hauy (Jimenez et al., 2009). Reading this way proved to be a rather arduous task, as the letters were difficult to distinguish by touch. The embossed letter method was based on the reading system of sighted people, with minimal adaptation for those with vision loss. As a result, this method did not gain significant success among blind students.

Louis Braille was bound to be influenced by his school’s founder, but the most influential pre-Braille tactile reading system was Charles Barbier’s night writing. A soldier in Napoleon’s army, Barbier developed a system in 1819 that used 12 dots with a five line musical staff (Kersten, 1997). His intention was to develop a system that would allow the military to communicate at night without the need for light (Herron, 2009). The code developed by Barbier was phonetic (Jimenez et al., 2009); in other words, the code was designed for sighted people and was based on the sounds of words, not on an actual alphabet. Barbier discovered that variants of raised dots within a square were the easiest method of reading by touch (Jimenez et al., 2009). This system proved effective for the transmission of short messages between military personnel, but the symbols were too large for the fingertip, greatly reducing the speed at which a message could be read (Herron, 2009). For this reason, it was unsuitable for daily use and was not widely adopted in the blind community.

Nevertheless, Barbier’s military dot system was more efficient than Hauy’s embossed letters, and it provided the framework within which Louis Braille developed his method. Barbier’s system, with its dashes and dots, could form over 4000 combinations (Jimenez et al., 2009). Compared to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, this was an absurdly high number. Braille kept the raised dot form, but developed a more manageable system that would reflect the sighted alphabet. He replaced Barbier’s dashes and dots with just six dots in a rectangular configuration (Jimenez et al., 2009). The result was that the blind population in France had a tactile reading system using dots (like Barbier’s) that was based on the structure of the sighted alphabet (like Hauy’s); crucially, this system was the first developed specifically for the purposes of the blind.

While the Braille system gained immediate popularity with the blind students at the Institute in Paris, it had to gain acceptance among the sighted before its adoption throughout France. This support was necessary because sighted teachers and leaders had ultimate control over the propagation of Braille resources. Many of the teachers at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth resisted learning Braille’s system because they found the tactile method of reading difficult to learn (Bullock & Galst, 2009). This resistance was symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that the blind population had to adapt to the sighted world rather than develop their own tools and methods. Over time, however, with the increasing impetus to make social contribution possible for all, teachers began to appreciate the usefulness of Braille’s system (Bullock & Galst, 2009), realizing that access to reading could help improve the productivity and integration of people with vision loss. It took approximately 30 years, but the French government eventually approved the Braille system, and it was established throughout the country (Bullock & Galst, 2009).

Although Blind people remained marginalized throughout the nineteenth century, the Braille system granted them growing opportunities for social participation. Most obviously, Braille allowed people with vision loss to read the same alphabet used by sighted people (Bullock & Galst, 2009), allowing them to participate in certain cultural experiences previously unavailable to them. Written works, such as books and poetry, had previously been inaccessible to the blind population without the aid of a reader, limiting their autonomy. As books began to be distributed in Braille, this barrier was reduced, enabling people with vision loss to access information autonomously. The closing of the gap between the abilities of blind and the sighted contributed to a gradual shift in blind people’s status, lessening the cultural perception of the blind as essentially different and facilitating greater social integration.

The Braille system also had important cultural effects beyond the sphere of written culture. Its invention later led to the development of a music notation system for the blind, although Louis Braille did not develop this system himself (Jimenez, et al., 2009). This development helped remove a cultural obstacle that had been introduced by the popularization of written musical notation in the early 1500s. While music had previously been an arena in which the blind could participate on equal footing, the transition from memory-based performance to notation-based performance meant that blind musicians were no longer able to compete with sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997). As a result, a tactile musical notation system became necessary for professional equality between blind and sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997).

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Bullock, J. D., & Galst, J. M. (2009). The Story of Louis Braille. Archives of Ophthalmology , 127(11), 1532. https://​doi.org/10.1001/​archophthalmol.2009.286.

Herron, M. (2009, May 6). Blind visionary. Retrieved from https://​eandt.theiet.org/​content/​articles/2009/05/​blind-visionary/.

Jiménez, J., Olea, J., Torres, J., Alonso, I., Harder, D., & Fischer, K. (2009). Biography of Louis Braille and Invention of the Braille Alphabet. Survey of Ophthalmology , 54(1), 142–149. https://​doi.org/10.1016/​j.survophthal.2008.10.006.

