What should be written in an introduction

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. The opening paragraph of your paper will provide your readers with their initial impressions of your argument, your writing style, and the overall quality of your work. A vague, disorganized, error-filled, off-the-wall, or boring introduction will probably create a negative impression. On the other hand, a concise, engaging, and well-written introduction will start your readers off thinking highly of you, your analytical skills, your writing, and your paper.

Your introduction is an important road map for the rest of your paper. Your introduction conveys a lot of information to your readers. You can let them know what your topic is, why it is important, and how you plan to proceed with your discussion.

In many academic disciplines, your introduction should contain a thesis that will assert your main argument. Your introduction should also give the reader a sense of the kinds of information you will use to make that argument and the general organization of the paragraphs and pages that will follow.

After reading your introduction, your readers should not have any major surprises in store when they read the main body of your paper. Ideally, your introduction will make your readers want to read your paper. Opening with a compelling story, an interesting question, or a vivid example can get your readers to see why your topic matters and serve as an invitation for them to join you for an engaging intellectual conversation remember, though, that these strategies may not be suitable for all papers and disciplines.

Start by thinking about the question or questions you are trying to answer. Your entire essay will be a response to this question, and your introduction is the first step toward that end.

Your direct answer to the assigned question will be your thesis, and your thesis will likely be included in your introduction, so it is a good idea to use the question as a jumping off point.

Imagine that you are assigned the following question:. Drawing on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , discuss the relationship between education and slavery in 19th-century America.

Consider the following: How did white control of education reinforce slavery? How did Douglass and other enslaved African Americans view education while they endured slavery? And what role did education play in the acquisition of freedom?

Most importantly, consider the degree to which education was or was not a major force for social change with regard to slavery. You will probably refer back to your assignment extensively as you prepare your complete essay, and the prompt itself can also give you some clues about how to approach the introduction. Notice that it starts with a broad statement and then narrows to focus on specific questions from the book. One strategy might be to use a similar model in your own introduction—start off with a big picture sentence or two and then focus in on the details of your argument about Douglass.

Of course, a different approach could also be very successful, but looking at the way the professor set up the question can sometimes give you some ideas for how you might answer it. See our handout on understanding assignments for additional information on the hidden clues in assignments. Decide how general or broad your opening should be. If you have ever used Google Maps or similar programs, that experience can provide a helpful way of thinking about how broad your opening should be.

Try writing your introduction last. The hook then takes a surprising turn by presenting a counterclaim : that American families, rather than students, feel the true burden of paying for college. Some readers will have a strong emotional reaction to this provocative counterclaim, which will make them want to keep reading! As such, this intro provides an effective opening sentence that conveys the essay topic.

Remember: the context helps readers start to zoom in on what the paper will focus on, and what aspect of the general topic college costs will be discussed later on.

The context in this intro reveals the intent and direction of the paper by explaining why the issue of families financing college is important. In other words, the context helps readers understand why this issue matters , and what aspects of this issue will be addressed in the paper. To provide effective context, the writer refers to issues the exorbitant cost of college and high levels of family debt that have received a lot of recent scholarly and media attention.

These sentences of context also elaborate on the interesting perspective included in the hook: that American families are most affected by college costs.

This writer believes that the U. To revise this thesis statement so that it establishes the specific aspects of the topic that the essay will address, the writer could add the following to the beginning of the thesis statement:. Check out the new section in bold. Not only does it clarify that the writer is talking about the pressure put on families, it touches on the big topics the writer will address in the paper: improving education rates and reduction of poverty.

So not only do we have a clearer argumentative statement in this thesis, we also have an essay map! This sample intro paragraph does an effective job of providing an engaging hook and relatable, interesting context, but the thesis statement needs some work! As you write your own intro paragraphs, you might consider using the questions above to evaluate and revise your work.

Keep reading for four tips for writing a successful intro paragraph for any essay. Those instructions can help guide you as you write your intro paragraph! Following these guidelines can free you up to focus on other aspects of your intro To make your intro as effective as possible, you need to define the parameters of your topic clearly--and you need to be specific. There is a lot to talk about in terms of college football! Instead, you should narrow broad topics to identify a specific question, claim, or issue pertaining to some aspect of NCAA football for your intro to be effective.

