How to Start and Essay?

After completing my degree at Lancaster University in Politics and now starting again at the University of Cumbria on a PGCE, it is safe to say I have done quite a few essays.

Now, I am not very good at them mind. Pretty awful if you ask me, but there is an art form in doing them. Some people like to research like mad, spending days upon days in the library and then blitz the actual writing of it. And others simply like to get straight to the keyboard and do the best they can as they go.

For me, its a matter of finding an idea and running with it. It may be crap, it may be totally erroneous to the facts and the world's understanding, but I tend to believe that without a level of study impossible at even a Masters level there is no point in going for studied truth; it is best just to find some idea you like and make things fit... And sometimes they do!

Take this opening for example.

The advancement of Creationism and Creationist Science was rapid through the 20th Century and in many ways this can be seen as a success for those that support it. Even so this success, for example development of a sizable minority of people in the US who support it, as well as other effects being felt across the world(Council of Europe, Assembly Debate, 4th October 2007) caused by the creationist movement does not increase the theological and scientific reasoning behind it. In other words; no matter how many people believe in it creationism’s justification and evidence does not increase in validity nor in strength. Indeed the nature of that growth highlights the false nature of Creationism, at least from a historical perspective. As has been mentioned, from the point that Darwin published his research on Evolution and Natural Selection a seeming majority of society, church and all, saw this theory and understood it to be the truth. It has only been in response to the resulting effect on belief, the secularisation of society and the understanding of Science to be the truth that Creationism flourished. Indeed its power is not in the theory, but in its basic opposition to science which gives Creationism its strength and seeming plausibility.

It is for my next essay (which I eluded to earlier) and could quite possibly be wholeheartedly incorrect. At this point in time I don't really care. I think I have enough evidence to support it and I like the idea of it at least so what the (proverbial) hell?

So, oft shy readers (ha!), what do you find are the best ways to start an essay?