Kersten, F.G. (1997). The history and development of Braille music methodology. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education , 18(2). Retrieved from https://​www.jstor.org/​stable/40214926.

Mellor, C.M. (2006). Louis Braille: A touch of genius . Boston: National Braille Press.

Tombs, R. (1996). France: 1814-1914 . London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Weygand, Z. (2009). The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Bryson, S. (2023, July 23). Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks. Scribbr. Retrieved July 5, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/example-essay-structure/

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Shane finished his master's degree in English literature in 2013 and has been working as a writing tutor and editor since 2009. He began proofreading and editing essays with Scribbr in early summer, 2014.

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The Morning

The week after the debate.

Where does President Biden’s campaign go from here?

By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick

Whatever its ultimate effect on the campaign, the first presidential debate of 2024 certainly did not cast the United States in a favorable light.

It featured two elderly men — one 81, one 78 — who insulted each other and who most Americans wished were not the two major-party candidates for president. One candidate told frequent lies and portrayed the country in apocalyptic terms. The other struggled at times to describe his own policies or complete his sentences.

The image of the nation as some combination of unhinged and doddering was especially striking at a time when the U.S. is supposed to be leading the fight against a rising alliance of autocracies that includes China, Russia and Iran. “I am worried about the image projected to the outside world,” Sergey Radchenko, a historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, wrote on social media. “It is not an image of leadership. It is an image of terminal decline.”

Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, seemingly compared President Biden’s performance to Marcus Aurelius’ failure to find a competent successor in ancient Rome, which hastened the empire’s decline. “It’s important to manage one’s ride into the sunset,” Sikorski tweeted.

Russian officials — whose recent online behavior suggests that they are rooting for Donald Trump — portrayed the debate as a sign of American weakness and disarray. The result “is good for us,” Dmitri Novikov, a Russian lawmaker, said on state television. “Destabilization inside an adversary is always a good thing.”

Where does the campaign go from here? That’s the subject of today’s newsletter.

Solid vs. shaky

Most Republicans are committed to Trump, even as he continues to tell lies and reject core principles of democracy . The situation with Democrats and Biden is obviously more uncertain.

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Hillary Clinton to release essay collection about personal and public life

This cover image released by Simon & Schuster shows “Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love and Liberty” by Hillary Rodham Clinton. The book will be released Sept. 17. (Simon & Schuster via AP)

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Hillary Clinton’s next book is a collection of essays, touching upon everything from marriage to politics to faith, that her publisher is calling her most personal yet.

Simon and Schuster announced Tuesday that Clinton’s “Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love and Liberty” will be released Sept. 17.

Among the topics she will cover: Her marriage to former President Bill Clinton, her Methodist faith, adjusting to private life after her failed presidential runs, her friendships with other first ladies and her takes on climate change, democracy and Vladimir Putin.

“The book reads like you’re sitting down with your smartest, funniest, most passionate friend over a long meal,” Clinton’s editor, Priscilla Painton, said in a statement.

“This is the Hillary Americans have come to know and love: candid, engaged, humorous, self-deprecating — and always learning.”

Clinton, the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary and presidential candidate, will promote her book with a cross country tour. “Something Lost, Something Gained” comes out two months before Bill Clinton’s memoir about post-presidential life, “Citizen.”

Financial terms were not disclosed. Clinton was represented by Washington attorney Robert Barnett, whose other clients have included former President George W. Bush and former President Barack Obama.

Clinton’s previous books include such bestsellers as “It Takes a Village,” “Living History” and “What Happened.”

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18 Inspiring Journal Examples About Daily Life

Whether you’re just getting into journaling or you have a consistent practice, finding inspiring prompts that encourage reflection in your daily life can be difficult. Oftentimes when journaling it can be a struggle to figure out what to write about, and what will evoke the most thought and growth possible.

Some of the best example journal prompts about daily life include taking note of what you are grateful for, recalling dreams that have stood out to you, or even writing out a budget. There is a huge range of journal examples about daily life that are worth putting additional thought into. 

Since it can be tough to find journal examples that inspire and elicit thought, this article will walk through 18 prompt suggestions that are worth jumping into! These topics can be used every day, regardless of what stage in your life you are in or your background as they encourage you to think more in depth about your own life and experiences.

