#163 - The 7 moves of an introduction that gets published

Free LinkedIn Live: Methodology Made Simple - 27th August

Before we start, one thing.

Nobody teaches you methodology. Then they fail you for getting it wrong.

So on Thursday 27 August I am running a free LinkedIn Live: Methodology Made Simple. Thirty five minutes on choosing a method, justifying it, and the alignment we look for as examiners. Then your questions, live.

27 August, 17:00 BST. Set a reminder here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7494712916366180352

Bring the question you are stuck on.

A quick word from this week's sponsor.

Writing an introduction means saying exactly what has not been done, in language precise enough that a reviewer cannot argue with it. That is hard in your first language and harder in your second.

Paperpal is an academic editing tool for that job. It checks language, tone and structure against how academic writing actually reads, rather than how general writing tools think it should.

It will not find your research gap for you. Nothing will. But it will stop the sentence carrying that gap from being the reason a reviewer stops trusting you.

Have a look here.

For years I wrote introductions for myself.

I opened with what I had done, and then I spent the rest of the page explaining why it mattered. It felt logical at the time, and it was completely backwards.

Now I sit on the other side of it, reading introductions as a reviewer and as an examiner.

I can usually tell by the end of the first paragraph whether the work is going to get through.

It is rarely the research that fails, but I find it is the first page failing to make anyone care.