How To Write A Thesis Introduction: Secrets, Tips, Advice

How To Write A Thesis Introduction: Secrets, Tips, Advice

When you write a thesis, you should pay exceptional attention to the introduction. The reader will start your thesis from the introduction, and he will make up his view and understanding of the problem, your ideas, professionalism and writing skills based on the introduction. Your introduction is an important section that must be perfect. Good news that you can read our guide on how to write a thesis introduction of high quality or find thesis writer on our website. Keep reading and find out useful information, tips, and advice to create a successful project.

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Thesis Introduction: How to Start?

A thesis introduction is the first special chapter of your work and the starting point of your paper. If to say shortly, you should describe the topic of your thesis, talk about problem statements and write persuasive points based on an overview of your work. Let's define the main purposes of your introduction?

Main Purposes

  1. To introduce the topic: answer the hypothetical question of what the main reason is, what a thesis idea is and why it is relevant today?
  2. To win the reader’s interest. Use persuasive but clear words and facts to make your introduction interesting for the reader. People should be interested in keeping reading your dissertation.
  3. To demonstrate awareness of your topic as well as the relevance of the research question. The author should persuade the reader of professionalism. Your main goal is to show the entire research is relevant, and it contains significant academic and practical components.

Which Parts Should Your Introduction Contain?

The introduction should be placed in your thesis just after the table of contents. In this part, you have to provide readers with a good beginning to explain to them shortly what they will read in the document. You need to describe your research with its main purpose and direction. Below, you can find the main parts your introduction should contain:

  • Context and topic. Write about what your readers need to know to understand your thesis.
  • Scope and focus. Think about the certain aspect of the topic you want to address to your readers.
  • Importance and relevance. Your current research must fit into work that already was done on the chosen topic.
  • Objectives and questions. Define research problem, explain what's the main goal of your research and how good it gives all the needed information to readers.
  • Structure overview. Each chapter of your thesis must contain something useful to explain the main goal of the writing.  

What Information Should You Give in the Introduction? 

Give only meaningful, important and accurate information in your thesis and the introduction. Thanks to the details you give here, your reader should understand:

  • What is the topic of your paper;
  • What part of the general topic needs further investigations, research and why;
  • Your thesis statement.

Each paragraph has the number of steps you should follow, and the introduction is not an exception to this rule. Read the steps you should make when you write your introduction piece.

Writing a Thesis Introduction: Steps

These 12 steps that can be common despite the topic. However, some specific fields require more stages.

  1. Introduce the topic of your research problem;
  2. Give some general background information;
  3. Make a short overview of related literature you have studied (the detailed view should be written in a literature review section);
  4. Give the general idea of the scope of the topic you have chosen;
  5. Describe in details the current situation concerning the problem;
  6. Find the area or piece of the topic which is not researched yet or researched not enough;
  7. Explain the relevance, importance of the research you are going to do;
  8. State the main aims and objectives of your thesis;
  9. Name the research question (questions) or problem (problems);
  10. Give your hypotheses;
  11. Show the how to structure a thesis;
  12. Outline the methodology you used.

Your introduction is the only chance to catch the interest of your reader and to make the first impression. Remember the introductory part has the same importance as all other chapters of your dissertation you have to complete.

How to Make a Well-Structured Introduction?

Above, we have mentioned the main parts that must be included in the thesis or dissertation introduction. Let's see what information you need to write in each of those parts. Make sure you read all the points thoroughly to include all the needed elements to your writing.

Context and Topic

Start with the topic introduction and provide readers with a short background. Show why the chosen subject is important to make the audience interested. It means you should select a relevant topic for discussion.

Scope and Focus

Here you have to define the scope of your dissertation and focus of your research. For example, you can mention the area of your investigation, the time period of your research, the communities you're researching, or any other specific aspects of your dissertation.

Importance and Relevance

Try to explain your motivation for this research. Provide an overview of the current state of your study and don't forget to cite sources. You will make a more detailed view of all used sources in the literature review section of your manuscript. Show the importance of your research and how it helps to solve a particular problem.  

Objectives and Questions

Pay a lot of attention to this part because here you set up the expectations of the rest of your work. Please focus on the main goal of your research to formulate your objectives and questions. Here you can provide the methods you used in your paper to answer these questions. You can write about it in detail in the methodology part. You can also include your hypotheses here. It's possible to include the hypotheses after the literature review.

Structure Overview

Your document must have a good structure to guide the reader through. Make an overview of the structure: write just 1-2 sentences to describe the content of each part of your thesis. But if the research is complicated, you can write a paragraph for each part to explain the document's structure.

How to Organize Your Work?

You don’t write your thesis in the same order as all the chapters appear in the outline. So how to organize your work effectively to complete your Ph.D. dissertation successfully?

  1. You should organize your whole paper in a logical consequence and write your work using the informative language;
  2. Find facts, figures, create infographics to illustrate your argument in details;
  3. Define the main parts of the thesis: Background information; Facts you will use in the argument; Observations; Ways of connecting review, analysis, and conclusions; The main elements of the thesis (sections).
  4. Now you can start writing.

Length of Introduction

The length is an important issue. It shouldn’t take a lot of time to read it, but it should contain all the important points (please check them above). There are no special length requirements for thesis introduction, just be clear and don’t provide unnecessary information here. At the same time, there is no need to squeeze all your points in one page. Two or three pages will be quite enough. Read our guide to find out how long is a thesis paper or its separate chapter.

Rule ‘General - Specific – General’

It is a good rule you can follow not only in thesis introductions but many other writing papers. You should start your paper with a broad position - explain why the field for your research matters and why it is relevant.

After that, you can go to narrower things. Find points which lie in your niche, share and describe details, explain why they matter to your topic.

In the end, you should think wider again. Make connections between narrow and general things to show the effects and results of your research.

How to Write an Engaging Thesis Introduction: Tips

Read the next tips if you want to know how to write a thesis introduction in a good way.

  • Give the proper acknowledgment of previous research on which you are writing a thesis paper.
  • In the beginning, give your readers an understanding of how you are going to structure your thesis. What will they find in chapters?
  • Surprise the reader a little. Give something unexpected details: unique research or point of view, some facts or perspectives. Make your reader feel excited about reading.
  • Always talk about the best experience in the field: check and present the best examples that you have, the best literature review, and the best experience of other researchers.
  • Don’t use specific vocabulary in the beginning. It is like a door to your thesis for people to make it clear for understanding.
  • Don’t neglect to draft. This will help you to improve your work as in the case of any other chapter.
  • Use the simple present tense to state the topic/subject. Use simple past tense/present perfect tense for describing background information.
  • Don’t include a lot of citations. You can provide readers with all the used sources in the literature review chapter.
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Conclusion

It’s not easy to write a good thesis introduction. We tried to give you all the necessary information because we knew that you might have difficulties with that. But if you feel unconfident, it’s a good idea to order your thesis from professionals. If you still have any questions, you can address them to our professional writers, they will answer you with pleasure. Contact experts to finish your project easily! Our English professionals can create a perfect Ph.D. thesis to shift your expectations!