Tips for writing a good coursework introduction
Over the course of one’s studies at a college or at a university, they will inevitably find themselves tasked with writing a term paper, or coursework. The purpose of such paper is to check student’s comprehension of the material learned throughout the term, and so it can influence the overall grade dramatically. More often than not, the person or people grading a term paper can tell if the work is written well just by reading the introduction. Often a good introduction can carry an average essay. This article will teach you how to write a memorable introduction to a coursework.
Remember the general rules
Try as you might, but there is no escaping the guidelines which are necessary for your work to be accepted. So before beginning to write anything down, make sure you know the basics of coursework writing:
- You may not ask for help from your instructor as well as get help from other students. An exception can be made if it is a group coursework or if it is clearly stated in the guidelines for this particular work that collaboration is necessary;
- Your coursework has to be yours. It is prohibited to plagiarize from any source. So much so, that it is considered to be a major academic offence. Any coursework is thoroughly checked using various software to ensure that there was no copying of work. Not only that, but hiring someone to write the coursework for you is also an offence if it is discovered, though it is much harder to determine than plagiarism;
- The paper has to meet the required format. This includes such things as fonts, font sizes, page formatting, a title page, and, of course, the word count.
- The term paper has to be written about the topic given to the student, without branching off into unrelated subjects. So if you can choose the exact topic yourself, chose the one that you can write a lot of quality material about.
Relevance is key
The first thing to think about while writing your introduction is how relevant is it. You need to convince the reader that your topic in general and your topic, in particular, can and will be useful for science, technology, etc. This is needed to keep the person reading the coursework attentive and interested while going through it. Include an example of a real occurrence that could have gone or could be going differently if your research had been taken into account. If you are writing about something that has been already well researched before you, you can write about how different your approach is or how the reader will be able to look at a well-known concept from a different perspective.
What is your problem?
A term paper is usually written to shed light on a problem or try and find an answer to a question. It is the reason why one writes a term paper in the first place – to show that they are competent enough to solve problems from a field which they spent a term learning about. Therefore, you most definitely need to include the reason for creating your coursework in the introduction section of your paper.
Define the goal
Asking a question is one thing, but answering it is a lot harder and complex, as there can be multiple ways of answering a single question, and none of those ways can be considered wrong in any way. For example, if your question is “How to make farming more efficient?”, the goal of your work can be finding the best fertilizer, discovering new ways to fend off pests or even creating new farming machines. To avoid confusion or unmet expectations, include a more exact definition of the aim of your term paper
State your thesis
A thesis might just be the most important part of the whole introduction. It is usually written pretty early into the introduction and can be considered as an extremely abridged version of your coursework. For example, if the aim of your work was to answer a particular question, then the thesis has to contain an answer to it. If you had a goal that you had to reach over the course of your research, then write whether you have achieved it or not and if not, what have you achieved instead. However, despite a thesis having such an important role in your term paper, it should not be very long. If it takes up more than two sentences, you have to overdo it. A perfect thesis is a single sentence that still encapsulates the meaning of the coursework.
So, to sum up:
- Follow the rules of writing a coursework;
- Write why your work is relevant;
- State what problem is it solving;
- Define the aim of it;
- Create a good thesis for a lasting impression.