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Writing Skills

Brush up on your grammar and punctuation skills to polish your final drafts.

Introductions

An introduction:

  • provides the background and overview of the subject
  • states the purposes for the composition
  • leads to a clear thesis statement
  • captures readers' attention

The length of an introduction may vary. It is usually one paragraph long in a five-paragraph essay. In a research paper, it may take more than one paragraph or even more than one page to introduce the subject.

Types of Paper Openings

Introductions should be interesting and catchy and should make the reader want to continue reading the written composition.  

Consider using the following strategies to engage readers:

  • start with presenting a dilemma, a paradox, or an unusual comparison
  • tell a brief story
  • raise a question that needs a solution
  • use a striking quotation
  • question a universal truth
  • provide startling statistics

Remember that while you want to hook the audience, you do not want to spend too long introducing the topic.  Be brief, focus on the subject, and remember to state the relevance and importance of the subject throughout the introduction.

Do not:

  • starting an introduction with a dictionary definition (i.e. Webster defines happiness as...)
  • starting with a trite statement (i.e. The Internet is vital to everyday life.)
  • announcing the purpose in a formal way (i.e. In this paper I will...)
  • stating facts or statistics without substantiation (i.e. Millions of people every year rely on landlines...)

Outline

This is only a suggested outline and is not the only way to structure your opening paragraph.  Experiment and get feedback from your peers and instructor on what works best for you.

  1. Hook/Attention Grabber
  2. Background information needed for readers' basic understanding of your topic
  3. Thesis statement

An abstract briefly summarizes each part of your research paper.  They are about a paragraph long and should be able to stand on their own.  A good abstract is accurate, self-contained, nonevaluative, and coherent. 

Abstracts are generally used:

  • when submitting articles to journals, especially online journals
  • when applying for research grants
  • when writing a book proposal
  • when completing the Ph.D. dissertation or M.A. thesis
  • when writing a proposal for a conference paper
  • when writing a proposal for a book chapter

There are two types of abstracts: Descriptive and Informative.

Descriptive

A descriptive abstract indicates the type of information found in the work. It makes no judgments about the work, nor does it provide results or conclusions of the research. 

  • provides a description of the subject
  • briefly reviews the contents of the study
  • does not discuss the findings
  • is shorter than the informative abstract (under 120 words)

Informative

A good informative abstract acts as a surrogate for the work itself. That is, the writer presents and explains all the main arguments and the important results and evidence in the complete article/paper/book. 

  • highlights the key points of the study
  • summarizes the most important information in each section
  • presents and explains all the main points and the important findings
  • discusses the findings
  • includes the results, implications, or recommendations of the study
  • is typically longer than the descriptive abstract (could be more than 250 words)

An executive summary provides an overview of the report. It:

  • briefly covers all the main parts of the report (summary of research in the field, research methods, research results, discussion, recommendations, and conclusion)
  • provides a concise statement of the findings and recommendations based on those findings
  • appears on a separate page and is able to stand on its own
  • is no more than one or two pages long
  • is written for the non-expert audience who may not have the time to read the whole report