Transcription
[Music] Hello, this is I say Atkin, and the topic of today's video is writing the introduction of your research paper. You are all familiar with writing introduction paragraphs for essays, but the introduction part of a research report is a little longer and more detailed. So let's have a look at the function of an introduction first.
First of all, the introduction of any writing piece captures the attention of the reader, indicates the focus of your paper, provides a context for the main issue, indicates your point of view—your standing point—and it shows the reader how you interpret and approach the research question. There are some different parts of an introduction in a research paper. The first one is the presentation of the topic; the second one is background information; the third one is purpose; and the last one is scope. Now we're going to go over all these parts in detail. Okay.
So the first part is the presentation of the topic. This is the very first paragraph of the introduction in your research paper. It is a general introduction to the subject matter. In this part, you have to state why the topic is important, and you should include enough details, such as facts and definitions, so that the discussion that follows can be understood by the reader who is not familiar with the topic or who is not knowledgeable enough about the topic.
The second part is where you give some background information. It is the second paragraph of the introduction. It—it serves as an explanation of the area of your research to set context for the issue at hand. So you need to give some background of the study or a kind of historical overview. Here you will use some specific information, such as dates, events, people, maybe some studies that were carried out before. So you're going to use some outside sources, and at this point, you will have to cite your sources in this paragraph.
The third part is where you state the purpose of writing this research paper. It is the third paragraph of the introduction. It's not a very long one, but first you need to understand and clarify your main purpose of writing the report, and then state it very clearly in the introduction. There is an example here: "This report has been written to compare the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy in order to prove that using this type of energy means jeopardizing our future." So here the reader is given the purpose very clearly, and you also state your point—point of view. Okay, we said first you need to understand and clarify your purpose before stating it in the introduction. So how can you clarify your purpose? There are some helpful questions that you can ask to make sure that your purpose is clear. For example: "What will your research have discovered or and proven? What kind of a problem did you work on? Why did you work on this problem? What should the reader know or understand when they finish reading the report?"
Okay, the last part of the introduction in a research paper is the scope. It refers to the extent covered by your report, and it is divided into three subparts. These are: methods, limitations, and preview. Each section of the scope can be addressed as a whole paragraph or each in a separate paragraph. Okay. So let's start with methods, which is the first subpart of the scope. Methods outlines the investigation methods used in your reports. For example: books, internet sources, some other sources may be, and it helps readers to understand the parameters of your research and your report. For example: "To support the contents of this report, some books, articles, and Internet resources have been used," and here you may want to give some specific examples of the sources, such as databases, authors, titles that you have used.
The second subpart of the scope is limitations. Limitations helps you identify the limiting factors on your research and acknowledges these early in the report. For example: "This report is restricted with the comparison of advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy in order to prove that the disadvantages of nuclear energy outweigh its advantages."
Okay, the last part of the scope is the preview of the content. This is actually a brief summary of the sections in your report, and it details the separate chapters of the body by reference. What do we mean by that? For example: "The first part of the report focuses on the advantages of nuclear energy; the second part explains the disadvantages of nuclear energy; and the conclusion verifies why the disadvantages of nuclear energy outweigh the advantages." So this is like a very, very brief summary of the body sections in your research report. Okay, and these are some questions you can ask to clarify your scope. For example: "How did you work on the research question? What methods did you use? Why did you work on the question the way you did? What were the limitations of your study? What ideas are integral to your research, and how did you align your ideas?" So these are some questions to answer to clarify your scope. Okay, and there is a final word: An introduction is a place to grab the reader's attention and determine the outline and the limits of your research report. So it's quite an important part, so you should devote enough time and attention to your introduction. Make sure that you refer to your course booklets and analyze the various introduction samples in it. Before we finish this video, we are going to go over a sample introduction together.
Okay, as you can see, the introduction of the research report is quite longer than the one in a normal essay. Is—we already covered the first part here. The first paragraph of the introduction is the presentation of the topic. Here you give some general information; some may be definitions to familiarize the reader with the concepts. Okay, the second part here is the background information. Since you will give some specific information in the background, as you can see here, we have some citations because you have to cite the outside sources that you have used. The third paragraph here is the purpose of writing your research paper. It's not a very long paragraph, but it still needs to be there. Okay, starting from here to the end of the introduction is the scope. As you remember, there are three subparts of the scope. The first part is the methods, so you have to state the kind of methods you have used. The second part here is the limitations, which states the extent of your report, and the last part here is the preview or a summary of the body parts in your research report. Okay, this is it for today. Thank you for watching. You [Music]