How to Write An Introduction for An Academic Paper Text

The introduction is your chance to make it clear why your paper is important. I find wendy belchers advice on writing introductions to be quite useful, and provide my own, slightly modified, version of it in this post. An introduction to an academic paper needs to accomplish five things:

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Define your terms

its a lot to do in two to four paragraphs, but a quick perusal through journal articles will make it clear that it is feasible. My two favorite ways of beginning academic articles are with anecdotes or shocking statistics. Department of homeland security dhs deported 387,242 peoplethirteen times as many as in 1991. Alternatively, i could start the paper with leroy moved with his parents to the united states as a legal permanent resident in 1978 when he was seven years old.

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Another effective opening involves beginning with an argumentative statement such as the deportation of the adopted children of u.s. Citizens represents one of the most egregious violations of human rights in contemporary america. Alternatively, you can go straight to theory: scholars of transnationalism focus on the diminishing meaning of national borders. Finally, you can start with a question such as: once forcibly returned to their countries of birth, why and how do deportees participate in transnational relationships? there are many ways to draw the reader in. If you are having trouble figuring out how to begin your article, consider trying each of these approaches and seeing which one you find most effective. One of my favorite definitions for what constitutes an argument comes from wendy belcher.

Who writes: an argument is a statement to which you can coherently respond i agree or i disagree. In my article on jamaican deportees, my argument is as follows: jamaican deportees use transnational ties as coping strategies, and face a gendered stigma because of this. In contrast, it would not be a viable for me to state i contend that jamaican deportees are people forcibly returned to their countries of birth. Scholarly writing is not just about making a good argument you also must make it clear how you are contributing to scholarly knowledge. Even if it is true that most americans think that undocumented workers dont pay taxes, you cant publish an academic article solely on the basis that it demonstrates that undocumented workers do pay taxes, because specialists in this field already know this.

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Your research must contribute to current literature in your field, and your introduction has to make it clear what your contribution is. In my article on deportees, then, in addition to arguing that jamaican deportees use transnational ties as coping strategies, and that they face a gendered stigma because of this, i had to explain how this contributes to the literature in this subfield. I accomplished this by pointing out that although transnationalism has been studied extensively, we know relatively little about 1 why migrants choose to participate in transnational practices 2 how the uniquely stressful experience of deportation might affect these practices and 3 how gender affects reliance on transnational affective ties. Because my research is qualitative, i had to be sure that the kinds of contributions i was planning to make were congruent with the sorts of questions i could ask as a qualitative researcher. At some point in your introduction, it is crucial to point out the basis on which you are making your claims.

For social scientists, this generally means your data, whether you completed statistical analysis of a national data set, qualitative interviews, ethnography, content analysis, or comparative historical work. You do not need to go into detail with regard to your methodology that goes in the methods section. However, you should state the basis of your expertise at some point in your introduction.

For folks in the humanities, make some mention of the texts, documents, music, or other media you have analyzed to show readers the basis upon which you are making your arguments. Your article likely deals with concepts with which the general public might not be familiar. In my paper on the transnational ties of jamaican deportees, for example, it seemed pertinent to define both deportation and transnationalism. As i was writing this blog post, i edited my introduction on the paper i am currently editing to ensure that i followed my own advice. I paste it below, not as an example of an ideal introduction, but as a demonstration of my attempt to follow my own advice. Here it is: title: forced transnationalism: transnational coping strategies and gendered stigma among jamaican deportees in 2010, the u.s. Deportation is the forced removal of a non citizen from a host country to ones country of citizenship, a form of state sponsored forced migration.

The high and increasing rate of deportation has important consequences for the study of migration however, deportation has yet to receive the attention of migration scholars. With more than one thousand people deported every day from the united states, it is safe to say we are in an era of mass deportation. How do deportees fit into our understanding of migration? what sorts of ties do people legally barred from traveling to the united states maintain with that country? this article addresses these questions by asking how and why jamaican deportees maintain transnational ties. The question of why people engage in transnational exchanges is important because not all migrants participate in these exchanges.

Transnational migrants are a subset of international migrants who retain significant ties to their country of origin while settling into the host country parreñas 2010 wiles 2008. Guarnizo, portes and haller 2003 , for example, found that only 10 to 15 percent of the salvadoran and dominican migrants in their survey regularly participated in transnational exchanges. The relative rarity of habitual transnationalism raises the question of why only some migrants use transnational strategies.

Transnational practices refer to cross border activities, and include activities that literally and symbolically cross national borders, meaning that migrants need not travel to participate in these practices de bree, davids, and de haas 2010. This is pertinent for deportees, whose international travel is often greatly restricted. Analyses of the cross border engagements of jamaican deportees shed light on how the forced, shameful, and physically and emotionally stressful experience of deportation affects how and why deportees participate in transnational practices. My analyses of 37 interviews with jamaican deportees render it evident that deportees use transnational practices as coping strategies to deal with financial and emotional hardship.

This argument builds on research about the transnational material and affective ties of voluntary labor migrants. Other scholars have found that transnational ties provide female migrants with social connections and support networks domínguez and lubitow 2008 , emotional support viruell fuentes 2006 , and affective connections burman 2002. Although the deportees i studied were primarily male not female, i found they also relied heavily on transnational material and affective ties. Scholars have found that return migrants use transnational strategies to gain social status goldring 1998 and to create a sense of belonging upon return home de bree, davids, and de haas 2010.