Writing the Introduction to the Research ReportThis is the first section of your paper, even though we write it after we have done the research for the literature review.
This first section of your paper is to be uploaded with the first draft.
Be sure you have formatted it correctly – double-spaced, 12 pt Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins all around, spelling and grammar checked, APA in-text citations, and a reference page.
You should keep your reference page up to date so you get feedback every time.
The introduction is the broad beginning of the paper that answers three important questions:
1. What is this paper about?
2. Why should I read it?
3. What are you (the researcher) going to do in your proposed study?
You should answer these questions by doing the following:
1. Set the context – provide general information about the main idea, explaining the situation so the reader can make sense of the topic and the claims you make and support.
2. State why the main idea is important – tell the reader why s/he should care and keep reading.
3. State your thesis/claim – compose a sentence or two stating the general purpose of your study. Start it like this: “The purpose of this study is….”
This should be one large or two medium paragraphs including statistics and any data that may support your general topic question.
Thus, the most time consuming part of this assignment is researching the background statistics and information. The writing should go quickly. You should plan to write and then set your paper aside for a while before coming back and editing and proofing it a couple of times.
You may only use data from authoritative websites or academic articles. Not every site is authoritative! Many have extreme biases, and others are entirely hoaxes. (For my favorite hoax, search for information on the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus).
What do we mean by including statistics and data? The introduction is a great spot to include general, broad statistics. If you were doing a paper on cohabitation, you would want to include statistics about how many cohabiting couples there are, how this has changed over time (gone up, gone down, stayed the same), and what proportion of all households have a cohabiting couple. If you were doing a paper on same sex marriage, you could include statistics on what percentage of people support or oppose same sex marriage, how has this changed over time, what percentage of states have legalized or banned same sex marriage (this is obviously less useful now because of the recent Supreme Court ruling, though it should give an idea on what to think about).
Note that in the above examples, the statistics are giving some kind of idea to reader of not only the importance of the topic, but some general idea into the magnitude of the topic more generally.
Where to get information
For example, if you wish to start with Wikipedia, you will find some general information and links to sources. You should not use Wikipedia as a source for any academic or other writing. Find the primary sources referred to in the article and read them. It is quite possible, even probable, that the Wikipedia summary is not entirely correct. But it can definitely be a helpful place to start your search.
Also, make sure to critically evaluate whether the site you’re looking at might have a vested interest in presenting only certain types of statistics (i.e. does this site aim to advance a particular social, political, or economic system?). That does not mean that the statistics are false or can’t be trusted, but you should endeavor to make sure that information you’re gathering is as trustworthy as possible. A simple way to evaluate this: does the site say where they got their data? Do they supply a link to that data sources? If they say something vague like, “According to Pew, ##% of Americans support ______” but they don’t say anything about what year this occurred, what the actual survey basis was, and so on, it may not be that trustworthy. Why is that? Organizations like Pew are constantly surveying people and regularly ask the same questions to see how responses change (or don’t) over time. If a site doesn’t tell you anything about the specific Pew survey they’re using, then it is hard to know if you’re using the most recent and representative information.
For health statistics, check the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/
For education statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics: http://nces.ed.gov/
For California education: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/
For social and political data, the Pew Research Center: http://pewresearch.org/topics/
For social and political data, Gallup: http://www.gallup.com/home.aspx
For an example of the introduction, look at the sample proposal on the SS3A summer online course website.
These websites offer additional explanation and help with writing APA papers.:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
(this website has excellent resources – the presentation in this link describes a more complex project than what you are doing, keep that in mind.)
http://my.ilstu.edu/~jhkahn/APAsample.pdf
(this is a helpful sample paper from an online source)
