How to Write a Research Paper Introduction for Publication with my Published Introduction Example

Summary

This video script offers a step-by-step guide to writing compelling introductions for research articles. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the research story before writing and answering key questions such as the significance of the field, necessary background knowledge, the problem the paper addresses, previous research, and the paper's contributions. The speaker illustrates these points using their own published paper, highlighting the importance of clarity and coherence in engaging readers and guiding them through the research.

Takeaways

• 📝 Start by knowing your research story to write a cohesive introduction.
• 🔍 Explain why your field is important to set the stage for your paper's relevance.
• 📚 Provide necessary background knowledge for readers to understand your research context.
• 🧩 Connect the background information in a narrative to guide readers through your paper.
• 🚀 Identify the problem your paper solves to highlight its novelty and impact.
• 🔄 Discuss previous research to provide context and show how your study builds upon them.
• 📈 Conclude the introduction by outlining what you did in your paper and what readers will learn.
• 🌟 Use your introduction to guide readers from the importance of the field to the specifics of your research.
• 📈 The introduction should flow logically, starting with the field's importance, through background, to the problem and your approach.
• 📘 Tailor the introduction to your audience, focusing on what they need to know rather than what you know.

Q & A

What is the primary purpose of the video?

The video is focused on teaching how to write introductions for research articles, as part of a series on writing different sections of research papers.

Why is it important to know your research story before writing the introduction?

Understanding your research story helps ensure that the introduction is cohesive and effectively leads into the rest of the paper.

What is the first question you need to address in your research introduction?

The first question is 'Why is your field important?' This explains the broader significance of the research and encourages readers to engage with the paper.

How should you present background information in the introduction?

The background should provide essential context for the reader to understand the results. It should connect different sections of the paper and avoid unnecessary facts that aren’t relevant to the research.

What is the third question to answer in your introduction?

The third question is 'What problem is your paper solving?' This explains the novelty and impact of your research, showing why it is necessary.

Why is identifying the problem your paper solves important?

It quickly highlights the significance and novelty of your research, helping to convince readers and reviewers of its value.

How should you discuss previous research in your introduction?

You should summarize important papers that led to your study, providing context for your work without giving detailed reviews of every study.

What is the final part of the introduction meant to do?

The final part of the introduction should explain what your paper does and what the reader will learn from it, encouraging them to continue reading.

What example does the speaker provide from their own research paper?

The speaker uses their research on steroid analysis to show how they addressed each of the key questions in their introduction, including why the field is important and the specific problem their paper solves.

Why does the speaker emphasize not overloading the introduction with unnecessary information?

Including too much information can overwhelm the reader and detract from the clarity and focus of the introduction. It’s important to only include what the reader needs to understand the research.

Outlines

00:00

📝 Crafting the Perfect Introduction for Research Papers

This paragraph focuses on how to write an introduction for a research article. The speaker suggests starting by knowing your research story before writing the introduction, which helps in creating a cohesive introduction that leads into the research. The introduction should answer specific questions: why the field is important, providing the impact or significance of the field; what background knowledge the reader needs to understand the results, which is often presented in a textbook style but told as a story; and what problem the paper is solving, highlighting the novelty and impact of the research. The speaker also emphasizes not to include information just because the author knows it, but what the reader needs to know.

05:01

🔍 Demonstrating the Research Introduction Process

The speaker uses their own published research paper as an example to show where the answers to the key questions in an introduction are located. They explain the importance of steroids and steroid analysis in their field, providing a clear reason why their paper is significant. The background of the field is discussed, focusing on analytical chemistry and ion mobility. The paper's aim to solve a specific problem in steroid analysis is highlighted, emphasizing the novelty of the research. The speaker also discusses the literature review portion of the introduction, explaining how previous research led to their study, and concludes with a paragraph on what the reader can expect to learn from the paper, including the study's findings and the specific steroids studied.

10:03

🚀 Simplifying the Introduction Writing Process

The final paragraph emphasizes the simplicity of writing an introduction once the process is understood. The speaker shares a personal anecdote about the difficulty of writing their first introduction and how it took them eight hours to write a single paragraph that was later discarded. The paragraph concludes with a recommendation for the audience to download a scientific research paper checklist to help guide them through writing their papers. The speaker expresses hope that the video helps viewers write their introductions more easily and looks forward to the next video in the series.

Keywords

💡Research Article Introduction

The introduction of a research article serves as the starting point for presenting the importance, background, and scope of the research. In the video, the speaker explains how to craft an effective introduction by answering specific questions, such as the significance of the field, background knowledge, and the problem the paper addresses. It sets the stage for readers to understand why the paper is relevant and worth reading.

