Speaker 1: One key element of a research paper is the introduction. Why is it so important? Well, it's one of the first things that the reviewers or your future readers are going to read. So if the introduction isn't well written, if you haven't highlighted the research gap, if the contribution and the novelty of your paper aren't clear in the introduction, it's very likely that your paper will get rejected. So that's why in this video, I want to show you step-by-step how to write the introduction for a research paper. So let's dive in and see how this is done. If you're new here, my name is Marek Kickoviak and I run Academic English Now, where I help PhD students and researchers regularly write research papers for Scopus Indexed Journals. And in this video, we're going to be specifically focusing on the first element of a research paper, which is the introduction. And I know a lot of people really struggle writing the introduction. They get stuck, they don't know what to write. You know, there is this idea as well that every introduction is completely different and it's just, you know, depends a lot on the discipline and so on. I mean, granted, you know, there are differences between different researchers, disciplines, and so on, but they are really superficial. It's kind of like the iceberg. So those differences are the small, that small tip of the iceberg above the water and everything else, 80% of the introduction is the same. But because the differences are above water, this is what people focus on. But we want to be focusing on the similarities because, you know, 80, 90% of introductions across the fields and really across research papers, whether this is a systematic review, experimental paper, more theoretical paper, is almost exactly the same. So what are these elements of a research paper? I'm gonna explain them one by one to you and show you as well on examples from real research papers from different disciplines, how these elements are applied. So what is the first one? Typically, there are two ways of starting a research paper. Number one, you present the importance of the topic. So you basically tell the reader why on earth should they care about your study at all? I know your study is important to you. Your topic is important to you. I mean, my topic is the most important topic in the world for me, but why should other people care? You want to state that right at the very beginning. You know, using phrases like a considerable amount of research has been devoted to, so the importance can be for your research field. The importance of the topic can be for the society in general as well, right? It can be an important problem that needs solving, but this needs to be stated right away. And the second way of starting the paper that often goes together is the definition of the key concept. So very often, you know, if the importance of the topic is connected to the key concept, the researcher introduces the importance and defines the key concept. So for example, if we think about medicine and a disease like Alzheimer, you know, we could state the importance for the society, you know, that millions of people every day, well, you would have to give a specific number, are suffering from Alzheimer's disease. And this disease is characterized by, and then you provide a definition, right? Or you can separate these two elements and have the importance of the topic and then a definition, right? This is the usual way of starting a paper. Number two, the second really important element is a brief literature review. And I stress the word brief. How brief it is can differ from field to field. In some fields, it can be very short, like one paragraph or maybe two paragraphs. In other fields, it can be slightly longer, like maybe three or five paragraphs, but it's brief, right? What you need to do here is identify between two and maybe four key topics that need to be introduced to the reader before we can identify the research gap and state the aim. And you wanna organize these topics from general to specific. Think about that as sort of the inverted pyramid. You know, you have general, and then you go more and more specific with these topics. And basically, each paragraph in your literature review will be devoted to one of these topics, right? So you wanna have between two and maybe four paragraphs for this brief literature review. Element number three is the research gap. And if there's like one element that is the most important, it is this one. It's the research gap. I can't tell you, you know, the number of examples that I have where this was the element that made the paper be rejected. You know, even very recently on my program when I was helping two different researchers from two different disciplines, one of their papers got rejected, and the other one came back with major corrections. And you know, when we read the reviewer's comments, it seemed like, you know, the paper was a total mess, and they needed to start from scratch. But really, the main problem was that the contribution, the novelty of the paper just wasn't there. Like the research gap wasn't there either. So this is a crucial element, stating the research gap. This can be done in numerous different ways, right? And I have another video when I talk about the different types of a research gap. But you know, you can point out the lack of research, limitations of previous studies, you know, a specific problem that needs solving, a practical problem that needs solving, right? And you wanna do it in one nice paragraph. Typically, you start with something like, you know, numerous studies on X, Y, and Z have been conducted. However, there is a lack of research on X, Y, and Z. In addition, the previous studies are limited because X, Y, and Z, right? And then you explain what the problem is. Once you've pointed out the research