A Comprehensive Guide on Writing the Introduction of a Research Paper

February 14, 2020

Writing a research paper starts with an introduction. It is the classical “first impression” that you, as the author, can make once only. The introduction part of an essay comes first for your audience, and it can be so that it will become the last thing they know about the whole work. A high-quality and engaging opening will not guarantee your success, but the bad-quality introduction can almost surely guarantee failure.

It’s why many authors put equal efforts for writing a research paper Introduction part as they do for the full essay writing. A student can’t afford to fail this stage of work, as it will mean that the audience will ignore all the results. The weak introduction will affect the grades by all means, let alone that you will need to write an introduction in many more papers in the future. And in the future, your audience will not be your college professor, but there will be much more at stake.

It is simple: you need to master the art of writing the introduction of the research paper. Here at Domain we are going to explain the useful methods and tips, and hope that they will help you.

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What is the Introduction of an Academic Work?

It is the opening part of your paper introduction. It is relatively small in regards to the rest of the text. It takes from a paragraph in most of the college essays until several pages in the final thesis. But no matter which type of paper you deal with, to complete an introduction to a research paper, you need to get the following goals:

Pick the interest of your audience – make them want to get the rest of the work.
Establish the reliability of the research – claim that the information is trustworthy and prove it by references.
Explain the benefits this work will bring – why your audience should listen or read it and why you did that research at all.
Present the structure of the text to make it easier to apprehend the sequence of data, facts, and logical connections. The public should understand at once what you will talk about and in what order to follow it.

The First Sentences of an Introduction to a Research Paper – Do You Need an Intrigue?

There is a question of what such a concept as intrigue has to do with the research paper introduction. It is not creative writing, after all! But the truth is that you need to write a good introduction paragraph and grab the attention of the audience even if you research the statistics data and want to present the numbers mostly. They should follow your statements and want to get to your conclusions.

The Introduction part is there for that purpose: let the audience know what they will get in your research paper, and explain why it is exciting and useful for them.

Choose the Topic and Title

The first thing that they learn about your research paper, even before getting to the introduction, is the title of the work that explains the topic. You should think of intriguing your readers/listeners at that stage too.

If you can choose the topic yourself, look for something matching the below criteria:

Relevancy. The theme of your research needs to be actual at the moment. Otherwise, you might not appeal to the audience.
Personal interest. The subject must appeal to you – it makes it easier to research, formulate the statements, and write about this topic.
Specificity. Avoid too general topics and focus on more specific issues instead. Then it should not be too narrow, as this way you reduce your audience. So, you need to discover a balance between the general problem and their specific aspects of research.

The title itself should be brief and precise, and it should include the main idea of the work. Think of the question that the research paper topics are dedicated to, and it can become a proper title. Questioning is one of the most engaging techniques that lets you involve other people.

If your research paper is dedicated to some examples of the “dry” subject from the sciences, you have to provide the descriptive title. Also, think of using subtitles to add more colors. Of course, if you are allowed that.

What Do You Need to Have in the Introduction?

As it is already mentioned, the research paper introduction part is short in comparison with the rest of the paper. However, it also consists of several components that you need to work on. They are:

The Hook;
The Description;
The Thesis Statement.

The Hook

The hook is the opening of the introduction, one of several sentences at the very beginning. As it comes from its name, this fragment bears the main task to grab your listeners or readers.

You’ve certainly met some “hook example” in books and articles. Start your paper introduction paragraph from the conflict. Put your readers in the focus of the action, ask a question, or set some unexpected statement. All these means are excellent to catch the attention at the very beginning. Even if you use some pure description, it should include some intriguing elements.

Different types of hooks are suitable for research papers. It will depend on the field, the subject, your personal preferences, and the style and tone of the work which one to choose.

If your subject involves emotional experience like the literature review, you may use humor, an example of “making a picture”, suitable quotes of famous people, etc.;
Interesting facts related to the subject will match all types of researches;
In many cases an example of statistics data is good to use;
And you can always refer to the universal method of asking a question.

The Description

This part of the introduction has to explain the critical goals of the research. Here you should name the topic and tell why you consider it essential.
Then, you need to clarify the methods of your research and your sources. The aim of this is to build the impression of the reliability of your results. If you do the research paper in the course of college education, you have to prove that you can make a thorough investigation and analyze the sources. Your ideas are the principal value of the research paper, but you should also refer to the example of established experts’ opinions.
The next part is the background information that your audience needs to know to understand your work. If you use any terms, or rarer research methods, or refer to certain concepts, you need to mention them. It is not suitable if you and your audience have a different understanding of the same terms – this won’t let you present your ideas accurately.
And in the final of the description, you present the research paper outline. If it concerns several aspects of the subject, name them, and mention the order, so the audience would follow the text and understand the logical sequence.

The Thesis Statement

To compose an example of the appropriate thesis statement means to make the crucial part of the research. You base the work on the thesis statement. It is a list of your main ideas that you want to prove, and you do this research for that purpose.

The place of the thesis statement is at the end of the Introduction part, and from it, you go directly to the body of your paper.

3 Useful Tips for the Introduction Form

Pay all attention to the logic! Any research paper is a scientific work, and it is essential to keep to the logic and the cause-and-consequence principles.
Make sure that each of your ideas is presented in a separate paragraph. All these paragraphs have to be logically connected. A plan mustn’t appear and vanish without leaving a trace.
Use transitions – words and phrases to mark your transfer from one statement to the next one. These transition words assure the smoothness and continuity of the mainline.

Need Additional Help with Writing a Proper Introduction?

We’ve presented these tips for the paper introduction to lighten some burden off your shoulders. If you still need more assistance, or you have to make sure that the introduction example is ideal, you can address us and order personal help. Our job is writing, and we can surely give you a great Introduction and everything that follows it.