💡Research Story

A research story refers to the cohesive narrative that an author creates throughout their research paper. According to the speaker, knowing your research story before writing the introduction is crucial, as it helps structure the paper in a logical and coherent way. This ensures the introduction flows smoothly into the rest of the article and provides a clear direction for readers.

💡Importance of the Field

In a research paper, establishing the importance of the field is critical in grabbing the reader's attention and justifying the relevance of the research. The speaker emphasizes that the introduction should begin by explaining why the broader field is significant. For example, the speaker highlights the importance of steroid analysis in forensics, medical diagnostics, and sports performance testing as a way to underscore the relevance of their research.

💡Background Information

Background information provides readers with the necessary context to understand the research being presented. It typically includes facts and general knowledge about the major topics of the paper. The speaker advises presenting this information in a logical flow rather than just listing facts, ensuring it is relevant to the paper's goals. For instance, in the speaker’s example, they provide background on steroids and ion mobility to help the reader understand the context of the study.

💡Research Problem

The research problem is the specific issue or gap in knowledge that the research paper aims to address. In the video, the speaker states that identifying the problem early in the introduction shows the novelty and importance of the research. An example from the script involves the difficulty of analyzing steroids, which the speaker’s research seeks to solve by proposing a new method of analysis.

💡Novelty

Novelty refers to the unique contribution of a research paper to its field. The speaker highlights that demonstrating the novelty of the research is essential in convincing others of its value. By addressing a previously unsolved problem, such as developing faster and more efficient methods for analyzing steroids, the research adds new knowledge to the field, enhancing its chances of acceptance for publication.

💡Previous Research

Previous research refers to the existing studies that provide context for the current study. The speaker explains that a good introduction should summarize what has already been done in the field, helping readers understand the foundation of the research. The speaker discusses how they referenced key papers on ion mobility and analytical chemistry to show how their work builds upon and extends this existing knowledge.

💡Cohesion

Cohesion in a research paper refers to the smooth, logical flow of ideas from one section to another. The speaker stresses the importance of creating a cohesive introduction that leads naturally into the rest of the paper. This ensures that the reader can easily follow the progression from the field’s importance to the specific research problem being addressed. For example, the speaker explains how they structured their introduction to move seamlessly from the importance of steroid analysis to the challenges in existing methods.

💡Methodology Overview

In the introduction, an overview of the methodology briefly outlines the approach taken to address the research problem. The speaker suggests concluding the introduction with a summary of the study’s methodology and main findings to prepare the reader for the detailed discussion in the paper. For instance, the speaker mentions how their study used ion mobility techniques to analyze steroids, setting the stage for the results presented later.

💡Significance of Findings

The significance of findings refers to the value and impact of the research outcomes. The speaker recommends that the introduction should preview the key results of the study and explain their importance within the context of the field. By doing this, the introduction highlights how the research contributes to solving the identified problem. In the speaker’s case, their research showed significant findings in steroid separation and collision cross section values, which added to the existing knowledge in analytical chemistry.

Highlights

Today's focus is on writing introductions for research articles.

The importance of knowing your research story before writing the introduction.

The first question to answer in an introduction: Why is your field important?

The necessity to explain the impact of your field and why your paper should be read.

The second question: What background knowledge does the reader need?

The importance of providing a cohesive introduction that leads into the research.

The third question: What problem is your paper solving?

The need to demonstrate the novelty and impact of your research early in the introduction.

The fourth question: How have you and others researched this problem?

The importance of providing context for previous research in the field.

The final paragraph should explain what the reader will learn from the paper.

Guiding the reader from the importance of the field to the specific problem solved by the paper.

The author's personal experience with writing introductions and how it improved over time.

The author's first published paper example and how it addresses the importance of the field.

The background information provided in the introduction about steroids and ion mobility.

The explanation of the problem the paper aims to solve: difficulty in analyzing steroids.

The literature review section within the introduction and its role.

The final paragraph of the introduction and its purpose in summarizing the study's contributions.

The author's advice on making the introduction flow and the value of the scientific research paper checklist.

Transcripts

Hi, guys.

Today, we're going to be talking about

how to write your introductions

for your research articles.

So there's been kind of

a series going on where

I'm talking about

how to write different sections

of your research papers

or research articles

so you can check out that series above.

But today, we're going

to focus on your introduction.

Before I get started,

I wanted to let you know

that I am a scientific

research paper checklist

that's going to help walk you through

how to do every single part

of your scientific paper

to submit it to journals.

