What to write in thesis introduction
Thesis/Dissertation Tips #2: Writing the Introduction Chapter
hi my name is Francisco and I have a few
suggestions and I can write the
introduction chapter of your thesis or
dissertation so the first thing to keep
in mind is what is the purpose of this
chapter it has to be clear for you what
is the purpose of it and as a name
shockingly suggests the main purpose is
for you to introduce the topic for the
reader so what does that mean exactly
that means showing what is the context
of your study and why that's important
and to who it's to whom it's going to
benefit what are your personal
motivations in other words why is this
topic relevant for you individually your
aims and your objectives in other words
what exactly you're going to do step by
step in your work and finally the
structure of a thesis so what would the
reader find in the following chapters so
let's discuss now one by one of these
topics so the first point is your actual
introduction and keep in mind that this
is the longest part of this chapter okay
so what I always suggest my students is
to start writing this chapter with
something catchy it can be a quote
relevant quote it can be a question it
can be a case from in the industry
something that highlights are that
brings the attention of the reader for
your topic because what you need to keep
in mind is that not necessarily the
reader will know much about your context
for example let me give you two examples
imagine that you're writing about the
implementation of facial recognition
technologies in music festivals or you
are discussing the implementation of
virtual reality in education for example
know what would the reader know about
facial recognition technologies and also
about music festivals maybe they know a
lot maybe they know of nothing if you're
writing about virtual reality and the
implementation of VR in education what
would the reader know about these two
contexts but they have to finish reading
this section of introduction or choose
your first point and have a good idea
about what this topic is about and how
do you do that you do that by explaining
basic concepts for example if you're
talking about facial recognition what
facial recognition technologies when did
it start
is it a recent thing is it an old thing
the same thing for virtual reality the
same thing if you're talking about
electric cars if you're talking about
smart phones if you're discussing robots
or whatever topic that you're talking
about yeah another thing that you can do
is you can give a lot of examples of the
maintenance stakeholders so who are the
main players who what are the main
brands what are the main companies
what are successful cases of your
context water controversial situations
that have happened and while doing so
you have to highlight why that is
important and to whom that's going to
benefit yeah so what is the contribution
of your work for the industry or for
also for academia and while you are
writing on this section and trying to
bring industry data make sure that
you're reciting relevant and reliable
sources and that's extremely important
throughout your entire work you have to
use reliable sources now in your
introduction the introduction only and
at least that's my personal suggestions
for my students you can use or I tell
them that it's okay for them to use
sources such as consulting companies
reliable sources like United Nations or
even some commercial sources like The
Economist or the New York Times for
example and then you can finish this
section by highlighting what you're
trying to achieve
after you finish contextualizing your
work the next step for you to do is your
personal motivation and that can be a
sub topic for example like a 1.1 and
this is a very short section usually one
or two paragraphs will be enough and at
least for me I tell my students that
it's okay for them to write in first
person and this is a moment that you
tell the reader why this topic is
relevant for you in other words why did
you get there so it's okay for you to
write in first person
keep it short yeah one or two paragraphs
maximum and tell them be honest why is
that relevant for you but just one
suggestion here in case your supervisors
suggested the topic for you or in case
this is
topic that is involved in your research
group don't tell the reader that just
focus on why that's relevant for you
after you introduce and contextualize
your study and you wrote about your
personal motivations the following topic
which could be your one point to that
would be your aims in your objectives
and this is something that requires a
bit more detail there's another video
for that that you will find here on the
descriptions um but this is a really
important yeah so make sure that you
highlight your aim usually the the
actual sentence of your aim you can
write that in or you can mark it in
italics for example that has to be
really clear for the reader because also
one of the things I do when I'm
reviewing the work from students is one
of the very first things is I look what
did you say you were going to do and
what did you actually do so one of the
things that you one of the first things
I do is that really quickly I just go
into your the aims of the students what
did they say they were gonna do go to
the results really quickly what did they
say what did they actually do and see if
there's a matching between those two so
make sure that your aims and objectives
are really really clear and lastly the
final thing of this chapter is the
structure of your thesis and that's
where you tell the reader what the
reader will find in the following
chapters in your lecture review and your
methodology and your results and your
conclusion in your limitations and so on
so these are my tips the first thing is
contextualized tell the reader why your
work is important make sure to support
it with industry there are lots of
examples explain basic concepts in
relation to your context following that
to tell the reader what is your personal
motivation it's ok if you write it in
first-person at least for me then after
that you're gonna tell the reader about
your aims and your objectives and this
is a really important part because
that's the essence of what your work is
about
and finally the structure of your thesis
and just one final thing in relation to
the structure of their thesis usually I
tell my students leave that for the last
thing for you to write don't write it in
the beginning because if the structure
will change anyway
so leave it as one of the final things
for you to write about yeah so these
were my suggestions for you all of this
information don't forget there's a full
article that I wrote which is also in
the description of this video there's
also a PDF there that you can download
and take it with you these are my
suggestions yeah so every supervisor
they have different expectations so
don't forget to discuss all of these
things with your supervisor don't take
just my word and just one final thing
instead of liking subscribing all these
things that you know people on YouTube
ask you all the time instead of doing
that have a nice beer and listen to one
song from Bob Dylan code it's all right
ma I'm only bleeding
it's a great song by an absolute legend
so the absolute best my friend and take
care
