How to Write an Introduction for a Research Paper

A research paper introduction has one job: to convince the reader that your question is worth asking and that your paper is a sensible way to answer it. To do that, it needs to include five things:

• Context: the topic and why it matters.
• What is known: a brief account of the relevant research, with citations.
• The gap or problem: what that research has not resolved.
• Your aim: the research question, hypothesis or thesis.
• Your approach and contribution: how you address the gap and, optionally, how the paper is organized.

It should not include detailed results, a full literature review (unless your field merges the two), long definitions of common terms or a list of everything you will cover. The introduction is an argument for the paper, not a summary of it.

Because the introduction depends on knowing what the paper delivers, many writers draft it after the methods and results. Sketch a rough version early to orient yourself, then rewrite it once the rest of the paper is stable. For where the introduction sits in the full process, see how to write a research paper.

Writing researchers who study academic genres have long observed that introductions across fields follow a predictable sequence of rhetorical "moves." The best known description is John Swales's Create a Research Space (CARS) model. The five-move version below adapts that idea into a practical drafting template.

Moves 1 to 3 are sometimes repeated in a cycle when there are several strands of literature, but the overall direction is always the same: from broad context to your specific contribution. That funnel shape is what makes an introduction feel purposeful.

Move 1: Establish the territory

Open with a specific, defensible statement about your topic. Name the actual subject in the first sentence. A concrete fact, a real-world problem or a precise statement of a debate works better than a generalization about society or history.

Move 2: Summarize what is known

Synthesize, do not list. Group studies by finding or position and cite several sources for a well-established point. Keep this tight: in a paper with a separate literature review, the introduction gives only the essentials needed to see the gap.

Move 3: Identify the gap

This is the hinge of the introduction. Common gap types include an unstudied population or setting, conflicting findings, a methodological weakness in prior work, a theory that has not been tested, or an interpretation that overlooks important evidence. State the gap precisely. "More research is needed" is not a gap; "no study has followed participants beyond six months" is.

Move 4: State the aim

Give your research question, hypothesis or thesis in one or two sentences that directly answer the gap. In argumentative papers this is your thesis statement, and it usually appears near the end of the introduction.

Move 5: Outline your approach and contribution

Briefly say how you investigated the question and why the answer matters. A roadmap sentence ("Section 2 describes...") is common in longer papers and in fields such as economics and engineering, and often unnecessary in short IMRaD papers where the structure is standard.

The first sentence sets expectations for the whole paper, so it should be specific to your topic. Compare these openings for a paper on hospital nurse scheduling:

Rhetorical questions, dramatic anecdotes and quotations can work in some humanities writing, but in most academic fields a clear statement of the issue is the safest and strongest start.

The examples below are original and written for this guide. Bracketed citations such as [Author, Year] stand in for the real references you would cite. Move labels are added in bold.

[Move 1] Urban green roofs are increasingly promoted as habitat for wild bees, which have declined in many agricultural landscapes. [Move 2] Surveys of green roofs have recorded diverse bee communities [Author, Year; Author, Year], and roofs planted with flowering species attract more visits than those planted with sedum alone [Author, Year]. [Move 3] However, most surveys count bees during a single season and on roofs of similar height, so it remains unclear whether roof height limits which species reach these habitats over time. [Move 4] This study asks whether bee species richness declines with roof height and whether the effect differs between large-bodied and small-bodied species. [Move 5] We sampled bees on 24 roofs ranging from 3 to 40 meters high across two flowering seasons. The results can inform where cities place green roofs intended to support pollinators.

Why it works

• The first sentence names the exact topic and its relevance.
• Move 2 groups prior studies by finding instead of listing them one by one.
• The gap is precise: single seasons and similar heights, which points directly to the design.
• The aim has two parts, which sets up a clear structure for the results.
• Move 5 gives just enough method to show feasibility and ends with a practical contribution.

