Writing the Introduction: The Funnel Trick
The Introduction scares people because they don’t know where to begin. So here is a shape that writes it for you: the funnel. You start wide, then get narrower, until you land on your exact question — like water swirling down to a single point.
Watch Maya build hers, top to bottom:
- ›Wide — the big picture: “Students everywhere are constantly searching for ways to study more effectively.”
- ›Narrower — zoom in: “One of the most common habits is drinking coffee before studying, in the belief that it sharpens the mind.”
- ›Narrower still — the gap: “Yet while much research exists on coffee and alertness, surprisingly little focuses on its effect on memory in college students specifically.”
- ›The point — your question and purpose: “This paper investigates whether drinking coffee before studying improves short-term memory in college students.”
See how it funnels? Big world → your specific corner → your exact question. By the last line the reader knows exactly what you are asking and why it matters. That is the entire job of an introduction: by the end, the reader should be nodding, thinking “Yes, that is a good question — I want to know the answer too.”
A strong introduction quietly answers three questions in the reader’s mind:
- 1What is this about? (the wide part)
- 2Why should I care? (the importance)
- 3What exactly will you find out? (your question or aim)
Maya’s paper was almost done. But two tiny pieces remained — the two that readers see first, even though you write them last.