So before you think about writing your intro, ask yourself: Is my essay topic specific, focused, and logical? Does it convey an issue or question that I can explore over the course of several pages? Once you've figured out your topic, it's time to hit the books! And, guess what? You don't want to sit down to write your intro without a solid understanding of the different perspectives on your topic.

Whether those are the perspectives of experts or the general public, these points of view will help you write your intro in a way that is intriguing and compelling for your audience of readers. Some say to write your intro first; others say write it last. Oftentimes, your professor will ask you to write multiple drafts of your paper, which gives you a built-in way to make sure you revise your intro.

Another approach you could take is to write out a rough draft of your intro before you begin writing your essay, then revise it multiple times as you draft out your paper.

You can ask yourself these questions as you evaluate your intro:. Also, revising your writing is always a good thing to do--and this applies to your intro, too! Your college essays also need great intro paragraphs. Of course, the intro is just one part of your college essay. This article will teach you how to write a college essay that makes admissions counselors sit up and take notice.

The other job the Introduction should do is to give some background information and set the context. You can do this by describing the research problem you considered or the research question you asked in the main body of the paper, you will offer the solution to the problem or the answer to the question and by briefly reviewing any other solutions or approaches that have been tried in the past.

Now that you have given the background and set the context, the last part of the Introduction should specify the objectives of the experiment or analysis of the study described in the paper. This concluding part of the Introduction should include specific details or the exact question s to be answered later in the paper.

The 4-step approach to writing the Introduction section. Provide background information and set the context. This initial part of the Introduction prepares the readers for more detailed and specific information that is given later.

The first couple of sentences are typically broad. Below are some examples:. At the same time, the introductory statement should not be too broad: note that in the examples above, the Introduction did not begin by talking about agriculture, cancer, or batteries in general, but by mentioning organic matter in soil, the role of bacteria, and lithium ion batteries.

Once the first sentence has introduced the broad field, the next sentence can point to the specific area within that broad field. As you may have noticed, the papers in the examples mentioned above introduced the subfield by mentioning 1 remission of some types cancer following accidental infection by Streptococcus pyogenes , 2 organic matter in soil as a source of nutrients for plants and of energy for microorganisms, and 3 imaging techniques to visualize the 3-dimensional structure of the materials and components of batteries on nanoscale.

Does your publication goal seem near yet too far? Introduce the specific topic of your research and explain why it is important. As you can see from the above examples, the authors are moving toward presenting the specific topic of their research.

So now in the following part, you can bring in some statistics to show the importance of the topic or the seriousness of the problem. Here are some examples:. Another way to emphasize the importance of the research topic is to highlight the possible benefits from solving the problem or from finding an answer to the question: possible savings, greater production, longer-lasting devices, and so on.

This approach emphasizes the positive. For example, instead of saying that X dollars are lost because of malaria every year, say that X dollars can be saved annually if malaria is prevented, or X millions litres of water can be saved by dispensing with irrigation, or X person-hours can be saved in the form of avoided illnesses because of improved air quality or reduced pollution.

Mention past attempts to solve the research problem or to answer the research question. As mentioned earlier, a formal review of literature is out of place in the Introduction section of a research paper; however, it is appropriate to indicate any earlier relevant research and clarify how your research differs from those attempts. The differences can be simple: you may have repeated the same set of experiments but with a different organism, or elaborated involving perhaps more sophisticated or advanced analytical instruments the study with a much larger and diverse sample, or a widely different geographical setting.

Here are two examples:. Conclude the Introduction by mentioning the specific objectives of your research. The earlier paragraphs should lead logically to specific objectives of your study. Note that this part of the Introduction gives specific details: for instance, the earlier part of the Introduction may mention the importance of controlling malaria whereas the concluding part will specify what methods of control were used and how they were evaluated.

At the same time, avoid too much detail because those belong to the Materials and Methods section of the paper. If, for example, your research was about finding the right proportions of two metals in an alloy and you tested ten different proportions, you do not have to list all the ten proportions: it is enough to say that the proportions varied from to Here are two more examples:. There are different ways of constructing the objectives.