In an essay, article, or book, an introduction (also known as a prolegomenon) is a beginning section which states the purpose and goals of the following writing. This is generally followed by the body and conclusion.
In an essay, article, or book, an introduction (also known as a prolegomenon) is a beginning section which states the purpose and goals of the following writing. This is generally followed by the body and conclusion.
The introduction typically describes the scope of the document and gives a brief explanation or a summary of the document. It may also explain certain elements that are important to the document. The readers can thus have an idea about the following text before they actually start reading it.
The University of Toronto provides advice about how to write essays: [1]
A good introduction should identify your topic, provide essential context, and indicate your particular focus in the essay. It also needs to engage your readers’ interest.
Some authors write their introduction first, while others prefer to leave it for a later stage in the writing process; another option is to start with a rough draft introduction, and then come back to finish it after the body text is done. [1]
In a book of technical writing, the introduction may include one or more standard subsections: abstract or summary, preface, acknowledgments, and foreword. Alternatively, the section labeled introduction itself may be a brief section found along with abstract, foreword, etc. (rather than containing them). In this case, the set of sections that come before the body of the book is known as the front matter. When the book is divided into numbered chapters, by convention the introduction and any other front-matter sections are unnumbered and precede chapter 1.
While keeping the general concept of the introduction the same, different documents have different styles to introduce the written text. For example, the introduction of a Functional Specification consists of information that the whole document is yet to explain. If a Userguide is written, the introduction is about the product. In a report, the introduction gives a summary of the report's contents.
Not all introductions include summaries. For example, the American Journal of Physics (AJP) specifically advises authors that an introduction “need not summarize”. Instead, the introduction can provide “background and context”, and/or indicate “purpose and importance”, and/or describe the raison d'être for an article (i.e. motivation) in a way that is “informative and inviting”. But the introduction need not summarize or even state the main points of the rest of an article. [2] In contrast to the introduction, the abstract should do the job of summarizing an article, according to AJP. [2]
It is not difficult to find other examples of journals that do recommend for introductions to include summaries. Consider the journal Biochemistry , whose editors write the following (emphasis added): [3]
The Introduction should state the motivation for the investigation and its relationship to other work in the field. Extensive reviews of the literature should be avoided. The last paragraph of the introduction should summarize the major findings, conclusions, and significance of the work, without reproducing the abstract.
So practice varies from journal to journal, as to whether introductions should include summaries.
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal and informal: formal essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the informal essay is characterized by "the personal element, humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc.
DocBook is a semantic markup language for technical documentation. It was originally intended for writing technical documents related to computer hardware and software, but it can be used for any other sort of documentation.
News style, journalistic style, or news-writing style is the prose style used for news reporting in media such as newspapers, radio and television.
A table of contents, usually headed simply Contents and abbreviated informally as TOC, is a list, usually found on a page before the start of a written work, of its chapter or section titles or brief descriptions with their commencing page numbers.
Scientific literature comprises academic papers that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within a field of research, relevant papers are often referred to as "the literature". Academic publishing is the process of contributing the results of one's research into the literature, which often requires a peer-review process.
In scientific writing, IMRAD or IMRaD is a common organizational structure. IMRaD is the most prominent norm for the structure of a scientific journal article of the original research type.
An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding, or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose. When used, an abstract always appears at the beginning of a manuscript or typescript, acting as the point-of-entry for any given academic paper or patent application. Abstracting and indexing services for various academic disciplines are aimed at compiling a body of literature for that particular subject.
Automatic summarization is the process of shortening a set of data computationally, to create a subset that represents the most important or relevant information within the original content. Artificial intelligence algorithms are commonly developed and employed to achieve this, specialized for different types of data.
An outline, also called a hierarchical outline, is a list arranged to show hierarchical relationships and is a type of tree structure. An outline is used to present the main points or topics (terms) of a given subject. Each item in an outline may be divided into additional sub-items. If an organizational level in an outline is to be sub-divided, it shall have at least two subcategories, although one subcategory is acceptable on the third and fourth levels, as advised by major style manuals in current use. An outline may be used as a drafting tool of a document, or as a summary of the content of a document or of the knowledge in an entire field. It is not to be confused with the general context of the term "outline", which a summary or overview of a subject, presented verbally or written in prose. The outlines described in this article are lists, and come in several varieties.
Technical communication is communication of technical subject matter such as engineering, science, or technology content. The largest part of it tends to be technical writing, though importantly it often requires aspects of visual communication. Technical communication also encompasses oral delivery modes such as presentations involving technical material. When technical communication occurs in workplace settings, it's considered a major branch of professional communication. In research or R&D contexts, it can overlap with scientific writing.
A preface or proem is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a foreword and precedes an author's preface. The preface often closes with acknowledgments of those who assisted in the literary work.
An annotated bibliography is a bibliography that gives a summary of each of the entries. The purpose of annotations is to provide the reader with a summary and an evaluation of each source. Each summary should be a concise exposition of the source's central idea(s) and give the reader a general idea of the source's content.
A report is a document that presents information in an organized format for a specific audience and purpose. Although summaries of reports may be delivered orally, complete reports are almost always in the form of written documents.
The five-paragraph essay is a format of essay having five paragraphs: one introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs with support and development, and one concluding paragraph. Because of this structure, it is also known as a hamburger essay, one three one, or a three-tier essay.
A lead paragraph is the opening paragraph of an article, book chapter, or other written work that summarizes its main ideas. Styles vary widely among the different types and genres of publications, from journalistic news-style leads to a more encyclopaedic variety.
A review article is an article that summarizes the current state of understanding on a topic within a certain discipline. A review article is generally considered a secondary source since it may analyze and discuss the method and conclusions in previously published studies. It resembles a survey article or, in news publishing, overview article, which also surveys and summarizes previously published primary and secondary sources, instead of reporting new facts and results. Survey articles are however considered tertiary sources, since they do not provide additional analysis and synthesis of new conclusions. A review of such sources is often referred to as a tertiary review.
BLUF is the practice of beginning a message with its key information. This provides the reader with the most important information first. By extension, that information is also called a BLUF. It differs from an abstract or executive summary in that it is simpler and more concise, similar to a thesis statement, and it resembles the inverted pyramid practice in journalism.
An executive summary is a short document or section of a document produced for business purposes. It summarizes a longer report or proposal or a group of related reports in such a way that readers can rapidly become acquainted with a large body of material without having to read it all. It usually contains a brief statement of the problem or proposal covered in the major document(s), background information, concise analysis and main conclusions. It is intended as an aid to decision-making by managers and has been described as the most important part of a business plan.
The Jane Schaffer method is a formula for essay writing that is taught in some U.S. middle schools and high schools. Developed by a San Diego teacher named Jane Schaffer, who started offering training and a 45-day curriculum in 1995, it is intended to help students who struggle with structuring essays by providing a framework. Originally developed for personal narratives and essays about literature, the curriculum now also covers expository and argument essays.
A critical précis is an expository style of writing, analogous in structure to an essay but which contains a summary of another piece of text. In essence, the entire content summarizes all the main ideas, arguments and abstractions within the text into a shorter passage a fraction of its original length, in order to provide insight into the original author's thesis. The writer of the précis is careful to avoid copying any direct wording from the original text in order to avoid academic plagiarism, except in short passage quotations where necessary.