About how to write an introduction that grabs the attention of your readers

While construction workers are banging around with their radio on loud, I am now in the third or fourth attempt of trying to find a good start for this piece. I find it one of the most challenging parts of writing, finding a beginning, a way in.

The start does a lot of heavy lifting without seeming so. It needs to set the scene, give context, all without becoming boring. It is a balancing act.

A good scientific article reads like a “who done it”. In the first chapter you get the build up to the crime or murder, a.k.a. your scientific question you want to answer. This is then followed by finding clues to the answer, your results, which then ultimately is put all together to find the culprit, or in the case of a scientific paper, your main message and conclusion. But it is that first chapter, your introduction, that build up to the crime that decides if the reader keeps reading.

So where to start?

Before you start writing your introduction it is good to ask yourself the following questions:

• What is my main message for this paper, this helps you focus your article
• What is my main question my main message answers, this is the gap in the literature that you want to fill with this article.
• Why is answering your main question important, interesting, useful. This gives you your way in, a start.
• What information is absolutely necessary to understand the clues that your results give, this is the context.

Where to pay attention to when writing

A good introduction tells the reader why it is told what it is told. It does so in two ways. First it states the global interest in the topic (this is the way in part). Then it shows the existing gap in the knowledge about said topic that you hope to fill with your research.

Now you can just say “we don’t know X, so we studied it”. But your readers will just shrug and move on to the next article. A better way to get the reader to care is to give some context. Going thereby from broad to your specific gap.

For example, you studied which genes and hormones are involved in regulating the opening and closing of stomata in hot weather. You can then start with something like this:

“Due to climate change plants are more often suffering from heat stress. For plants one way of cooling themselves is to open their stomata.”

Then you can go on briefly telling what we know how this is regulated under normal conditions.

Flowed by telling that it is unknown how plants regulate stomata opening in the heat (the gap you aim to fill).

After having showed the reader the gap you aim to fill it is time to put context to how you aim to fill the gap. In other words show the clues that led to your hypothesis.

Then in the last paragraph you give a brief preview of the results. This is showing the reader that you got the clues that help you fill the gap.

The checklist

Having done all that you now have a first version of your introduction. Now it is time to go over it.

• Does your wording of the gap, or main question aligns with your main message of the article. Adjust were needed.
• Did you refrain from turning your introduction into a literature review? If not, cut back to what is strictly necessary for following the results section.
• Is your hypothesis and how you aim to test it clearly worded?
• Did you give a preview of the results and kept this short?

Prompt

Set your timer at 5 minutes and make a list of all the clues that let you to the hypothesis that you are testing at the moment.

Now pick one and write a bit more detailed about it. Go as deep as you like, often you first need more words to explain something before you can sharpen it. Afterwards highlight all the bits that are essential for understanding why you did the experiments you did to test your hypothesis.

Happy writing,

PS: let me know in the comments if you have any questions