The Introduction is Not a Murder Mystery
Say what you're writing about and how you'll prove your point
Agatha Christie’s famed detective Hercule Poirot was notorious for catching murderers by piecing together the trail of evidence like a puzzle. At the end, he would regale the suspects and police with a tale of how he had nabbed the killer. His stories built steam slowly but steadily as he retraced the developments that led to the untimely death of a maid, or a starlet, or a geezer whose nephew stood to inherit his fortune. The evidence would appear murky and disjointed until he trotted out the single piece of evidence that connected all the threads. Poirot was a showman who reminded his enraptured audience in his Belgian accent that “there is no ending without the beginning.”
Okay, that last part is a lie—he probably never said that.
But what Poirot might have said is true! No good tale begins with a proper introduction.
In the same way, a thesis, a term paper, or a report needs an appropriate introduction. But the introduction to a piece of scholarly writing isn’t like retelling a whodunit.
This isn’t a murder mystery. So don’t treat it like one.
Introductions to scholarly research require a delicate touch. You must simultaneously tell a story about what your research topic involves, describe how it fits into a wider scholarly literature, present the method by which you have arrived at the conclusion, and state the nature and implications of your results—all in a couple of pages. And those pages come after an abstract in which you’ve already done all of this in 200 words.
Such an arrangement seems utterly foreign if you’re used to thinking in terms of stories or even argumentative essays. What? You’re just supposed supposed to clearly state what you mean at the front? You just give away what the next several pages, sections, or chapters will say – arguments that took you ages to write, document, and analyze? Surely you should beguile the reader into spending more time with your precious words. Leave a little cliffhanger as a treat, your subconscious will whisper. That’s what Stephen King would do.
Resist that urge.
The introduction is your opportunity to convince the reader that what follows is substantively interesting, competently written, and scientifically sound. In some practical sense, it is the most important component of a manuscript (leaving aside the abstract, which might be even more important). There’s two great commandments: Don’t fudge your data, and don’t bungle the introduction.
Why is the introduction so important? Well, it literally comes first in the paper, and, thus, it’s what (often lazy) readers and reviewers will read. Second, it involves your opportunity to frame why your contribution matters. The introduction is the part of your paper that you can be sure your readers will read, and so it should state everything they need to know to competently summarize your point.
While this description makes the task sound like a minefield, writing an introduction is formulaic, meaning it should contain several key components. (In that regard, a thesis is not much different from genre writing itself.)
What’s in that formula? We can conceptualize the introduction as composing three main parts: (1) a descriptive preview of the concept you’re writing about, (2) a brief foray into the preexisting context (literature) in which you are embedding your research, and (3) a summary of how you will answer your research question and what your resulting findings tell us about the world in which you are writing.
The descriptive preview
First, you need to declaratively describe some state of affairs that exists in the world. Maybe there’s a puzzle, or an unresolved question, or a pressing current event, or conflicting arguments about some topic of interest. Whatever it is, that’s what makes your work important.
In this section, you’re describing the state of the object that you’re studying. Put plainly: you are literally introducing the research topic to the reader, which means that you have the task of explaining it in a way that is compelling. Your options to do that here are diverse. Maybe you include a quote from a politician, a brief excerpt of a news clipping, or quote directly from a piece of research on which you’re building.
Consider the following example, which is the first paragraph in a study of public opinion about the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court of the United States has evolved tremendously over time, both in the scope of its powers and the extent to which the public regards it as an ideological institution (Davis and Hitt 2023; Gibson 2023). One constant over the years, however, has been allegations that political crisis surrounding and produced by the Court may have spillover electoral effects. Consider two recent examples that evoked claims that Democratic voters would seek retribution for the Court’s recent rulings (Clark 2009; 2011; Vanberg 2005).
This paragraph first introduces the research topic (public opinion about the Court) and suggests that how partisans view the Court’s rulings may affect elections. It then previews two examples that will be further explored in the coming paragraphs. It also refers to research, showing that this is already a topic other scholars have found interesting.
The micro lit review
Carrying on, the second component of the introduction involves the academic context in which the proposed research unfolds. Practically, this usually reveals some significant shortcoming or gap in past research that the present project may address. Often, this section is where we see the formal introduction of a research question. Picking up several paragraphs later from the example above:
This state of affairs suggests that the Supreme Court has become a minoritarian political backstop – that is, it props up unpopular policy supported by a narrow, but politically powerful minority of Americans. If that is true, then how does the public respond to politicking about reforming it? Answering this question requires understanding first whether attitudes about the Court spill into electoral preferences among the American mass public (e.g. Badas and Simas 2022). Are calls to reform the Court politically palatable? Can political entrepreneurs use Court reform as a mobilizing issue with voters? The theoretical dynamic proposed by Clark (2009) suggests that an out-of-step Court angers the public, and that this anger can be communicated to the justices via Court-curbing legislation. Does the public currently make such demands?
