Term Paper 5
HUFLIT

UNIT 5: Writing the Introduction
- Writing an overview of the topic. Start with a general
overview of your topic.
- Providing the background or summarizing existing research
and telling about prior research. You review other conclusions
related to your topic.
- Stating a rationale (Literature review) for your paper.
- Describing the methodology you will use in your term paper.
- Writing the thesis statement.
- Showing the outline (components of your term paper.

How long should an introduction be in a term paper?
The
introduction
and
conclusion
should
both
be approximately 10% of the overall paper word count. For
example, if you write a 2,000 word paper, your introduction
and conclusion will be around 200 words each.
 

Step 1: Introduce your topic
The first job of the introduction is to tell the
reader what your topic is and why it's interesting
or important. This is generally accomplished with
a strong opening hook.
The hook is a striking opening sentence that
clearly conveys the relevance of your topic. Think
of an interesting fact or statistic, a strong
statement, a question, or a brief anecdote that
will get the reader wondering about your topic.

Step 2: Describe the background
This part of the introduction differs depending on
what approach your paper is taking.
You will explore some general background here or
review previous research and establish how yours
fits in.
You provide context and narrow down your topic.
 

You provide only the most relevant
background information. The introduction is
not the place to get too in-depth; if more
background is essential to your paper, it can
appear in the body.
 

Step 3: For a paper describing original
research, you will instead provide an overview
of the most relevant research that has already
been conducted. This is a sort of miniature 
literature review—a sketch of the current
state of research into your topic, boiled down
to a few sentences.  

Step 4: Describe the methodology
You describe the methodology you will use in
your term paper to solve the problems.  

Step 5: Specify thesis statement
In this part you write you thesis statement. 

Step 6: Map out your paper
The final part of the introduction is often
dedicated to a brief overview of the paper. It
is the outline (components) of your paper.

Good luck!