Page 267 - English for Writing Research Papers

253

I suggest you use a similar comparison between Abstracts and Introductions taken
from your chosen journal, to see:

• what parts from Sects. 14.5 and 14.7 are covered in the Introduction. In the
spaghetti paper, Parts 1–8 are condensed into eight sentences, Parts 9 and 10
are not mentioned
• how they are structured differently

• what elements from the Abstract the Introduction expands on

• how sentences from the Abstract are paraphrased in the Introduction
• what information is covered in the Abstract but not in the Introduction, and
vice versa

• the relative word counts. This will give you an idea of the proportionate length

of the Introduction compared to the Abstract. In the spaghetti paper the
Abstract is 116 words, and the Introduction 201 words, so the Introduction is
approximately twice as long. This is quite typical

14.4 How long should the Introduction be?

There is no definitive answer to this question.

Find the most cited papers in your field, and note the proportion of space given to
the Introduction relative to the other sections. Adopt the same proportion.

I have noticed that the longer the Introduction in relation to the rest of the paper, the
lower the level of innovation. Often authors write a huge introduction to hide the
fact that they have very little to say about their actual research. Reviewers are aware
of this trick!

Think about introductions in other areas of life - in a 10 minute oral presentation at
a conference would you want eight minutes of introduction? In a 20 minute TV
interview with a famous personality, would you want 10 minutes of introduction
before the personality even utters a word? I know that presentations and interviews
cannot be directly compared to research papers, but the basic idea is that both view-
ers and readers want the same thing: the meat.