A Greek thinker once said, "A bad beginning makes a bad ending." So it is with introductions in academic writing. An introduction can be seen as the first impression of your paper. It can determine whether or not your reader is interested in the argument you set out.
In the introduction, you present the problem and explain how you plan to solve it. It is essentially a roadmap from problem to solution.
This is true for all sorts of research papers, including your thesis or dissertation or a journal paper that you co-authored with others. Just as introducing someone in real life suggests something happening in real-time and the present, your introduction should also be current. Present tense should almost always be used when making introductions.
To ensure that your introduction does its job of impressing your readers and walking them from the problem being tackled by your research to the solution that you propose, you should adopt the funnel approach. What exactly is the funnel approach to writing your introduction?
The funnel approach to the introduction
The funnel approach describes a specific strategy that begins with a broad perspective that progressively narrows down to the specific details of your research. This would entail breaking your introduction into the following parts:
The scope of the problem
A review of the relevant literature
Make your objectives clear
Describe the method of investigation that you used
State the principal results
Each of these components is broader in terms of perspective than the one that precedes it. The scope of the problem means introducing readers to a problem with broad social implications. This is true regardless of how scientific or technical the topic is. All research is motivated by a solution to problems that affect human society.
The literature review provides an account of the research that has gone into investigating the problem that you are interested in. For your objectives, you begin to narrow things down even more. The objectives describe the specific aspect or aspects of the problem that you are investigating or working toward solving.
The method refers to the instruments that you use to collect data or conduct data analysis. In the introduction, only a brief mention should be made of the introduction. The details should be reserved for the method section.
Lastly, the principal results should also be mentioned in the introduction. It would seem counterintuitive to mention results upfront. Yet, in academic writing, it would be best to provide your readers with a preview of the main results.
Think of the rest of the paper--the method, analysis, and results--as the opportunity to showcase the credibility of the previously mentioned results.
Now, let's take a look at each of the components of a properly written introduction to give you a better idea of how to write your own. In the process, we will also use real or even mock examples to demonstrate the best approach to take.
Defining the scope of the problem
This refers to the extent or range of the subject matter that your research topic addresses or pertains to. One must be careful in choosing the scope of the problem. On the one hand, it should never be too broad. On the other, it can almost always never be too narrow.
The problems facing this world are too big and too complex to go "big" when it comes to doing research. This is something that students and scholars new to academic writing find quite difficult to grasp. Students coming from high school typically have a broad and optimistic outlook, and in their early starts at academic writing, tend to "go big."
For example, if they are interested in global warming, they will write an introduction where they talk about how to solve the problem of "global warming." But this is impossible in research writing or academic writing. This is true especially if we're talking about a paper that has to be published.
In the introduction, you should narrow down the focus of the problem of you're investigating.
Making the problem scope manageable
Problems can only be addressed only on a human level one aspect at a time. For example, if the student is in the field of social science, they can examine or investigate how effectively a certain course taught in an environmental awareness course improved the environmental knowledge of students.
If they are in a natural or technical science program, they can choose a topic that investigates the effectiveness of replacing chemical fertilizer, the production of which leads to high levels of energy consumption and resulting greenhouse gasses (GHGs), with an organic fertilizer that is more environmentally friendly.
Let us look at an example of an introduction to illustrate the importance of the research scope.
The fall armyworm, Spodoptera Frugiperda, is a moth of the family Noctuidae and originates from the western hemisphere where it is a major agricultural pests, infesting up to 186 different plant species from 42 families. In 2016, it was sighted in West and Central Africa, where it causes great agricultural and economic damage. Year-round occurrence of the fall armyworm is observed only in subtropical and tropical regions due to its inability to survive colder regions. However, their migratory patterns could make their spread to South, Southeast Asia, and Australia possible through trade and travel ineveitable. Chemical pesticides represent one of teh most effective control against this pest. However, pesticides pose risks to humans and the environment. They contain methomyl, methyl parathion, endosulfan and lindane, highly hazardous substances.
There is a need to develop safer products. Biopesticides based on natural antagonists of the fall armyworm could be used. In general, these include viruses, bacteria, fungi, mites, nematodes or other insects. Insect viruses play an important role because they do not only occur naturally, but are host-specific and pose no danger to humans (Julius Kuhn-Institute). Nonetheless, little research on this has been conducted but are fundamentally important to ensure suitable and user-friendly integrated pest management, which urged me to consider this topic for further research.
This is a portion of an introduction written by a student in an academic writing class. The assignment specifically required the student to define the scope of the problem. There is much wrong with the post, including the lack of citations for many of the claims made. However, this is not our focus. We are interested in how well the research scope was narrowed down.
The author--let's call her Jill--was specific. She mentioned a problem: The spread of the fall armyworm from the West to Asia. She provided interesting background information by mentioning how it has already spread to Africa and that it may soon reach Asia.
She also mentioned the need for using biopesticides (she actually meant natural enemies) as an alternative to chemical pesticides. This is all good.
However, this is neither narrow, specific, or manageable enough. Jill mentions biopesticides as an alternative to chemical pesticides to deal with the threats posed by the fall armyworm. But what exactly will she be investigating?
What specific natural control method will be used?
Will it be viruses, bacteria, fungi, a combination, or all of them?
Will it be tested only against fall armyworms?
This introduction simply appears to be stating awareness of a threat posed by a pest and the potential of various natural control methods as an alternative to chemical pesticide use. This means that it is way too general. Focusing on measuring the effectiveness of a specific natural pest control method would have been ideal.
