Part 1 – Main components for an effective introduction

There are 5 key features that should be added to your introduction.

They are:

1)     A „Hook“, an eye-catcher, an interesting idea that inspires the reader to continue reading.

2)     Contextualising material – some background information about the topic to make sure that your readers understand what exactly your are going to write about. Well-written context typically helps authors to kill two birds with one stone: on the one hand, the reader gets acquianted to the topic and the direction of your thoughts, on the other hand, she/he can use her/his critical thinking skills to predict the content of the paper, which will make the reading process more interesting and fruitful.

3)     Structure of the paper – it is always nice for the reader to find out what she/he will be reading about so that she/he can navigate through the paper easily.

4)     Rationale – a reason for writing this scientific paper.

5)     A thesis statement  - the main focus of the paper, a particular idea/claim you will be developing/discussing/arguing about.