A good introductory section usually answers three questions:
* How did you become interested in the topic?
- tell a story. What happened in your life that made you want to investigate abandoned houses and their effect on a neighborhood? What made you interested in school violence? Self Mutilation? Pull your reader in by making it relevant.
* What do you know about the topic already? What do you assume?
* What is the specific question you will be trying to answer?
The most successful introductory sections will devote one or more paragraphs to the first question, one or more paragraphs to the second section, and get to the research question in the last paragraph.
Here's an introduction from one of my former student's papers, titled "What Drives Teens to Self Mutilate?":
When I Began to Wonder…
I first heard about self-mutilation as a sophomore attending high school when my friend showed me her arm and it had cuts going across it. She asked me not to say anything and I promised her Iwouldn ’t, but I felt a little bit uncomfortable asking her why she did it. I barely knew anything about it or why someone would consider hurting themselves. When I questioned others on this topic, they starred at me with weird expressions on their face, shook their heads, and walked away. I was left standing stunned and confused. I yearned to find out why someone may do it and most importantly what drove him or her to do it. When I finally grew strength to ask my friend why she did it, she told me she was having problems at home and it helped her cope with her problems on the inside and said “I did it with a razor.”
This completely drew me into the subject. I have heard about it before and ways of doing it. Some ways that I heard of self-mutilating were cutting with anything and everything, scraping or peeling skin, burning yourself, banging your head on a wall, constantly picking at scabs so they never heal, sitting in hot boiling water to savor the pain, or bruising themselves continuously. Ididn ’t know if this was a cry for attention or maybe if the person performing these acts on themselves was seeking death. Over the past two years, I have started developing my own ideas on self-mutilation. I would have never thought that I would know someone who self-mutilates.
I began to think of reasons that someone may do this, but a lot of it didn’t make sense because there are so many alternative ways in coping with your problems. I figured if you had a problem that you should speak about them with someone you trust, keep a journal, get a hobby to keep yourself busy, or read a book and listen to some music. You could also always talk to your parents and admit that you have a problem and see if they would take you to acounselor to teach you a better and safe coping method. I suppose some people were never taught how to control their emotions and believed that hurting themselves was their only way out. Arguing with a boyfriend or girlfriend may cause you to want to hurt yourself because you may feel that you’re worthless and unwanted. Fighting with family members and being put down at school on a regular basis will also cause a person to feel like nothing, having no friends, and take their anger out on themselves.
I was never aware of any signs of self-mutilation. I never knew if there were phrases someone would say to get attention, or way’s someone might act if they did it. If I see someone with a cut or some other type of foreign mark on his or her body, I now question it in my head wondering if it was done intentionally or if it was a complete accident. I am interested in finding out the answer to why someone may want to do something to hurt him or herself and what causes it?
If you're interested in reading on, the rest of the paper can be found here.
