Writing Introductions

A good introduction

• 'sets the scene' for the main body of the assignment. This means that it introduces the question your assigment answers, defines important concepts and terms, provides a background and contextual information and often justifies why a topic is worthy of attention and discussion.
• provides an outline of the essay. This should not simply be a list of topics you will discuss, but should explain why you will discuss the topics, how they help you answer the question and how the individual sections are connected to each other.

Approximately 10% of the word count of an assignment should allow you to cover these points well.

You can also listen to a short explanation of introductions in our vidcast (ADD VIDCAST HERE ch. 2 beginning – 2.06 ).

To see an example of an introduction together with further advice, have a look at the website of the Academic Skills Centre at the University of Canberra