Practice Makes Perfect: The Fine Art of Writing IntroductionS

 

The following analysis of the introduction of the paper presentation A small-scale study of primary school English language teachers' classroom activities and problems. (Arikan, 2011) will be carried out under the light of Swales’ (1990) book: Genre analysis: English in academic; Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills (Swales & Feak, 2014) and following APA guidelines.

 

One of the most important features of research papers is the title. It works as a hook for the reader hence it should be appealing and attention-drawing. For this article, the author chose an attractive title which does not follow APA format completely (i.e., it is centred but it is not well capitalized). As regards in-text citations, some are included although all of them are narrative as in the case of “Er (2007)” (Arikan, 2011, p.2). For the sake of variety, the author could have chosen different in-text citations so as to interest the reader. Possible citations are: narrative, parenthetical and block quotations. The spelling is correct, there is enough variety of sentence patterns and paragraph length is relatively similar making the introduction visually balanced.  Organisation wise, most of the author’s ideas appear vague and unrelated. Maybe, a more thorough literature review together with more relevant details could have aided in organization which would have resulted in better message conveying. Therefore, making the purpose of the study completely clear.

 

The introduction aims at providing a rationale for the article and justifying the reasons for the study (Swales & Feak, 2014). Due to the fact that research has become an increasingly competitive discipline, introductions are also written to capture prospective readers’ attention. Swales (1990) devised a framework for standardized, competitive and functional introductions called Create A Research Space (CARS) which is composed of three distinctive moves. Move one establishes the territory, move two indicates a gap and creates a niche which will be then occupied by the current study.

In the case of Arikan’s (2011) introduction, the three moves can be appreciated though there is a constant shift between move one and two which distracts the reader. For example, in paragraph one the author provides background knowledge and begins with the literature review. In paragraph two, the author establishes the niche by indicating the gap in current knowledge (move 2) but then resumes the literature review (move 1). Move three is clearly defined in the third paragraph and provides the following purpose statement: “much research is needed [...] so that the quality of teaching increases as expected and planned” (Arikan, 2011, introduction para. 3) together with a list of research questions to be addressed during the study. 

 

It would have been better for the writer to respect moves chronologically to aid comprehension and ease reading. Another important mistake made in the introduction under analysis is that the rationale for the study is not clear even though a purpose statement was included. All in all, there is not enough evidence of the impact that the study may have on the issue being addressed nor enough information on the topic. This could have been avoided by means of clarifying the purpose of the study and selecting relevant literature review.

 

References

American Psychological Association. (2019). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).  American Psychological Association.

Arikan, A. (2011, April 27-29). A small-scale study of primary school English language teachers' classroom activities and problems. [Paper presentation]. 2nd International Conference on New Trends in Education and their Implications. Antalya, Turkey. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED519176.pdf

Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge University Press.

Swales, J.M. & Feak, C.B. (2012). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills (3rd ed.). The University of Michigan Press.