[Move 1] Since 2020, a large share of office-based employers have adopted hybrid schedules that split the work week between home and office. [Move 2] Research on hybrid work has focused mainly on productivity and job satisfaction, generally finding neutral to positive effects for employees who choose their own office days [Author, Year; Author, Year]. Studies of informal learning, by contrast, suggest that newer employees benefit from unplanned contact with experienced colleagues [Author, Year]. [Move 3] These literatures have rarely been connected, and we know little about how hybrid schedules affect the informal learning of employees in their first year on the job. [Move 4] This article examines how first-year employees in hybrid teams obtain the tacit knowledge they need, and how team scheduling practices shape that process. [Move 5] Drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews with new hires and their managers in four organizations, we identify three scheduling practices associated with stronger informal learning. The findings extend theories of workplace learning to hybrid settings and offer guidance for managers designing team schedules.

Why it works

• Move 2 introduces two separate bodies of research, which makes the gap in Move 3 (they have not been connected) convincing.
• The aim is phrased as "how" questions, matching a qualitative interview design.
• Move 5 states both a theoretical and a practical contribution, which reviewers in the social sciences expect.
• Specific claims are cited; the general context sentence is framed cautiously ("a large share") rather than with an unsupported figure.

[Move 1] Letters written by emigrants to family members at home are among the richest sources for the history of nineteenth-century migration. [Move 2] Historians have used these letters chiefly as evidence of economic motives, reading their reports of wages and land prices as explanations for why others followed [Author, Year; Author, Year]. [Move 3] This approach treats the letters as transparent records and overlooks how writers shaped their accounts for particular readers, often exaggerating success to justify the decision to leave. [Move 4] I argue that emigrant letters should be read as performances of respectability addressed to home communities, and that their economic claims are best understood as part of that performance. [Move 5] Through a close reading of a family correspondence spanning three decades, this essay traces how the writers' descriptions of prosperity changed as their audience changed, and it proposes a method for reading such letters that attends to audience and genre.

Why it works

• The gap is interpretive rather than empirical: prior work reads the sources in a limited way.
• Move 4 is a contestable thesis in the first person, which is standard in many humanities fields.
• Move 5 describes the evidence and the method (close reading) and claims a broader methodological contribution.

Across all three examples, notice that the introduction is a single, tightly argued unit of 150 to 200 words. Longer papers expand Move 2 and sometimes add a paragraph on definitions or context, but the sequence stays the same.

A thesis or dissertation introduction uses the same moves, expanded into a full chapter. Where a journal article might give each move a sentence or two, a thesis introduction gives each a section. A typical outline for an introductory chapter looks like this:

1. Background and context (Move 1): the field, the problem and why it matters now.
2. Brief review of key literature (Move 2): enough to frame the problem; the full review comes in its own chapter.
3. Problem statement (Move 3): a precise account of the gap.
4. Aims, research questions or hypotheses (Move 4).
5. Approach, significance and scope (Move 5): an overview of the design, the expected contribution and what the study does not cover.
6. Thesis structure: a short paragraph summarizing each chapter.

A sample introduction for a thesis therefore reads less like one funnel and more like a series of short funnels, each section moving from context to the point it needs to make. Check your department's handbook, because some programs require named subsections such as "Significance of the study" or "Definition of terms." Our guide on how to write a thesis covers the other chapters.

There is no fixed rule, but a common guideline is that the introduction takes up roughly 10 percent of the paper. In practice that means:

If your introduction runs much longer than this, you are probably including literature review or methods detail that belongs elsewhere. If it is much shorter, check that the gap is actually stated, since that is the move most often skipped.

The problems we see most often when editing introductions are predictable and fixable:

• A missing or vague gap. The reader learns the topic and the aim but never why the study is needed.
• A literature list. Paragraphs that summarize one study per sentence instead of synthesizing.
• An aim that does not match the gap. The gap concerns long-term effects, but the study measures short-term ones.
• Results in the introduction. Most fields keep findings for the results and discussion; a one-sentence preview is acceptable in some, such as economics.
• Overclaiming. Words such as "prove" or "first ever" invite skepticism unless you can fully support them.

Checklist

1. Does the first sentence name the specific topic?
2. Are claims about prior research cited?
3. Is the gap stated in one clear sentence?
4. Does the research question, hypothesis or thesis directly respond to that gap?
5. Does the reader know how you approached the question and why it matters?
6. Do the aims match what the methods and results actually deliver?

If you want a second reader for structure and clarity while you keep full authorship, an editor can review the introduction against these moves; see our academic editing service.