How to Write an Introduction

The introduction sets the stage for your experiment. A general rule of thumb is to start broad, and continually narrow in on your hypothesis, experiment, and predictions. Do not put stuff in your introduction that is not relevant to your experiment, no matter how interesting it is. Do not go off on tangents, just to prove that you know something. Everything in your intro should be relevant. Expect your intro to be 2-3 pages long. As you should have spent time reading original literature by this point, you may want to use intro’s you have read as a comparison.

Start with some broad statements that provide some context for your study. For example, for a study on gesture, you might talk a little about linguistic and non-linguistic modes of communication. Then you might talk a little more specifically about gesture – e.g., theories about why we gesture. You might want to state early on what your study is essentially about.

Then go on to review the relevant literature. In the case of the gesture study, you will want to review the literature on the effects of gesture on lexical access. In most cases, you do not need to describe studies in great detail, just their general methods and findings. However, you will need to describe Frick-Horbury & Guttentag in good detail, because our study is a partial replication and extension of that study. Therefore, their methodology is important. Secondly, you would review the literature on the use of gesture when the listener is present vs. absent. The review of these two literatures should lead you to the specific question that your experiment is designed to answer. Try to be as explicit here as possible. Good stock sentences; The present study was designed to further explore…The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that…The present study was designed to determine whether…In the present study, you might consider using the following question (although you are free to choose your own, “The present study compared the effects of restricting gesture when the listener was present to the effects when the listener was absent”. Then you need to describe your study. Not in as much detail as you would in a method section, however, enough detail so that, by the end of your intro, the reader knows essentially what you are going to do. Finally, make specific predictions about what should happen in your study. You may have several predictions. As a template, you could use these phrases: If gesture aids lexical access, then…If lexical access is easier when the listener is visible, then… If the effect of gesture on lexical access depends on whether the listener is visible or not, then… The predictions should be the very last thing in your intro. If you have laid out your intro correctly, writing the rest of the paper should be a breeze.

I want the introduction 2-3 pages about my topic. (Please submit your APA style Introduction)

And the source and reference.