Here, we’ve bridged the gap between a general introduction in the first paragraph to a specific literature that we’re speaking to in this section. Not only do we introduce the research question, but we contextualize how past research should guide how we answer it. We draw upon and cite several studies to guide our intuition that the public may respond positively to Court-curbing legislation when it feels that the Court is out-of-step with public opinion. But, because it isn’t clear how strong these demands are, we pose the research question that motivates this paper: Does the public really demand reform when it sees the Court do stuff it doesn’t like?
The summary of the contribution
Finally, the third component of the introduction involves explaining what we actually do and accomplish in the manuscript that answers our research question and plugs the aforementioned hole in past research. And this is where our introduction diverges most significantly from the murder mystery. There should be nothing opaque about this section; nothing saved or left for the end. We are revealing exactly what we plan to do and what (we expect to) find. Resuming our example above:
To investigate these questions, this paper couples nationally representative survey data with a survey experiment to explore how Americans connect attitudes about the Supreme Court to political candidates’ electability. We find that candidates who support (oppose) reform are viewed as stronger candidates among Democrats (Republicans), as well as more prototypically liberal (conservative). However, individuals who do not perceive the Court as legitimate also do not perceive the Court as an important electoral issue! Although support for reform makes for more attractive candidates, the practical effect of such support on electability is low because Democrats’ low levels of legitimacy effectively insulate the Court from the pressures of electoral politics.
Here, we’ve described the analytical techniques and method the paper will use (surveys, experiments) andacknowledged what conclusions we can draw from the analysis. In this case, we found that low legitimacy ( a deeply cynical regard for the Court) is associated with not viewing the Court as a pressing electoral issue. The consequence, then, is that despite Democrats being sour about the Court, they do not see it as something they can fix. In turn, that (maybe ironically) preserves the status quo – the Court remains safe from public demands to reform it.
Now, we’ve come full circle in explaining how public opinion affects the Supreme Court. We’ve previewed the issue, contextualized our research question, and summarized our takeaways.
Let’s be clear: this is a general formula. You might have been told at some point that formulas were bad. No! Formulas are good! Formulas help you order the mess of data and the tangle of connections you need to make. Formulas help you and a reader understand how your research connects to the world and the literature. Formulas aren’t cliches; they’re tools.
One matter remains.
While the above framework should prove useful in constructing an introduction, it doesn’t necessarily resolve when the introduction should be written. It is entirely possible to begin drafting an introduction at the start of a research process to help orient and guide your thinking about how to organize your project. On the other hand, some people prefer to tackle the introduction when they’ve finished analysis and writing process. Admittedly, it can be difficult to write a summary of one’s results when…you don’t know what those results are! Once the results are in, it can be easier to feel more confident in structuring the introduction.
In our view, there are no wrong answers about timing. If it helps to write an introduction to organize your thinking – great. If you want to wait until the end to avoid wasted time in case surprises pop up during analysis that would require you to pivot or alter your approach – that is also fine. You can even write an introduction and then, if it turns out not to work, throw it away and write a new one. Choose the path that works for you.
The essential thing is that you use a tested formula to write the introduction. Preview your topic and why the reader ought to care about it; place your research in conversation with the existing scholarly record; and, summarize your findings while making transparent their implications for the reader.
The takeaway: An introduction is not a murder mystery. Don’t leave your reader with questions. Be interesting, but shoot straight. Even though the introduction gives away the plot, a well-written one encourages the reader to keep plowing through to see how you came to your conclusions.
The practical: Treat the introduction as a recipe whose ingredients include: (1) description, (2) context, and (3) summary.
You may also find these posts useful:
“Don’t Write a Literature Review” Literature reviews are like flytraps: the unwary can get trapped in other people’s arguments instead of building their own. Remember that you’re not here to “promote” what others have said. Your job is to set the stage for what you will say. Synthesize and critique (always citing!) and move on to your own argument.
“The Scholarly Literature” Identifying “good” research begins by recognizing that single pieces of published, peer-reviewed scholarship are best understood as part of a lineage of scholarly work. Simply finding one or a handful of such papers or books will give students a rough snapshot of the sandbox in which they are playing, but only by reading widely and deeply will they understand the contours and nuances of the task at hand.
“Show and Tell”: “Showing” means painting a portrait of your subject for the reader rather than simply stating that they exist. It involves density, which has nothing to do with jargon or vernacular more generally. Instead, we want to write with descriptive richness. We want depictions of theory to be detailed, but not so painstakingly detailed that the reader loses the forest for the trees.