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Introductions
Writing an introduction is not too different from introducing a friend.
Let’s say that you are with a group of people and they are talking about Painting. Your friend Phil, who isn’t present, is a professional painter. How would you enter the conversation?
You wouldn’t say, “Phil is a Painter.” Why? Because the people you are with don’t know Phil, and it would seem random to just state someone’s name who does something out of the blue.
You might say, “My friend Phil is a professional painter.”
Essentially you are doing the same thing in your paper’s introduction. You will state how and what you are doing, but you need to pad it first. So how do you pad it?
Consider what is present. In our hypothetical group painting example, perhaps someone mentioned not liking to use turpentine as a paint thinner and is looking for another substance that will help him clean his brushes and thin his oil paints. How would you enter the conversation? You could start with, “My friend Phil is a professional painter,” but even with the padding of who Phil is and why he is relevant to the conversation is awkward. We either need more after it, or something before that in order to make it relevant to the other person (your reader, the audience) and the conversation (the argument of you paper).
Since the conversation is on pain-thinner, you are probably going to chime in with what Phil uses. Let’s say Phil uses wood polish—Old English brand [this actually works]. So what could you say? Here are two basic options. 1) “You can try using wood polish. My friend Phil is a professional painter and he says that wood polish works great.” 2) “My friend Phil is a professional painter, and he says he uses wood polish to thin his oil paints; it works really well.” (P.S. you should avoid adverbs like ‘very,’ ‘really,’ ‘a lot,’ etc… in your papers).
So how would this fit in a paper? Here’s another hypothetical situation. Let’s say you are writing a paper or op-ed piece on
Writing an introduction is not too different from introducing a friend.
Let’s say that you are with a group of people and they are talking about Painting. Your friend Phil, who isn’t present, is a professional painter. How would you enter the conversation?
You wouldn’t say, “Phil is a Painter.” Why? Because the people you are with don’t know Phil, and it would seem random to just state someone’s name who does something out of the blue.
You might say, “My friend Phil is a professional painter.”
Essentially you are doing the same thing in your paper’s introduction. You will state how and what you are doing, but you need to pad it first. So how do you pad it?
Consider what is present. In our hypothetical group painting example, perhaps someone mentioned not liking to use turpentine as a paint thinner and is looking for another substance that will help him clean his brushes and thin his oil paints. How would you enter the conversation? You could start with, “My friend Phil is a professional painter,” but even with the padding of who Phil is and why he is relevant to the conversation is awkward. We either need more after it, or something before that in order to make it relevant to the other person (your reader, the audience) and the conversation (the argument of you paper).
Since the conversation is on pain-thinner, you are probably going to chime in with what Phil uses. Let’s say Phil uses wood polish—Old English brand [this actually works]. So what could you say? Here are two basic options. 1) “You can try using wood polish. My friend Phil is a professional painter and he says that wood polish works great.” 2) “My friend Phil is a professional painter, and he says he uses wood polish to thin his oil paints; it works really well.” (P.S. you should avoid adverbs like ‘very,’ ‘really,’ ‘a lot,’ etc… in your papers).
So how would this fit in a paper? Here’s another hypothetical situation. Let’s say you are writing a paper or op-ed piece on