gap, and it is clear why you're doing your study, well, now you can tell us what your study is about and state the aim of your study. Please don't, you know, state the aim, research questions, objectives, and stuff like this, you know, just in one, maximum two sentences, say what the aim of your study is, simply, and that's it, right? Now, very often, this is where introductions end. However, there are two optional elements that can sometimes be useful and are sometimes used in different fields and in different journals. The first one, right after the research gap, is, you know, kind of a quick recap, like a summary of the results in like one or two sentences, you know, what this paper shows, you know? And then, also connected to that, what is the main contribution of your paper? Most of the time, you know, this is just said in the conclusion section, but in some journals and some researchers like to say it right in the introduction, so it's clear to the reviewers as well what novelty your paper brings, right? So feel free to do that right after the introduction in one paragraph and say what the main contribution is. Now, the second optional element, which would end the introduction, is to present the structure of your paper. This is common in some fields. I wouldn't say it's very common across different fields, but you can do it if you want to, especially if you notice that other people in your field are doing it. Very simply, you know, in one paragraph, state how the paper is organized, that this paper is organized into six sections, and then in each following sentence, you can tell us what each section is about. So now let me show you exactly how this is actually done on an example of a research paper, and we'll look at each of the sections that I've just mentioned to you, and we'll see how the writers present it. So let me show you two examples in here from two different fields, so you have an idea how, you know, the introduction is structured, written in slightly different fields. So the first example is actually from a paper that I published a couple of years ago, so it's kind of social sciences teaching English, and the introduction is much shorter. The other paper is gonna be from psychology, medicine, that sort of thing, so much more sort of exact sciences, and the introduction is gonna be much longer, so you're gonna see two very different ways of approaching it, which nevertheless follow a very similar pattern. So this one starts with, you know, establishing the importance of the topic and defining the topic. In here, it's one and the same thing, so we define the thing that we're gonna talk about because this thing is very important, right? So you kind of kill two birds with one stone, and therefore make your introduction shorter, right? So that's the first element, right? Importance of the topic and defining any key concepts. Number two, we've got literature review, right? And in here, it's rather short. It's just one paragraph, really, right? But it's enough to kind of present us what we need, and the reason why it's so short in here as well, just so you know, is because in this particular journal, they like having a separate literature review section, right, so that's why there is a, the one in the introduction is very short. And then after that, what we've got is the research gap, basically, right? So we've got, nevertheless, despite all this literature, we've got a lack of studies, right? We've got limitations of these studies in terms of where they were conducted, right? And then this ends with presenting the aim of the study, right, so a very short introduction, just three paragraphs, but notice that it follows the same pattern that we've discussed. Now, moving to the other introduction, this one is slightly longer, but, well, actually much longer, probably twice the length, but it still follows the same pattern. So we've got the importance of the topic, right, and the definition of the topic as well. And then we continue discussing that importance of the topic, right, the growing complexity, so we basically talk about the importance of the topic for the discipline, right, and this is further explored here. Again, why is this topic so crucial for this discipline right now, right? And then we've got a literature review. In here, you'll see that the literature review is much longer, right? So we're basically reviewing and reviewing the literature leading to the problem. And first, we've got a more practical problem in here, right, despite all this progress and all these studies, there is this problem in practice in medical education, right, and then afterwards, we also have the research gap, right? So we've got a lack of understanding that there's uncertainty about something, right, and there is a lack of research. So there are different research gaps combined here, which makes it much stronger, right? And then we've got the aim of the study and specifically what was done, and they also present the hypothesis, right, in here as well. Notice that none of the two papers that I showed here present the kind of the main contributions and the structure of the paper, which as I mentioned, are optional and they're not really that common across disciplines. So as you can see, an introduction to the research paper follows a very predictable structure that is almost exactly the same regardless of the field that you're in and regardless of the type of the paper that you're actually writing. So start with the importance of the topic and maybe the definition of a key concept, then briefly review the literature, present the research gap, and this is crucial, super important, don't forget to present the research gap, state the aim, and then optionally state the main contributions of your paper and present the organization of the paper. 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