Page 278 - English for Writing Research Papers

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14.13 Summary: How can I assess the quality
of my Introduction?
To make a self-assessment of your Introduction, you can ask yourself the following
questions.

Does my Introduction occupy too high a proportion of the entire paper and does
it contain too many general statements that are already widely known?

Are the rationale and objectives defined? Is it clear what problem I am address-

ing or trying to solve and why I chose my particular methodology?
Is the background information all related to the objective of the paper?

Is it clear what the reader can expect in the rest of the paper (i.e. main results and

conclusions)?
Does my Introduction act as a clear road map for understanding my paper?

Is it sufficiently different from the Abstract, without any cut and pastes? (some

overlap is fi ne)

Have I mentioned only what my readers specifically need to know and what I

will subsequently refer to in the Discussion?
Have I been as concise as possible?

Have I used tenses correctly? present simple (general background context,

description of what will be done in the paper), present perfect (past to present
solutions), past simple (my contribution, though this may also be expressed
using the present simple or future simple )