The first thing I would suggest,

whenever you're working on

your introduction

is to make sure that you know

your research story first

before you start writing

your introduction.

This helps you by letting you know

where your research paper is going to go,

which is going to

give you a much better chance

of actually writing

a really cohesive introduction

that will lead nicely into your research.

So for your research introductions,

you want to be able to answer

for specific questions.

The very first question

that you want to be able to answer is

why is your field important?

And so if you've seen other papers

that I've done on research

paper introductions,

pretty much the first thing

I'll ever tell you

is that the first thing you need to do

is tell someone why

they should read your paper.

And so the first part of that is

why even is your field

at large important?

Why should anyone care about it?

And why should they publish your paper

and or read your paper

once it's published?

And so you can do this really simply

by just saying either

the impact of your specific field

or what your specific field

is important for.

Once you've clarified

why your field is important,

you want to answer the second question,

which is,

what is the background of your field

or what background knowledge

does your reader need to know

to understand your results?

Generally, whenever

you're thinking about this,

think about the major topics

that your paper falls into

and then write the basic

background information

that someone would need to know

about those topics.

To understand what

you're doing in your paper

and why that's important

within the context of

your greater field at large,

this is usually going to be a little bit

more like a textbook style

writing where you're

basically giving them fact after fact.

But you want to try and

tell it within a story.

So you want to make sure

that you're leading them

from one section of your paper

to the next section.

And not just listing

one fact after another.

The other really important thing here

is to not just include something,

because you know it.

I think a lot of times

we go, OK, we know X, Y and Z.

And so we're just going to throw it in

and include all of this information.

But really, that's not the information

that your actual reader needs to know.

So you always want to be

watching yourself

every step through it and being like, OK,

is this really something

my reader needs to know

or is it just something that I know

and I feel like I want to share it?

Once you've answered

those two questions

within your research paper introduction.

The third question

you want to answer is

what problem is your paper solving?

And so this is specifically

telling the reader

why your specific paper

is important to read.

They need to know the problem

that it's going to solve

before they hear

how you solve that problem.

This very quickly will show anyone

the novelty of your paper,

because you're specifically identifying

why you need this research.

It immediately shows the impact

and the novelty,

which is going to make it so much easier

for it to get accepted

and generally easier

for someone who's reading it

to actually care about it

and cite it later on.

Different problems that you could be

solving is developing

a more advantageous method

or filling in the gap of knowledge.

So maybe we don't know

about a certain thing.

So you're going to tell us

that there's no papers

that have really studied X, Y and Z.

And so we set out to study that,

and that's what we're going

to do in this paper.

The fourth question

that you need to answer with

in your introduction

is how have you and others

researched this problem?

So once you know the problem

you're researching,

whether it's your

specific paper or in this sub

area of your field,

you want to give people the context

for what's been done before.

This is generally finding

those important papers

that led specifically

to your research

and giving us a little bit of information

about what those papers did

and what they found

so that we can then understand

why you're conducting this study.

And we can better understand

the results of what you found

and their context

within the greater scheme of

your field at large.

And then finally, end out

your introduction

with a paragraph explaining

what you did in your paper

and what they're going to be able

to learn and read

if they continue reading.

This is a good way to get people

who are reading your paper straight

through to keep wanting

to read your paper,

because you've guided them really nicely

from the importance of your field

through what they need to know

about your field

into the problem

that your specific paper is solving

and then the context

for how it's been looked at before

and how you're

specifically researching it.

So now I want to jump in to my own

published research paper,

and this is the same one

I've been going through

within this series.

But I want to jump through and show you

where these different answers

to these questions are located

within my own introduction.

So here is my first published paper.

And you can see the

first couple sentences here

that I have highlighted

are telling you why steroid and steroid

analysis is important.

And so I'm talking about the fact

that steroids have a specific role

in cellular signaling.

As I started to write more and more,

I started to refining

my first sentence more and more.

So more recently,

my sentences would say

something more like

steroid analysis

is important for forensics,

medical diagnosis

and sports performance testing

or something like that

, which makes it a little bit

more clear the importance of it.

But even back then,

I still started out

with the importance of my field at large.

And so and then I immediately jump

from steroids importance

into steroid analysis importance

and talk about how

they are potential biomarkers

for a variety of diseases

and their misuse to enhance performance.

So this entire first two sentences

is just me stating through

why steroids are important

as a molecular class

and then why steroid

analysis is important,

which is what I'm going to be

talking about in this paper.

