29  The Introduction

29.1 Key Insights

Begin telling the story of your research. Guide your reader’s interest by highlighting the:

  • Importance, and
  • Uniqueness of your results.

29.2 Structure

Imagine the Introduction as a funnel, focusing the broad “big picture” background of the study to the narrow focus of the paper’s central question. This is a three-part process:

  • First State only the relevant background material, explaining the current state-of-knowledge. This mentally prepares the reader for your work without overwhelming them with an in-depth review of the field.

  • Second Present the lack-of-knowledge, an important deficit preventing progress in the field. This follows directly from the state-of-knowledge and ” sets the stage” for the central question of the paper.

  • Third State the central question clearly and precisely. This tells the reader the purpose of your research and what direction the paper is going to take. Your work is an attempt to fill in the lack-of-knowledge that you have just presented.

The state-of-knowledge allows you to emphasise the importance of your research. The reader must be convinced that the central question of your work is important. Make it clear to the reader why it is important and why they should be interested.

To end the Introduction, provide a short description of your experimental approach. Highlight novel methods that contribute to the uniqueness of your research. The closing lines should state the answer to the central question. Thus the reader will know what the paper shows and how, as well as why it is important.

29.3 Writing Check-list

Use this check-list to remind yourself of specific points that you should include when writing your Introduction. The text in italics are typical phrases you’ll see in scientific papers.

29.3.1 State-of-knowledge

  • What field is your research addressing?
  • What is the scope of this research?
    • … is the most common mutation associated with … disease
  • What specific subjects will be addressed in this paper?
  • How is this information relevant to the research presented later?

29.3.2 Lack-of-knowledge

  • What is the “unknown” this paper is going to address?
    • The … is not known.
    • Despite several in-depth studies, the … has not been identified.
    • Although much is known about …, … the precise details remain to be determined.
  • Is it a young field?
  • Is there a long-standing debate that will be addressed?
  • Are there inconsistencies in the literature?
  • What needs to be addressed before the field can move forward?

29.3.3 Importance (Why should the reader care?)

  • Will the results add new information?
  • How wide is the impact of your results?

29.3.4 Question

  • What is this paper going to tell the reader?
    • We hypothesised that …
    • We investigated whether … can suppress expression of …
  • Is there a clear goal the research is working towards?
  • Is the question precise?

29.3.5 Experimental Approach

  • What experiments were used to answer the question?
    • This was done by using …

29.3.6 Answer

  • Did your research answer the question you set out to study?
    • Our study reveals that … is necessary for …

29.4 Details

29.4.1 Providing Background

A common mistake is to include everything you know about the paper’s topic in the Introduction. Although this may be necessary for a thesis, it is not the case for a scientific article. Only include relevant information in the background material. It is easy to overwhelm the reader by presenting everything known about a topic, so remember: Your goal is to inform, not to impress.

29.4.2 Formulating the Question

The central question that you pose in the paper is not necessarily what you originally set out to demonstrate when you began your project. Always keep the paper’s story in mind.

29.5 Example

The following Introduction example uses sentence templates. Removing the details of the science allows us to focus on the writing style used to make the case for the necessity and importance of the work.

```{example, name = “Using the Introduction to Challenge an Accepted Dogma”}

This example is from a highly-cited study that showed intracellular immunity for the first time. The authors had to challenge fundamental assumptions in their field. The authors provided extensive background and explain their thought-process, before making their startling claim. Nonetheless, the Introduction is concise and impactful.

Paragraph 1: Background, description of state-of-knowledge.

  1. … and … have been … , and this has … system of … traditionally divided into … and …. (Broad background)
  2. … comprises … and … . (Broad background)
  3. The advantage of innate immunity is that it is … and … ; however, … . (Broad background)
  4. In contrast, … can … . (Broad background, Comparison)
  5. Unlike the … of … , … uses … such as … . (Broad background)
  6. … are unique in the … . (Specific background)
  7. The weakness of adaptive immunity … is that it … . (Specific background)
  8. Moreover, the dogma of … for the last 100 years has been that … . (State-of-knowledge)
  9. It is thought that … , … . (State-of-knowledge)

Paragraph 2: Announcement of new discovery.

  1. Recently we described a … protein called … that is capable of … . (State-of-knowledge)
  2. We found this activity to be … , … , and … conserved across mammals. (State-of-knowledge)
  3. However, … are … proteins, as are all known mammalian … . (Lack-of-knowledge)
  4. It therefore seemed incongruous to us that … should be a universally conserved … protein and yet be a …. (Lack-of-knowledge)
  5. We hypothesized that … , mediated by …. (Question)
  6. Here we demonstrate … and … using a system (Answer, Methods)
  7. Our data reveal that … , whereby … . (Answer, Importance)

```{exercise, name="The first paragraph"}

The first paragraph of the introduction is also the first paragraph of the paper, and begins to frame your research's breadth. Try to present the _lack-of-knowledge_ early, so that subsequent paragraphs can summarise previous attempts to address this issue. These paragraphs will show how these attempts have either failed to fill the _gap-in-knowledge_ that your paper addresses or led to this gap being identified in the first place.

- Start your paper with a short, jargon free sentence that will _hook_ the reader. Good hook sentences draw the reader into your research story using a less formal and more literary style than the rest of the paper. For a broad appeal journal in particular, the information in the hook sentence should not need any citations.

- Use the rest of this paragraph to place your work in the context of a classic and timeless _Big Question_ in your field. Note that you are not going to be able to fully answer the _Big Question_ — it's possible that even a generation of scientists will never fully answer it!

Remember: Put yourself in the shoes of the typical reader of your target journal while writing this paragraph.

```{exercise, name=“The last paragraph”}

This paragraph must give a clear concise statement of your paper’s Central Question (i.e. the tested hypothesis or goal). Remember: This sentence should not contain specific details of your methods!

In contrast to the Big Question in the first paragraph, the Central Question is specific to your paper and should be answered by it. You will also provide a brief glimpse of the general approach you took to answer this question in one sentence.

  • Make a statement of the Central Question which your paper will address.

  • Provide a clear statement of your Answer to the Central Question.

```