Getting Inspired

A common reason many people do not journal frequently or consistently is due to a lack of inspiration. Since it is common to be at a loss as to what to write about, it can be helpful to look to inspiration wherever you can find it! Whatever it is in your daily life that inspires you or interests you, is a great place to start in your journaling practice.

This can help you develop more consistency and desire to write. In addition, a great way to get inspired and make journaling a habit is to write in a stream of consciousness. This means simply writing what comes to your mind as you sit down to journal. Whatever comes across your mind, put it down on paper.

Writing in this method can be very interesting to read back to see how your thoughts develop overtime as you write. You will be documenting the way your brain thinks and the topics that circulate through your consciousness as you are journaling. However, for some these methods are ineffective and turning to prescribed journal prompts is more helpful for stimulating creativity.

In that case, this article will provide you with 18 topic examples to jump into whenever you find yourself searching for a topic to write about. By keeping journal prompts relevant to daily life you will find that you feel more creative thinking patterns and have more material to write about as you base your journaling off of your experiences throughout your life.

Gratitude Journaling

One of the most common forms of journaling is the gratitude journal . Not only does this appeal to anyone and everyone, but it reminds you to look at the positives in your life and recognize what you are most grateful for in your life. This could look like a list, or paragraphs about the great things that you have in your life.

This is an especially powerful form of writing on days when you feel down as it will remind you to think positively and look on the bright side. Oftentimes people will practice gratitude journaling daily as a self-care practice as it can set the tone for a positive day or a happy night's sleep.

By implementing this into your journaling routine you may not only feel uplifted, but you will find that this is a journal prompt example that can be used as often as you’d like! Whenever you are running out of ideas to write about, you can always come back to your gratitude journal for a quick journaling session.

Dream Journaling

Another popular form of journaling is to keep a dream journal. The only catch here is that in order to keep a dream journal, you must remember your dreams. For those who dream vividly or can remember their dreams right after waking up, get into the practice of writing them down first thing in the morning.

This can be a fun start to the day and get your creative juices flowing from the moment you wake up. Dream journaling can not only give you a look into your subconscious mind but can also be analyzed further for any hidden dream meanings. This can turn into a very interesting journal idea as you can look for patterns over time.

Once you have consistently written your dreams out for a while, read back through each day to see if any dreams or themes are reoccurring. Is there an animal or symbol that comes into your dreams frequently? Take this as an opportunity to do some research into what that might mean. This can get you more in touch with your subconscious.

Bucket List

We all have lists we’ve made in our brains of things we’d like to do in our lifetime. Why not use this as a journal idea? Rather than keeping your bucket list in your head, put it on paper so that you can add to it and turn to it whenever you’re looking for a new adventure! This will ensure you never forget anything on your list and that you can turn to it whenever.

This is a journal example that can keep coming back as you will constantly be adding to and taking away from your bucket list as you go through life. Creating a bucket list on paper will also encourage you to go out and do more of the activities you are interested in! When they are written out in front of you it is more of a push to go out there and complete the tasks.

If you keep your list to yourself in your head, you will never have gentle reminders to go out there and do the things you want to do before you die.

I’ve Been Meaning to…

A great journal prompt is to make an “I’ve been meaning to” list. This is different from a bucket list as it is more of a short-term list rather than a list of things to do before you die. On your I’ve been meaning to list you should include anything that may be constantly slipping your mind. Maybe you’ve been meaning to go shopping for a specific item but can never remember to.

This list will not only serve as a reminder, it will spark your thought and creativity and push you to think of other things that may have slipped your mind. This is something you could do weekly to hold yourself accountable to get all your errands or tasks finished. A great place to start is to make an I’ve been meaning to list for the upcoming weekend.

Once the weekend comes if you do not have any plans, open up your list and get started on the activities that you’ve been meaning to complete. This will leave you feeling accomplished and leave room for next week’s list!

Goal Setting

A huge part of achieving your wildest dreams is goal setting. It is extremely powerful to write your goals out with pen and paper rather than keeping them in your mind. By writing out your lifelong goals, your goals for the year, or even your goals for the upcoming week, you will work harder for them.

This journal will serve as a constant reminder of your purpose and goal. This will hold you accountable if you ever sway from your goal or will be a marker for you to compare to as your path shifts overtime. If you are very goal-oriented, maybe writing a weekly journal covering your goals for the week will be helpful for productivity.

