Hello, in this talk we're going to be
thinking about introductions and
conclusions, how do we go about writing
these things? What are they for? Let's
start with introductions, so the purpose
of an introduction is to set your reader
at ease and to let them know the
direction that your argument's going to
be headed in, basically. By the end of the
introduction they should know a little
bit about the topic with a background
just to so they can get their bearings,
they should know the direction of your
argument and be clear on how you're
interpreting the question, in other words
they should be at ease with the topic
and fully aware of where you're going
with your overall argument. So let's
break that down.
Typically an introduction will open with
a few lines of background, it's always
worth assuming when you write an essay
that you're writing it for a non
specialist, so you should imagine a
bright person with a good general
knowledge but perhaps lacking subject
knowledge in your particular area. Then
what you might do is you might start to
define the parameters of the question
and to explain or define any key
terminology in the question, so let's say
for example a question's being set and
the question is "Civil wars are always
more violent than revolutions. Discuss."
In a sense the question is broadly
comprehensible, you can see where it's
going and yet it should be fairly clear
right from the off that there are
problems with the question, too. One of the
problems is, well, what's the difference
between a civil war and a revolution? And so, in order to answer the question,
you're going to need to have some very
clear definitions for what these terms
mean, what do you think is the difference?
Is there a difference? And so start that
question off – to make the question
workable you're going to have to be able
to explain in the introduction, "Well, a
civil war is this and a revolution
is actually different, it's this", if
you perceive a difference. So that's
that's a very important first step,
otherwise the question is just not going
to make any sense, or your answer to it is
not going to make any sense. Another
thing you might need to do is to define
the parameters of the question: let's say
this is a two-thousand-word essay, you can't cover every civil
war and every revolution taking place
anywhere in the world any time ever. So
it would be a good idea to flag
up to your reader, "Okay I'm going to
answer this question, with reference to
the revolutions taking place in Western
Europe between, let's say, the 18th and
19th century", and that way your setting
parameters for the question,
making it clear where your zone of study
is, you can't be expected to do
everything and so you're showing the
sort of timezone and geographical
area in which you're going to be
handling the question, and that way the
reader knows where you're going, they can
see the direction you're headed in, it's
not going to come as a surprise when you
set off on that route. Another crucial
point to the introduction is to signpost
the direction of your answer, so you
might typically say, "To answer
this question the following themes or
following ideas will be considered." You
don't have to give your answer at this
stage where your overall conclusion
will be, but, it is worth signposting the
key debates, the key themes that you'll
be touching on as you go through your
debate and that way your reader can see
when these things pop up in the main
paragraphs, "oh yes I knew that was coming
because I saw it in the introduction" and
so by the end of the introduction they
should be able to say, "yes I can see
where this essay is headed, yes I can see
how they're answering the question, yes I
feel comfortable with the background to
this particular question, and yes I can
see the main factors that are going to
be addressed."
I hope this helps, thank you very much.
