How to Write Introduction

Definition:

Introduction is the act of introducing something. The introduction indicates the topic that the Report is about. It describes how the body of the Report is organized and explains the point of writing the Report.

Importance:

• Whatever you are writing, a Thesis, research paper, or technical report, the introduction will be the first thing the reader sees, if the reader finds the abstract interesting. So, the introduction comes right after the abstract section.
• It alerts the reader’s interest, provides a context for the main issue you are working and indicates your conclusion and point of view. It also tells about the scope and direction of the paper and acts as a navigation guide to its reading.
• If an introduction is poorly written then you have lost your readers’ goodwill right from the beginning.

Parts of introduction:

Always remember nothing comes as a surprise to the reader in scientific writing. Scientific writing is not like fiction writing in which you tell a story and keep the suspense till the end. In Scientific writing, the whole ‘story’ is outlined in the introduction, and given in detail in the body. Everything must follow logically from a starting point. So, an introduction must contain the following parts:

• Brief, relevant background information
• Specific area
• Problem Identification and Impact
• A thesis statement
• Your point of view
• Next sections

Brief:

• Provide your reader with a brief background regarding your topic.
• You can skip this step by indicating the problem identification, but it’s not considered a good approach as some of the readers do not have the necessary background knowledge regarding the topic you are discussing.

Relevant background information:

• Provide your reader with as much relevant information as you can, don’t indicate irrelevant information as it can distract the reader’s interest.
• Provide all the key points of the topic you are working on so that the reader can understand its Impact.

Specific area:

• After providing the brief background information, narrow down to the specific area you are concentrating on.
• For example, if you are working on wireless networking, give brief background information about wireless networking then narrow down to specific wireless networking topics such as Ad-hoc wireless networks or cognitive radio networks.

Problem Identification and Impact:

• The next step is to identify the main problems in the existing system.
• Give the reader a practical and valid problem and provide its impact on the existing system.
• The introduction should provide enough information such as, what could be the severity of the identified problem to the system, what damage it can do etc.

Thesis Statement:

• The thesis statement is one sentence (or more if the assignment is long and complex) which explicitly states the focus and direction of the writing.
• In a report, the thesis statement is often separated from the rest of the introduction under the heading Aim (or Purpose) of the Report The thesis statement often begins with expressions like:

‘This report examines… ’

‘This report will discuss…’

‘This report demonstrates…’

• We recommend that you adopt this strategy, especially if you are an inexperienced writer. That way, you won’t forget to put the thesis statement into your introduction, and your reader has a clear idea of what the focus will be.
• Provide the solution that you have proposed to solve the identified problem. In the introduction proposed solution comes as an Algorithm, where its implication or coding is done in the report section.

Your point of view:

• You may find it very difficult to know what is meant by a ‘point of view’.
• As a researcher, you are new to the discipline, and you probably don’t know enough about the subject matter to have a point of view about it. Your point of view means that you should avoid personal comments such as

I think that such-and-such’

In my opinion, such-and-such’.

• Always say whatever the literature review says. Never quote yourself when it’s a matter of saying something.

Next sections:

• You can skip this section, but, including this can make up your introduction.
• As described above the introduction provides a navigation guide to its reader, indicating what sections and points you are going to describe in the remaining report will help the reader to decide what coming next and whether it is necessary to continue reading or not if the topic is related to him.

How long should the introduction be:

One common mistake writers often make is that they provide a too detailed a lengthy introduction. As a rule, an introduction should not be longer than about 10% – 15% of the length of the report.

Conclusion:

Writing an introduction is not that difficult. If you follow these steps and practice it repeatedly, you will be able to master it. Remember that it’s a stage for your research paper. Try to make it impressive. A person reading your research won’t go ahead if your introduction is not appealing so work hard on this part of your research.