HOW TO WRITE AN INTRODUCTION?

Just imagine your first class with Professor X. He enters into your class, asks you to open a fat text book and keeps on reading lines after lines. In between he yawns two to three times. Although he seems to be an experienced man full of knowledge and expertise, you hardly understand what he is trying to say. Will you ever attend his classes anymore? May be yes, because you have the pressure of meeting the attendance criteria but you will never develop any interest in his class. Why is it so? Why do have no interest for his class anymore?

The answer is simple: The introductory class between your professor and you has not been appropriate and interesting enough.

This is exactly the case when you are writing the introduction of an assignment. You need to remember that your professor/supervisor does not know you on personal grounds, especially when the assignment is evaluated by both, first and second supervisor respectively. They judge you on the basis of your work.

Here are few important signposts for introduction:

SHORT AND PRECISE: Make sure that the introduction should be around 10% of the entire assignment. Neither make it too lengthy that the reader starts snoring nor too sketchy because of which  the reader remains confused regarding the purpose of the assignment even after reading the introduction. It should be a perfect one so that it clearly established\s its purpose and thesis statement as well lures the reader to go through the entire work,

GRAB THE ATTENTION: The introduction makes the first appearance of your entire assignment. It should be such an appealing, clear and compelling piece. You may use a relevant paraphrased quotation / surprising fact/some authentic statistics. Just like a cup of strong coffee gives you a kick to start the day; similarly a strong and compelling introduction boosts and motivates your entire work.

BACKGROUND OF THE CONTEXT: You need to provide brief yet relevant background information in relation to the topic. Just like you may be confused if I start bombarding you with an issue without explaining you the background context; same is the issue here. Hey please! Do not make it boring by giving definitions of the terms only; rather you can write about the importance of the variables.

IDENTIFY THE ISSUE: You need to detect the area of concern or the problematic issue that drives you to work on this assignment. REMEMBER if there would have been no issue then you would not have been doing the assignment.

THESIS STATEMENT: Based on the issue mentioned above, you have to mention the thesis statement. Make sure that you clearly put forward the thesis statement, thereby indicating the purpose of the assignment carefully and transparently.

Note: It should be framed in one sentence ONLY.

STRUCTURE OF THE ASSIGNMENT: With the help of a strong introduction, you need to outline the major points. REMEMBER only to signal the chief landmarks and no need to give the details. This is like a roadmap to help you

AVOID:

• Starting with general statements, vague or broad generalisations
• Dictionary Definitions that everyone knows
• Any direct statement to show what you are doing as a writer
• Long introductions
• Many of us make the mistake by thinking that the description of few concepts are enough to write in an introduction. We invest less time for constructing an introduction. Unfortunately, it should be given more importance since it pulls the      attention of the readers. DO NOT NEGLECT

DO NOT IGNORE THEM! Do not follow the steps of Professor X’s first introductory class!!