Writing the introduction will probably take the most time of all the assignments you do this semester for capstone. So much so that some students complain this is a writing class, not a research class. However, that type of complaint suggests students do not understand the role of the introduction within the research process.

When students write their introduction they are doing a number of things that promote learning and research, including:

• Researching the literature to become familiar with what others have done related to their question
• Putting together the research they have done by combining research that is similar, has found similar results, etc.
• Identifying trends in the literature, gaps in the literature, etc.
• Developing expertise in the areas related to their question
• Refining a hypothesis based on the newly developed expertise in their area of interest
• Sharing their newfound knowledge with the reader without engaging in plagiarism

This last point involves the writing part of the introduction, which may come after hours of intensive reading and thinking about the topic.

Writing an introduction is difficult because it is not the typical writing you do in college. In scientific writing, we use words sparingly; we are not florid in our writing style. Writing the introduction serves to communicate to the reader why we are asking the question and the relevance of the question. Each word, sentence, paragraph has to lead the reader to your question and hypothesis. If once the reader gets to the question he/she is not prepared for it, or surprised by it, then you have not done a good job in your introduction.

Because communicating research findings is a crucial aspect of the research process that facilitates progress in knowledge, it is important that the communication be done clearly and correctly. The best models of how to write your introduction are the many journal articles you've read in preparation for this task. Each of those has been published, i.e. has been through a peer review process where other researchers read the manuscript and determine whether the introduction is appropriate to the rest of the paper. It may help you to go over some of those and use the links below to evaluate them and therefore get practice 'breaking down' introductions to their various components, so that when you write yours you are more aware of the components.

Below are some links that will give you further tips and ideas on how to write your introduction, what the reader expects (or should expect) from your writing, etc.

Tips for Writing a Literature Review

Literature Review Peer Critique Guide