Many authors give advice to students about how to write the Introduction section of their articles. Some give examples of different ways of doing this in general, and a few discuss the opening sentence in particular. In this article, 13 different types of opening sentences are outlined, and their usage contrasted in British and American journals in the Sciences and Social Sciences. Implications for teaching are considered.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BeinsB. C. and BeinsA. M., Effective Writing in Psychology, Blackwell Publishing, Malden, Massachusetts, 2008.
2.
KendallP. C.SilkJ. S., and ChuB. C., Introducing Your Research Report: Writing the Introduction, in Guide to Publishing in Psychology Journals, SternbergR. J. (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, pp. 41–57, 2000.
3.
SwalesJ. M. and FeakC. B., Academic Writing for Graduate Students (2nd Edition), University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2004.
4.
HartleyJ., There's More to the Title than Meets the Eye: Exploring the Possibilities, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 37, pp. 95–101, 2007.
5.
HartleyJ., Academic Writing and Publishing: A Practical Handbook. Routledge, Abingdon, United Kingdom, 2008.
6.
HartleyJ., Planning That Title: Practices and Preferences for Titles with Colons in Academic Articles, Library & Information Science Research, 29: 4, 553–568, 2007.
7.
HartleyJ. and BettsL., The Effects of Spacing and Titles in Judgements of the Effectiveness of Structured Abstracts, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58: 14, 2335–2340, 2007.
8.
HartleyJ., Reading and Writing Book Reviews Across the Disciplines. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 57: 9, 1194–1207, 2006.
9.
HartleyJ., Designing Instructional and Informational text, in Handbook of Research in Educational Communications and Technology (2nd Edition), JonassenD. H. (ed.), Erlbaum, Mahwah, New Jersey, pp. 917–947, 2004.
10.
HartleyJ.SottoE., and FoxC., Clarity Across the Disciplines: An Analysis of Texts in the Sciences, Social Sciences, and Arts and Humanities, Science Communication, 26: 2, 188–210, 2004.
11.
HartleyJ.PennebakerJ. W., and FoxC., Abstracts, Introductions and Discussions: How Far Do They Differ in Style?Scientometrics, 57: 3, pp. 389–398, 2003.
12.
HartleyJ.SottoE., and PennebakerJ. W., Style and Substance in Psychology: Are Influential Articles More Readable Than Less Influential Ones?Social Studies of Science, 32: 2, pp. 321–334, 2002.
