You want to know how to write an introduction for a research paper so that your scientific work attracts unbridled attention? No matter if your introduction is for a term paper, thesis, or the next paper in the “Science” journal…
You’ve come to the right place.
Because this article will help you write the best possible introduction for your academic paper.
Here you’ll get a 7-part step-by-step guide to writing an introduction.
The steps are super easy to follow and will give your introduction the professionalism it needs.
At the end of the article, I’ll tell you an insider tip that will make writing an introduction much easier. That’s a promise 😉 .
So stay tuned until the end of the article and use it as a checklist while writing your introduction.
Why write an introduction at all?
The purpose of an introduction is to introduce the topic of your scientific work and to arouse a certain interest in the reader for the following content. Above all, it should be clear why the study of your research topic has a great deal of relevance from a scientific or even practical perspective.
You should definitely avoid retelling your abstract when writing your introduction. Rather, it is necessary to introduce the argumentation of your paper. The introduction of your term paper should be (just like the conclusion) partly on a meta-level. That means you write “about writing”.
Explain your steps and give reasons for them. You do this along your argumentation. Guide the reader along this argument structure:
- What is the context of your work?
- Why is it relevant?
- What is the current state of research on your topic?
- What is the problem with this current state?
- How are you trying to approach a solution?
- What contribution will this solution provide?
You should try to tease as little as possible, by this I mean to throw questions into the room and leave them open. Rather, you should remain as concrete as possible and argue logically and closely to the literature (with appropriate references).
Now, to write your introduction step-by-step, I suggest you follow these 7 steps.
#1 Establish the context of your work
Probably the most obvious reason to write an introduction in the first place: An introduction to your topic. Yet this simple step is often done incorrectly or even forgotten.
Provide some societal context (very brief)
If your topic is very popular in the media, you don’t need to start completely from scratch.
If, on the other hand, your paper deals with a topic that most people rarely come into contact with, you should make it understandable to your reader.
Give the reader a short introduction that puts the topic of your paper into a social context. Don’t get bogged down in platitudes like “the digitalization changes this and that” or “The Web 2.0 was a major revolution for…” Be a little more creative and precise.
Use some seminal scientific papers as references to strengthen this section. They should not be older than 3 or 4 years.
Name and explain core concepts
Once you have placed your topic in a larger context, you can immediately narrow it down. You can now distinguish your topic from related domains. Always make sure that you formulate the language carefully and clearly. The most important terms of your work should already be mentioned here. Especially the terms that will appear later in your research question (very important!).
They do not all have to be defined with a direct quote, but those concepts should not leave any open questions.
#2 Explain relevance and research motivation
Why is it important and significant to address the topic of your paper from a scientific perspective?
Use some statistics
You can support the relevance of your topic with some numbers or statistics.
This is the only place of your paper or thesis where you can make use of non-scientific sources. However, make sure to use newspapers or statistics portals with a high reputation.
Do a Mini Literature Review
Now that you have proven that your topic is relevant to be researched, it’s time to get down to business. Now you get into the research literature.
By research motivation, it is not meant that you want to get a good grade, for example, or that you have always found the topic interesting. Rather, this section of the introduction asks for an explanation of why your paper addresses an obvious research problem.
You have to try to mirror the scientific debate about your topic in just a few paragraphs and identify something that is missing in this debate.
This is where your work on how to write an introduction for a research paper comes into play.
#3 Identify a research problem
Which aspects of your topic have already been studied? By whom? What has been left out? Is there conflicting evidence?
If you have conscientiously researched and read the current research literature, you can identify a good research problem with by answering those questions to yourself – and then to the reader.
So, in order to be able to make a well-founded argument here, you must already have done a lot of reading. But you are only at the beginning of your work…
You can find out how to solve this problem with my secret tip at the end of the article.
Please do not ever make the mistake and claim: “The aspects X and Y of topic Z have not been researched so far. Therefore, I do it.” This is not a good argument.
#4 Define the goal of your work
At this point you should express what exactly you want to achieve with your work. You want to address the previously identified research problem as best you can. You can do this by defining specific research questions.
This part of your introduction is probably the most important step by far. The success of your paper stands or falls with the research question(s). You can learn everything about how to formulate a brilliant research question on my blog. Here you will also get a step-by-step guide with all the tricks of the trade for posing such a question.
At this point, I’ll give you two hot tips on how to write an introduction for a research paper:
A research question should never be answerable with “yes” or “no.” Use the question word “how” for your research question if you are not bound to a specific research paradigm that requires the question to be different.
Usually, 1 to 2 research questions are quite sufficient, depending on the scope of your paper.
#5 Describe the procedure of your research
The introduction of your paper or thesis should definitely consider this point as well: A short description of your method.
Examples of scientific methods are the following:
Surveys, experiments, data analysis, content analysis, literature reviews, interviews, etc….
If you are using an empirical approach, explain the main features of your study or data analysis. A detailed description of your approach follows separately in the main part of your paper.
If your scientific work is limited to the theoretical discussion of a topic, this is no problem at all. For example, you can use the methodology of a literature search or analyze and expand an existing concept that is of great importance in your subject area.
#6 Write a contribution statement
This is probably the most tricky part of your introduction. In this paragraph that follows the research question and the method, you have one last chance to convince your reader of the importance of you work.
As this is only the introduction of your work, you can’t get to deep into the findings of it as the reader does not know them yet.
Try to articulate very precisely, how your work contributes to existing literature. Or even better: How does it contribute to theory? If you use theory in your work, it should of course be explained in your Mini Literature Review and be incorporated in your research question(s).
In your contribution statement, you can distinguish between theoretical and practical contributions. For some disciplines, one is more important than the other. You will have to adapt to the expectations of your discipline.
#7 Outline the structure of your work
Last but not least, you give the reader a roadmap so that she can prepare herself for the following pages. In concise words, you explain the steps you will take in the following chapters.
You can name the individual chapters and their numbering. However, the small section should not be a monotonous enumeration. Rather, orient yourself to the argumentation that should make up your work.
Usually 2-3 sentences are sufficient for this small section at the end of the introduction.
Now you have almost completed the guide on how to write an introduction for a research paper. There is only the bonus tip missing.
Bonus Tip
And the key to success is…
Write your introduction last.
Start your paper or thesis with the main body and write your introduction at the very end. This way you can make sure that your introduction fits your work and your results one hundred percent.
A lot can change in the course of a scientific paper or thesis, so wait to write your introduction until the rest is complete. This tip has proven to be enormously useful.