A proper review of the literature
You also need to provide a proper account of the literature review. We will talk about how to write a proper literature review in another post, which is linked here. Now, it is sufficient to simply point out the basics required of the literature covered in the introduction.
The proper literature review, although sometimes included in the introduction, is often its own separate section, located directly after the introduction.
Courtesy of Florencia Viadana via Unsplash.
In the introduction, the main purpose of a literature review is to familiarize the reader with the main body of work that is pertinent to the problem being tackled or investigated. In relation to this, one of the main points of the introduction is to describe the literature gap.
The literature gap describes how your specific investigation can address issues or aspects of the issue that have been passed over or insufficiently explored by the current literature.
This could include an overlooked population or sample, a specific research method, or other research variables or conditions. A thorough review of the literature is essential for this.
There is little point in conducting research that has already been done. The only way to recognize these gaps is by researching and familiarizing yourself with the literature or research in a certain area.
Make your objectives clear
Clear objectives are essential for writing an introduction. A clear statement of your objectives brings your research closer to the specific details of the problem you are trying to solve as well as your proposed solution. Objectives can be described as specific and measurable actions or approaches that you intend to take for your research.
Here, it is useful to describe the differences between objectives and goals. A goal can be seen as an outcome that is achievable but is usually broad and long-term. In our example with the armyworm-based research in Figure 1, the author comes close enough to describing the goal of her research: finding alternatives to chemical pesticide use for the fall armyworm to reduce the risks to human health and the environment.
However, the objectives remain unclear. Questions still remain. What method will be used to find that solution? Will the researcher use the natural enemies of the worm (e.g., other insects)? Will they use natural pathogens (e.g., bacteria or viruses)? Will they use natural plant-based chemicals (which is what biopesticides actually mean)?
Making your objectives clear means allowing these specific questions relating to your research to be answered clearly in the minds of your readers.
Preliminarily describing your method
Readers should get a clear idea about what method you will be using in your research. Of course, the method has its own section. Therefore, there is no need to go into too many details in the introduction. However, you should state the following:
The instrument that you use to collect data. Did you use a questionnaire? Did you do interviews? Were you on the field collecting data? These are the type of questions that should be answered.
The nature of the data collected. This refers to information such as the location and the unit of data used. What country, city, or area was the data collected in? What was the nature of the data? Did you collect information relating to the sales of a particular product or did you focus on a specific demographic, such as college students or the elderly?
The data analysis method. The specific details of this are usually preserved for the actual method section. But you can at least let readers know whether or not you used qualitative analysis methods or quantitative methods to analyze your data if it is necessary to do so.
Perhaps the research gap is defined by the fact that most surveys on the topic use quantitative analysis methods, whereas your study uses a combination of both analysis methods. This would be worth mentioning.
Stating the principal results
This is something of a controversy. While abstracts usually state the results, the introduction often excludes and preserves it for the results section of the paper. However, there is nothing wrong with giving a broad preview of what your main results are, while going into more detail in the results.
After all, academic writing is not comparable to a mystery novel. There is no need to wait till the end for the big reveal. Instead, the point of research is to prove the credibility of your research process at each stage from the introduction to the results.
It should be pointed out that while results and methods can be stated in the introduction section, they should be done so in the present tense. The present tense should almost always be used in the introduction section, with a few exceptions, which will be saved for a different article.
A succinct review of the literature will help readers understand just how much work has gone into understanding or trying to solve the problem, as well as demonstrate the research gap that your specific research is fulfilling. Lastly, the methods and results should be briefly introduced before going into the specific details of each in their separate sections.
EminentEdit offers professional assistance and guidance with every part of your manuscript, including the Introduction. Message us to see how we can help. |
Final thoughts on how to write an introduction for a research paper
Your job in the introduction is to orient your readers to the scope of the problem. You should impress upon them the need for the research and how it relates to real and actual human problems.
Care should also be taken that you narrow the scope into objectives that are actionable and measurable. This would help give credibility to the research that you conduct.
A succinct review of the literature will help readers understand just how much work has gone into understanding or trying to solve the problem, as well as demonstrate the research gap that your specific research is fulfilling.
Lastly, the methods and results should be briefly introduced before going into the specific details of each in their separate sections. This article only talked about the introduction of your essay or research paper.
How EminentEdit can help with your Introduction
At EminentEdit, our editors have a complete understanding of how to write the various parts of a research paper, including the introduction. Some of us have published papers on their own and have helped hundreds of students polish their manuscripts to the highest standards.
Our editing and proofreading services include:
Developmental editing to make sure your introduction sets forth the tone for the entirety of your paper
Ensuring that the literature review is written according to teh required style guide
Substantive editing to improve the quality of your writing on a sentence level
Proofreading to make sure your writing is grammatically correct with proper spelling and punctuation
Style guide accuracy to make sure your paper is formatted according to the standards of your target journal
So feel free to get in touch through our contact page here: CONTACT US AT EMINENT EDIT. Good luck with your research writing!
References
American Psychological Association, A. (2013). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition. APA
Day, R. A. & B., Gastel. (2022). How to write and publish a scientific paper. ABC-CLIO.
The University of Chicago. (2017). The Chicago Manual of Style, Seventeenth Edition. University of Chicago Press.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, August 03). How to Write an Introduction for a Research Paper. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/how-to-write-an-introduction-for-your-research-paper |
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