question introductions essay

This guide covers stages and issues involved in writing up your essay, including: Printable version of this guide (this is designed to be printed double-sided on A4 paper, then folded to make an A5 leaflet). We also have a series of bitesize Video tutorials to help you develop key aspects of your essay writing. Introductions and conclusions Introductions and conclusions are not just the bits tagged on to the ends of your essay. They form a conceptual framework which the reader will need to understand your arguments. Always keep your reader in mind when writing the beginning and ending to your essay: What do they need to know at the start so they become interested in reading your essay and can follow the rest of your argument? What do you want to leave them with as the main message of your essay at the end? The best introductions and conclusions tell the reader exactly what they need to know to understand the main body of the essay. Watch our Structuring your essay for more suggestions. back to top Writing your introduction An introduction gives your reader a way in to your essay. It is like consulting the map before starting on a journey; it situates the journey in the surrounding landscape, and it identifies the main route. You can think of an introduction as covering what / why / how: What the question is about – explain your interpretation of the question and what it is asking you to do. Why the question is important – put the question into context and identify the main issues that are raised by the question. How you are going to answer it – let the reader know what you are going to cover in your essay in order to answer the question. If you want to narrow down a very open-ended question, tell your reader that you are doing this in your introduction. Explain briefly that you are aware of the many issues raised by the question, but that you are only going to focus.
What this handout is about This handout will explain the functions of introductions, offer strategies for writing effective ones, help you check your drafted introductions, and provide you with examples of introductions to be avoided. The role of introductions Introductions and conclusions can be the most difficult parts of papers to write. Usually when you sit down to respond to an assignment, you have at least some sense of what you want to say in the body of your paper. You might have chosen a few examples you want to use or have an idea that will help you answer the main question of your assignment: these sections, therefore, are not as hard to write. But these middle parts of the paper can’t just come out of thin air; they need to be introduced and concluded in a way that makes sense to your reader. Your introduction and conclusion act as bridges that transport your readers from their own lives into the “place” of your analysis. If your readers pick up your paper about education in the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, for example, they need a transition to help them leave behind the world of Chapel Hill, television, e-mail, and the The Daily Tar Heel and to help them temporarily enter the world of nineteenth-century American slavery. By providing an introduction that helps your readers make a transition between their own world and the issues you will be writing about, you give your readers the tools they need to get into your topic and care about what you are saying. Similarly, once you’ve hooked your reader with the introduction and offered evidence to prove your thesis, your conclusion can provide a bridge to help your readers make the transition back to their daily lives. (See our handout on conclusions.) Why bother writing a good introduction? You never get a second chance to make a first impression. The opening paragraph of your paper will provide your.
1.22 Writing introductions Your introduction is the first impression your readers will have of your writing. A good introduction will show them that you know what you're talking about and that you're going to complete the task in question. It will also make them want to carry on reading and feel well disposed to what is to come. A bad introduction will have the opposite effect and might even prejudice the reader against the rest of the writing, even if it does improve. The most common mistakes made by students are: not to include an introduction at all to include an introduction, but one which is unrecognizable as such to include too much background/historical information in the introduction to make the introduction too longA good introduction will: show that you are going to answer the question or complete the task show that you understand the issues and their implications show how you are going to do this by indicating the structure of your answer and making clear the main areas that     you are going to write about (your plan). show evidence that you have carried out some research by making a reference to one of your sources be totally relevant be concise: 8-9% of the total number of words is usually recommended (eg 120 words in a 1500 word assignment). You want your tutors to say to themselves Good! This student has understood the question, has done some research and is going to answer the question set, not another one. Let's read on! So more specifically, how do you do this? include a topic sentence which indicates the main thrust of your answer. For example:This essay deals with the economic and political decline in Britain's world role. This assignment will examine Britain's peculiar unwritten constitution. Four major features of the influence of human behaviour on planning are considered in this report. This report will analyse the relative advantages and.
The function of the Introduction is to serve as a 'map' of the essay, outlining to your reader the main argument and points which you develop in your essay. Most introductions begin with an orientation in the form of a brief general statement that leads the reader into the topic showing how the specific topic relates to bigger issues or to the discipline field. This is followed by your thesis statement, which is your concise response to the essay question, then an outline of the argument presented in the essay. You may find it useful to think of an essay's introduction as funnel shaped ­ moving from the general to the specific. Here is an example: Example of an essay introduction1 Essay Question: Italy on the eve of 1860 has often been described as an unlikely nation. Why? On the eve of 1860 the word Italy described not a nation, but a geographical area. The peninsula was split into eight separate states, all independent of one another. Economically, while the whole of Europe seemed to be surging ahead, Italy was lagging behind. At this time, Italy was seen as an unlikely nation because of the many obstacles that lay in the way of unification. The main obstacles were the dislike and distrust between the states and the slowness of the great bulk of Italians to accept or even comprehend the idea of Italy (Mack Smith,1968: 2). There was also a lack of planning and common goals amongst the minority of the population that supported and were prepared to fight for a unified country. This was exacerbated by the disagreement and dislike between the leaders of Il Risorgimento, the Italian independence movement. background orientation to the topic thesis statement outline of argument 1This essay has been adapted from material developed by R. Woodward-Kron, E. Thomson & J. Meek (2000) Academic Writing: a language based guide (CD-ROM), University of Wollongong © Copyright.