After writing my four chapters, I am now writing my introduction, this should be straightforward but I am having real problems writing anything that I feel sets up my thesis in a good enough way to do it justice...sigh....any hints for writing a decent intro? :-s

Dear Chris,

Probably obvious, but as structure it may help to remember:

1. What am I going to talk about? What is this thesis about? What is the question I want to answer?

2. Why is it important?

3. How am I going to talk about it? How will I present it?

(4. Debatable is to include in the intro what you have actually found.)



:-)

set up the rationale for all the work that you did, make your hypotheses really clear ... and give enough back ground so that the reader will understand and be able to put your following chapters into context. I did not do a literature review, as such. I merely introduced my thesis - a much more manageable task. And take one bit at a time, don't get too stressed or hung up on any one bit- if it is not flowing, move onto another bit that is flowing!!
good luck!x

My introduction starts with a two paragraphs on the wider context of my subject matter, what issues I'm bringing to together, followed with why it is important to look at the issue, followed by the actual hypothesis, and how I seek to test that hypothesis, followed very brief comments on what my conclusion is, then it concludes with an outline of chapters (which is always very important). It's about 7 pages long (and that's for a 100,000 word thesis), and attached to my first chapter.

Think about who is reading your thesis and see what they like and don't like then go that way to begin constructing your introduction. Look at your thesis outline and run it down in a constructive manner as your introduction.

Thanks for your advice people - I'm up ready to write at 8am on a Saturday (yuck) to plug on with it.

:-)

Glad to see someone else hasn't got a lit review as such. I want to do the same, having the lit review that fits into each chapter as its beginning. I think it will improve the way it reads, plus I can't actually see how I can do it any other way. I've started my introduction several times, but keep on scrapping it or at least keeping it 'on file', I'm hoping inspiration will strike sometime - sigh- :-(

I have a mini lit review at the start of each chapter, but I also have an overarching one included in the first introductory chapter, covering the essential journal papers, theses and books. That introductory one is pretty short though, just focusing on the core secondary sources.

That sounds a bit like I want, I'm trying to keep to the formula of 8/9 chapters all roughly the same length as suggested, but each of the first - probably- 4-5 chapters are all 'essential reading' before the plot is revealed, they are all a bit stand alone like pieces of a jigsaw, one of those that comes without a picture. I hope the pic will be revealed in the chapters that follow this, but to reveal the whole thing at the beginning might spoil it a bit, plus it would make the lit review too big to fit the pattern. I'm hoping my supervisor will see it like this!