{"id":543,"date":"2017-05-29T22:01:32","date_gmt":"2017-05-29T22:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=543"},"modified":"2026-01-06T22:32:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T22:32:42","slug":"introductions","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/chapter\/introductions\/","title":{"raw":"Introductions","rendered":"Introductions"},"content":{"raw":"A key piece of advice many writers either do not ever get or don\u2019t believe is that it\u2019s not necessary to write introductions first. Just because the introduction appears first doesn\u2019t mean it has to be written that way. Here\u2019s a really tired metaphor to help explain: just because you walk into a building through the door doesn\u2019t mean the door was built first. The foundation went in first, even though you rarely if ever see that part. And lots of imperfections in the foundation and the walls were covered up before you even moved in, so you can\u2019t see those either unless you look closely.\r\n\r\nEven though a nearly infinite number of topics and arrangements is possible in English prose, introductions generally follow one of several patterns. If you\u2019re writing a children\u2019s story, you\u2019d probably start with \u201conce upon a time\u201d or something similar. If you\u2019re writing a research article in biomechanical engineering, you\u2019d probably start with a statement about how previous research has examined the problem of loading soldiers with daypacks on various surfaces, including sand, concrete, and railroad ballast. These examples are poles apart, but their introductions share very similar purposes: they orient their imagined readers to the topic, time, and place.\r\n\r\nIn working toward the overall goal of orienting readers, introductions should:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>grab readers' attention (e.g. Start with a compelling quotation or statistic\u2014something concrete).<\/li>\r\n \t<li>provide background about\/summarize a topic.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>clearly articulate a main claim\/thesis.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>include an explicit preview of what will support\/develop the central claim\/thesis.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>logically and coherently connect the parts noted above<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nAdditionally, introductions can:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>locate readers in a specific time and\/or place.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Include an ethical\u00a0appeal, with which you\u00a0(explicitly or implicitly) show\u00a0that you've done your\u00a0homework and are\u00a0credible.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Lay out the stakes for the piece of writing\u2014that is, why the reader should bother reading on.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nThe following video addresses how to do several of these things, starting with the very first sentence of your introduction.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/Rkefst9D6n0","rendered":"<p>A key piece of advice many writers either do not ever get or don\u2019t believe is that it\u2019s not necessary to write introductions first. Just because the introduction appears first doesn\u2019t mean it has to be written that way. Here\u2019s a really tired metaphor to help explain: just because you walk into a building through the door doesn\u2019t mean the door was built first. The foundation went in first, even though you rarely if ever see that part. And lots of imperfections in the foundation and the walls were covered up before you even moved in, so you can\u2019t see those either unless you look closely.<\/p>\n<p>Even though a nearly infinite number of topics and arrangements is possible in English prose, introductions generally follow one of several patterns. If you\u2019re writing a children\u2019s story, you\u2019d probably start with \u201conce upon a time\u201d or something similar. If you\u2019re writing a research article in biomechanical engineering, you\u2019d probably start with a statement about how previous research has examined the problem of loading soldiers with daypacks on various surfaces, including sand, concrete, and railroad ballast. These examples are poles apart, but their introductions share very similar purposes: they orient their imagined readers to the topic, time, and place.<\/p>\n<p>In working toward the overall goal of orienting readers, introductions should:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>grab readers&#8217; attention (e.g. Start with a compelling quotation or statistic\u2014something concrete).<\/li>\n<li>provide background about\/summarize a topic.<\/li>\n<li>clearly articulate a main claim\/thesis.<\/li>\n<li>include an explicit preview of what will support\/develop the central claim\/thesis.<\/li>\n<li>logically and coherently connect the parts noted above<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Additionally, introductions can:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>locate readers in a specific time and\/or place.<\/li>\n<li>Include an ethical\u00a0appeal, with which you\u00a0(explicitly or implicitly) show\u00a0that you&#8217;ve done your\u00a0homework and are\u00a0credible.<\/li>\n<li>Lay out the stakes for the piece of writing\u2014that is, why the reader should bother reading on.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The following video addresses how to do several of these things, starting with the very first sentence of your introduction.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-1\" title=\"Writing Grabby Intro Sentences by Shmoop\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Rkefst9D6n0?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6525,"menu_order":1,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-543","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":540,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6525"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1194,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/543\/revisions\/1194"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/540"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/543\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-english1v2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}