If you do not want to write out your goals that frequently, it can be helpful to write them out once every few months to compare how your verbiage and overall goals have changed with your added life experience. Getting clear on your goals whether it be in career, relationship, or personal matters is important in making actionable steps to achieving those goals.

While budgeting is often a topic people do not like to think or talk about, it is critical to your daily life to think about your budget. Therefore, a great journal idea is setting and updating your budget. This could be a yearly, monthly, or weekly budget to keep you on track and aware of what needs to be paid when.

This can even be reminders to pay certain bills or an organized list of what needs to be paid when so that you never find yourself forgetting to pay any of your upcoming bills. Budgeting is critical for people of all ages and can be less daunting if you think about it thoroughly to ensure you are on track.

Those who put off their budgeting often come across more stress when it comes to money because they are unclear on how much they can spend in certain periods of time. By writing out your budget in your journal, you will find yourself becoming more confident with your money and saving more than you have previously due to yourself set guidelines.

Life Inventory

Engaging in a life inventory every once in a while can be very helpful to identify how you are feeling and where you could use more work in your life. This may look like asking yourself truthfully how you are feeling and what is causing any stress or negative emotion in your life. Or maybe that’s looking at what is causing your happiness and excitement for life.

By taking inventory of your emotions, you can better track your mood shifts and how you are feeling on any given day. This can help you identify causes of stress, unhappiness, as well as what fills you up and makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning! Consider your life balance and how it could either improve or be adjusted.

What is your work-life balance? What about the amount of time and energy you put into your relationships? This is a great time to take a deeper look at the way you are balancing and prioritizing things in your life to assess if anything needs to be altered or if you are in a good place overall.

Be honest with yourself about places you’d like to see changes and check back on your life inventory journals to see if you were able to adjust the things you’ve mentioned in the past. By continuously journaling your life inventory you will feel like your life is constantly improving and like you are in full control of the changes coming about in your life.

Inspiration

Who is your inspiration in your life, career, or relationships? Take note of who you admire in life, who you’d like to model your life after, and who has taken a path similar to yours that you respect. Take some time to write about the people, places, or things that inspire you to be the best version of yourself you can be.

Whether you are writing about a celebrity, a place, or an inanimate object, this will inspire you every day and serve as a great journal prompt to turn to when you are in need of some inspiration. In addition, by writing about and thinking more deeply about the people and things that inspire you in life, you will be able to get clear on more of your goals.

The more thought and time you put into topics such as this one, the more you will shape your future, career, or relationships in the most ideal way for you. This will aid you in reaching your goals and leading a life you are proud of and happy to live. This is extremely helpful in boosting your daily life and habits into those that are potentially more productive.

Stress Journaling

A great tool to turn to when you are stressed, overwhelmed, or overrun with negative emotion is journaling. Turning to journaling can help you to release any tension you are feeling and can even help you to solve the dilemma you may be facing. While you are letting your frustrations out onto the paper, your mind is bound to wander towards solutions.

As you turn your overwhelm to the pages in your journal, you may come up with ways to cope with your stress, or things that will aid you in getting through the tough time you are facing. This is a healthy and productive way to face your negative emotions and work through them rather than suppressing them or running away from them.

Next time you are feeling overwhelmed whether it be from work, school, or inter-personal issues, try journaling about your emotions and stressors and take note of how you feel once you’ve got it all out onto paper.

While you are reading, watching a movie, or surfing the web do you ever find a fascinating, thought-provoking or inspiring quote worth writing down? If so, why not use that as an opportunity to journal. Think about why this specific quote has inspired you or led you to feel a certain way.

This can also serve as a great place to store your favorite quotes so that you can easily come back to them when you are looking for some inspiration. Keeping quotes written down and taking time to reflect on them can be therapeutic for so many and provide an incredible journal prompt.

Think about the ways in which the quotes you note relate to your life, how you perceive or define them, and think about the differing points of view others may take on when they hear the exact same quote. The way in which everybody relates to a quote differs greatly and can be an interesting topic to think more about in your journal.

Idea Journaling

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, writing down the good ideas you have can help you get ahead in your work and personal life. It is common to have good ideas throughout the day that escape the mind later on. Sometimes it’s while you are at work, exercising, or in the shower; regardless, start keeping an idea journal to keep track of all of your incredible ideas!

