This is the 50th episode of Just Writing, and I guess it’s time to introduce ourselves. Well, to talk about ‘introductions’ in academic writing. How to set out your stall, how to get people excited or at least emotionally-engaged in your writing. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

An introduction to a piece of academic writing will vary from a paragraph or two in an article, to a whole chapter in a book. But we usually start with who we are and why we are here. The ‘who?’ might include personal details: it has become more popular to describe the author’s identity, in order to clarify what biases or advantages they may have, but the personal details may simply refer to previous research on the theme. And the ‘why?’ may include why the research came about, what the intentions of the author are, and so on. Most introductions are written after the rest of the article, chapter or book, but some writers see the introduction as their motivation for the rest of the task, and in that case it may be written first.

What do we include in the introduction? A guide to the writing to come, and at least a hint at the writing’s conclusion and hoped-for significance – what comes next. What do we leave out? We should avoid over-claiming, or writing condescendingly about other authors or our readers.

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