Read this introductory paragraph, which is missing an important element. There was a time when robots and home automation were just a fantasy. Robots were found only in science fiction and home automation was limited to cartoon families who had every convenience at their fingertips. Meals arrived with a simple push of a button. A robot maid performed every task humans didn’t care to do. What is it missing?

A Thesis Statement.

Explanation:

An Introductory paragraph is one of the crucial elements of an effective essay as it primarily functions to grab the readers' attention(through a hook or topic sentence), reveal the author's claim or point of view(through a thesis statement), and provide necessary background information that would help the readers' in understanding the narrator's message effectively.

The given introductory paragraph includes a hook('there was..fantasy'), background information('Robots..fingertips'), and they together set the tone but it misses a crucial element i.e. 'thesis statement' which would help in revealing the key point or claim to the readers. It offers a summarized version of the key argument of the essay that the author is going to deal with and since it is missing, the author's point of view is not established.

consider an orange peel: if you want to try and lay it flat, you have to stretch it, we know exactly how things are being stretched or squashed at any given point. we have many different map projections because each has different patterns of some projections can even preserve certain features of the earth without