Will a solid dissertation introduction help you get higher marks? Is your introduction a high-scoring section? No, it is not a high scoring section, and nobody has ever had a dissertation pass because it had a fantastic introduction. The reason you need a solid introduction is firstly because you do get “some” marks for your introduction, and secondly so that you can prime your professor to give you higher marks.

As you are just learning, your professor is human, which means he or she has all the flaws and functions of a regular human, and that includes making pre-judgements about whatever enters his or her line of sight (attention).

Think of it this way, let’s say that two dissertations are created and submitted to different Universities. The only thing different about these dissertations is the introduction. One introduction looks like it was written by the lovechild of Stephen Hawking and Marilyn vos Savant (or a dissertation services UK team member), and the other looks like it was written by a soccer hooligan. Let us also assume that introductions earn no marks in both cases, just to make our example/test fair.

Which dissertation do you think will score the highest? They both have the same content, and no points are scored for introductions, but one has a very smart introduction and another introduction looks like it was written by a moron. In a perfect world, or if robots were marking the dissertations, then both would score the same. However, the introduction primes the (human) professor's mind, and that professor will have a hard time giving high marks to the dissertation with the poor-quality introduction.

Write A Rough Draft and Then Rewrite at The End

Do not concentrate on your introduction too much at the beginning. When you have finished your dissertation, you can go back and rewrite your introduction. There is no point in spending too much time on your introduction anyway because you are probably going to have to go back and change it when you have finished anyway. It is a little like when you completed your exams for GCSE where you didn't know the answer to one question as you did the exam, but then later when you had finished the exam and you were checking your paper as you ran out the clock, you came back to the unanswered question and suddenly you knew the answer. Your introduction is a bit like that.

Write the Final Version in Conjunction with Writing Your Conclusion

When you go back and write your introduction, think about writing your conclusion at the same time. A clever dissertation writer will link the introduction with the conclusion, even if the conclusion simply gives the academic version of “See, I told you so.” You must certainly reference your introduction’s hypothesis when you create your conclusion. Leave plenty of time between now and your dissertation deadline to complete your conclusion and rewrite your introduction because it will probably mean going back through all your work to help build a solid conclusion.

Do Pre-Research to Poke Holes in Your Own Hypothesis

As you are starting your dissertation, it is a good idea to go back and try to poke holes in your hypothesis. There is nothing worse than getting half-way through your dissertation only to find that the point you are making is mute or unanswerable. Try to find any sort of resistance to your hypothesis and factor this in when you write your introduction.

Very Briefly Touch Upon Hurdles That Others May Have Experienced

Another piece of good practice is to do a little preliminary research and figure out what problems other people have had when they have worked on similar dissertations. If there is a commonly experienced problem, then you may like to touch upon it within your introduction. You could give it a nod with a line such as, “I know that other researchers have had problems with XXXXX, but my aim is to work around that problem to build the most accurate answer as possible.”

Use Wikipedia But Do Not Reference It as A Source

What sort of self-righteous person decided that Wikipedia is a poor academic source? Is it just because the writers do not flaunt their credentials like a cheap solicitor or psychologist? College and University administrators worry that anybody can write entries into Wikipedia, but what happened to listening to everybody’s point of view? Plus, it is viciously easy to write fake news on long-established newspapers with news sites, and yet those are admissible in dissertations and essays! Plus, getting your journal or essay published is as easy as paying a small fee. It is so easy that there are still journals on esteemed websites that claim being vegan makes people gay (that is not a joke, there are quite a few journals that throw that theory around like it is true).

Your professor is not going to accept a post from Wikipedia in any part of your dissertation, not even if you briefly and laughingly mention it in your introduction. But, you can look at the points that Wikipedia has made and then find the sources at the bottom and add them into your dissertation. Plus, those sources may lead you to other sources that look good on your dissertation.

Stop Procrastinating!

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Written by Michael Writer

Publish Date: Apr 16, 2018

Michael Writer

Michael Writer

Academic writing expert