This could simply be a list that you can add to every time you come up with an idea that feels like it’s worth executing. By putting your ideas on paper, they are more likely to come to fruition and are less likely to be forgotten about.

Affirmation Journaling

Writing affirmations out in a journal can be a great way to encourage positive uplifting self-talk. Often people use affirmations when they are meditating, or throughout their day as a pick me up. If you find yourself down about a certain aspect in your life or looking to manifest something in particular, writing out affirmations is a great idea!

You could either use your affirmation journal to keep track of your favorite affirmations that you’ve heard in meditations or create your own. Think about the messages you want to be telling yourself in order to bring something better into your life.

A Letter to Yourself

A fun exercise to do in your journal is to write a letter to your younger self or your future self. What advice would you give yourself five years ago? Who do you hope you’ll be in 10 years? This can be an exercise that not only forces you to reflect on how far you’ve come and the goals you have but also to appreciate how you’ve grown as an individual.

This gives you something to reflect on, and something to look back on in the future. Even comparing your letter to yourself year to year you will see some consistency in your life and some areas where you’ve grown and changed. This is especially a great journal example for those who feel as though their life is slow or stagnant.

After doing this journal prompt a few times and comparing you’ll see how much you are growing and how your life changes from year to year.

Even if you do not travel often or far, keeping a journal of your travels will help you remember all of your adventures! From road trips with friends, to international getaways, those who keep a notebook outlining their travel experience are bound to remember the good and bad of each trip and be able to better plan future trips because of it!

You can even use your journal to plan future trips, keep a list of where you hope to go in the future, and any hotels or destinations that you see and want to remember for a future trip to the location. This will keep all of your travel plans in one place so that when the opportunity to travel comes up, you know where you want to go and how you want to execute the vacation.

Tracking your food does not have to be in relation to a diet or calorie counting. For food enthusiasts all over the world, keeping track of restaurants, meals, and recipes is common in order to recreate them at home or note which restaurants are worth frequenting. This could also help you next time you are searching for a recipe to make for a dinner party or a potluck!

This could also be combined with your travel journal as keeping track of your favorite places to drink and eat while you’re on vacation could help you next time you go back to this destination or help others who are traveling there and are looking for recommendations.

Self-Care Ideas

Who doesn’t love a good self-care day? However, sometimes it can be challenging to think up ways to treat yourself when it comes down to it. If you found a spa on the internet, or a great deal on the product you want to treat yourself to, write it out in your journal so you don’t forget. This is a great way to keep track of your future plans and desires.

If you take note of names, brands, and experiences as it pertains to self-care, you will have a place to turn to next time you’re planning a day of pampering for yourself or for a loved one!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

For some it can be difficult to remember experiences long after they’ve occurred. A great exercise for writing is to think of a fond memory, whether it be with your family, in your social life, or in the workplace, and write about it. By writing about the memory you will begin remembering more and more of it and find yourself taking a trip down memory lane.

This is a great writing prompt when you are thinking of a specific person or time in your life that you’d like to reflect on and think fondly of. This is a journal example you can do as often as you want! Your memories are endless, so why not write about them.

Career Planning

This is a great journal example for those who are focused on building up their career, changing industries, or wanting to move their way up in their company. Regardless of your long term goals, it is important to make a plan for how you are going to achieve them. Without a plan, you may miss a promotion or opportunity that you could have taken advantage of.

This may look like writing out your end goal in your career, your ideal position once you have all the experience and knowledge to get there. Then work your way down the ladder. What can you do now to put you ahead of the competition in your industry? Strategizing in this way will give you actionable steps to take to accomplish your goals, rather than leaving it up to others.

You can do this at any point in your life, it’s never too early or too late to plan your future.

Journaling can be tough when you are searching for new prompts to write about. Furthermore, staying consistent in your writing can feel impossible if you do not have the ideas to back your creativity. By starting with these 18 examples about daily life, you can channel all of your creativity into reflecting on aspects of your life rather than thinking up journal examples.

With many of these examples, you could use an entire journal for one prompt. Set aside one whole journal just for writing about career and budgeting, or about your travels and food. This keeps all of your ideas in one place and makes them accessible for when you want to go back and revisit your work.

Remember that while journaling can feel like work when you start out or feel uninspired, by becoming more consistent with your writing you will feel your drive and creativity increase, making it easier for you to sit down every day or every week to write in your journal. The best way to get started is simply to stick with it until it becomes a self-care practice in itself!

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