So the next things I want to do

is go through the background. Right.

So what are the main topics

that I'm talking about in this paper?

The first one is steroids, obviously.

And then the second one

is their analysis. Right.

So so I'm going to be talking about

just general analytical chemistry,

but then I'm also going to dive deeper

into specifically ion mobility,

which is the type of analysis

that I'm using within this paper.

So in the next couple of sentences,

I'm kind of doing this out of order.

But in the next couple of sentences,

I'm actually talking about the problem

that this paper is going to solve.

So I'm talking about the difficulty

in analyzing steroids.

That's exactly what this research

was aiming to solve.

How can we create a better way

to analyze steroids

that is faster and can separate out

these isomers really well,

but very quickly as well?

So that's what this whole

section is all about, is

what are the problems

with the current methods?

And then I'm going to talk

about this new method

that we're going to look into

and see if it's actually a good way

to be able to separate out steroids.

The next section

that's highlighted in

Green is all about talking you through

what ion mobility is.

So now we're going back into that

background information.

This was specifically sent

to a mass spectrometry journal.

I didn't dive as deep into steroids

because who I'm submitting

this paper to isn't as focused

on steroids as they are

focused on the analytical challenges.

So that's why I'm talking

about the importance of steroids.

But I don't actually give

a really long history

because my readers aren't

going to care as much

about steroids specifically.

They're going to care more

about the analytical challenges

that I'm talking about.

So you can see here,

this is my background information

that I'm talking about ion mobility.

So I'm talking to them

about different types of ion mobility

and what ion mobility does.

So now that we've hit

the importance of my field,

the problem that my paper

is going to solve,

and the background information.

The next thing I need to talk about

is how am I and others

researching this problem?

So this is going to go into kind of

your literature review section

of your introduction,

where you're basically going

to walk through the major

things that other people have done

to move this research along.

So this next section is, again,

talking about the different literature.

So really what I'm doing

is specifically saying

what each paper is given to the field.

I'm covering multiple

different papers

within this one paragraph,

because this is an introduction

and not a lit review.

I don't mean to tell you

everything that paper did.

I just need to tell you

what that gave to the field

that led to this paper being done.

The next section is really a mix

of background information

coupled with the

how people have done this before.

So i've made it yellow

because the green is the background

information section and the red is the

how people have researched this before.

So I'm specifically

coupling and background

information about this parameter

called collision cross sections,

which is a big part

of this paper, and studying

steroid collision cross sections.

So I'm giving them a bit of background

so that they can

then understand the context.

So the different people

who have studied this

and what they have found related to it.

So that's what's going on

in this paragraph.

And then, of course,

my final paragraph is talking about

what am I doing in this study?

So I talk about how

this study is furthering

this body of work.

That's a good way

to preface that paragraph,

is basically saying

how your study is

contributing, increasing, furthering

whatever kind of action verb

you want to use there,

but basically showing

how your study is actually enhancing

the previous work you're talking about,

which is the entire reason

why you've included that previous work

within your introduction

and then giving a

little bit of information

about what they're going to see

within this study .

So I basically talk about my two

major findings that

we were able to separate out

some steroids using metal adduction,

and then we found really good agreement

with collission cross section values

that have been previously reported.

Those are the two main conclusions

that came from this paper.

And so that's what

I'm including in here

as a part of this study.

I'm also telling them

about the specific steroids

I'm looking at.

And I have a figure here

that goes along with it

that you can see in the right hand panel.

And so that is essentially

how you would write any introduction.

If it seems like

it seems pretty easy or simple, it's

because it actually is.

And it probably has always

seemed so difficult

because you've never

quite known how to do it.

In my case, when I first started

writing introductions

for the very first paper,

I wrote not even my

first published paper,

I didn't know what I was doing.

And I remember sitting at a Starbucks

for over eight hours

trying to write an introduction,

going and analyzing

previous papers

and just trying to figure out

what I should say .

And after that eight hours,

I only ended up writing one paragraph.

And even that paragraph I deleted later.

If you feel like writing introductions

are really hard, it's really

because you don't know

what you're doing, which is fine.

A lot of us don't whenever

our first starting research.

And so hopefully this method

is going to make it a lot easier for you

to write your introductions

and seeing how you can

actually make it flow.

If you're working on your paper

and you want a little bit

more step by step

or even this information

in written form,

download my scientific research

paper checklist.

It's going to help you

walk through all of these things

to be able to make it a little bit easier

for you to actually write up your papers

all the way through and submit

and publish them.

I hope this helped you,

and I look forward to seeing

you in the next video.