Last modified 01/25/2024

How to make a thesis introduction :

Summary

The elaboration of the introduction requires a great synthesis capacity and knowledge of the thesis or research theme, because it tries to explain, in less than three pages, under which circumstances the investigation was decided and performed, what it was supposed to prove or reach and how the contents of the thesis or investigation have been structured. But none of that will be useful if the used redaction style is not clear, sequential and simple, which will allow any newbie in the subject to easily understand it and, also, to feel attracted to continue reading it. Because the introduction is placed at the beginning of the thesis, its contents must be written at the end of the research process.

To elaborate a thesis introduction

When someone opens up a thesis, the first thing that he or she sees is the introduction, which is why it is very important to know what is its content, because there is where the investigation’s presentation takes place at.

The content of the introduction is not predetermined, which might cause certain confusions when redacting. This question, which is made by anyone who redacts a thesis, will be answered in the following paragraphs.

The introduction must never take more than three pages and its redaction must be impeccable and well – presented. You must use right orthography. The redaction must be simple, attending the fact that it will not be necessarily read by a specialist. You must never use examples, reveal the final results of the investigation and, under any circumstances, use graphics.

The introduction must be presented as a narration, which means that it must be explained in a way in which the facts are related between each other, respecting that they occurred in a determined period and that the effects that they had in the initial situation transformed, varied or kept it the same way. In any case, it is important to remember that the explanation of the facts that occurred must always have a “before” and an “after”, or, as others would prefer, a “cause” and an “effect”; in synthesis, there must be a “causality principle”.

In the introduction we must consider the reasons that made us perform the investigation, as well as the goals that we set, the hypothesis that we are trying to demonstrate and the method we used in order to be able to prove or deny our hypothesis. Once we are done with this clarification, we must explain concisely step by step the contents of the chapters.

Explaining the reasons that made us perform the investigation represent pointing out for what we chose the subject in the first place, as well as why we did it.

Explain the objectives of the investigation, including the general and the specific ones. Regarding the redaction, we must use infinitive verbs. The specific goals must be placed according to their importance.

The most important part of the investigation is the explanation of the hypothesis that you are trying to prove. It is necessary to remember that every hypothesis is an affirmation or denial of something and for that is mandatory a proof or demonstration of its veracity or falseness. In any case, the hypothesis is always looking for a “causality relationship” among two previously determined variables through empiric evidence that allows a statistical verification.

The methodology used in the verification process must be presented like a summary, allowing the reader to understand how it was made and what elements were used for the hypothesis’ demonstration or denial, as well as the investigation’s design, the type of sampling used, the size of the sample, the instruments that were used to recollect the information, among others.

It is necessary to point out that, in some cases, when it is impossible to demonstrate the hypothesis, only the objectives of the investigation must be explained.

The brief presentation of the investigation’s content will be recounted in every chapter, in a way in which the reader is attracted towards reading the whole thesis or decides to reject it.

Learning how to formulate a good introduction demands to perform the exercise of revising the introductions of other thesis, books, etc., going through several rough drafts, until you find the right one and you can put it under other people’s eye, who are not specialists and who can give us their opinion. It is also recommended to write a scheme of the work’s content before redacting the introduction, which will make easier the presentation of the information in a systematized, sequential and logic form.

Summing up, in the introduction, all the content aspects included in the thesis or general investigation are shown in a summed, brief and clear way, so that anyone who reads it for the first time can easily understand what was its purpose, what was achieved and what is its contribution in the research field.

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