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Whether you’re writing a research paper at the end of the semester or a column for you local paper, an effective introduction is essential for convincing your audience or professor that you know what you’re doing. An effective introduction includes two essential elements: the thesis statement and supporting details.
The thesis statement tells the reader what the subject of your paper or article is. In academic writing, this is usually the first sentence of your introduction. In feature writing, it can be the last sentence of the introduction, but always be sure your thesis statement is in your introduction and not left for the next paragraph. Let’s say you are writing a paper on youth crime in the United States, focusing on the factors that contribute to crime such as family life, school life and gun laws. A simple but effective thesis statement might be: There are several factors that may contribute to youth crime in America. This is effective because it tells the reader exactly what your paper will be about. Following the thesis statement will be the supporting details—the main points of your paper that support your thesis statement. In this case your supporting details are family life, school life, and gun laws. The rest of your introduction might go like this: First, quality of family life can be a contributing factor to youth crime. Another influence is school life, and a third major influence is the availability of guns, both legal and illegal. Notice how the second and third supporting details have been combined into one sentence. The purpose of this is to avoid having three separate sentences that sound redundant (First…, Second…, Third…,). We could just as easily have combined the first and second sentences instead. How you arrange the details in your introduction is up to you. Another point worth noticing is that in the second sentence "influence" has been used instead of "contributing factor." This also helps keep the introduction from sounding too redundant.
Here’s our complete introduction: There are several factors that may contribute to youth crime in America. First, quality of family life can be a contributing factor to youth crime. Another influence is school life, and a third major influence is the availability of guns, both legal and illegal. This introduction tells us exactly what the thesis, or subject, of your paper is as well as what major points you are going to cover in your paper. One last point – Unless your paper is based on a personal narrative, avoid referring to yourself or the paper itself. A common mistake is to include a sentence such as "In this paper I will discuss…" This is unnecessary. (See MetaSpeak.)
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