Okay in this video. I'm going to look at the introduction section and how it's organized the introduction is the first major section of your paper now. There are five things that the introduction should do first it should get the reader's attention and interest second. It should give the reader a summary of previous research. What is already known about the topic next. It should set up your research by formulating a clear problem to be solved. That's what you what we don't yet know about the problem four: you should propose a hypothesis to test with your experiment and in five you should state the main purpose of your study. Now let's have a look at a couple introductions from real research papers and see what they have. Introductions can be a bit different depending on the topic so we're going to compare two examples. Okay first here is a study that examines the effect of different chemicals on preventing the browning of apple slices. And here's the introduction. First it starts with some facts about preserving fruit that shows us why this topic is important and then it introduces the topic of browning right here. Okay and then it introduces the the problem that we need to solve that. A replacement technique for preventing fruit from browning has urgently been sought next it reviews previous research that shows. What kind of chemicals prevent browning okay. Now we get to the problem that this paper's going to address okay right here. That most of the reported a activities were measured individually at different conditions. Okay and right here. This is the the main problem that this study is going to try to address. The overall relative. Inhibitory activity of individual compounds is not clear and then we have the main purpose of the study here. The main purpose a study was to find the most effective anti browning agents for apple slices by comparing the anti browning activity of commonly known compounds under the same conditions so we started by getting the reader's attention and then reviewing the history of the problem and what is known about the problem.

Then we get into the what we don't know and then finally they have the statement of the purpose of this research. Now you notice. This introduction does not have a hypothesis um because they don't really know which one's going to which chemicals going to stop browning the most they just have a lot of evidence that different chemicals do into going to compare them so depending on the study. Sometimes you won't be able to state hypothesis. That's why introductions are sometimes different. Okay next. Let's look at this paper about referees. Being the reason that athletes who wear red win more now in this case the introduction starts directly with background information about the research about previous research. So it doesn't have anything to get the reader's attention like the Apple paper did and did this whole first paragraph is reviewing what we already know about um wearing red sports attire has a positive impact. And what are the reasons that other people have suggested that this happens okay. So that's the review of the pre- of what we already know. Then we get to this part um we disagree with both interpretations. This is uh kind of the hypothesis of the paper. But it's also um explaining the problem. It's explaining that they don't think that these reasons are true after that day. Explain the reasoning behind it. Why do they think the this hypothesis is true. Okay and then finally they come again to repeating the hypothesis right here. Therefore we believe that is the referees who the actual cause of the advantage competitors have when they wear red and then finally just like the other paper. The last thing in your introduction should be your statement of purpose because the effect the red clothing on performance and on the decisions of referee's may well have been confounded in the original data. We conducted a new experiment and found. Okay now one more thing the that.

I want to talk about is citations. Okay what are citations?. Well citations are these things and these things here. An example is this sentence. Okay referees and umpires exert. A major influence on the outcome of sports competitions that information they cite this paper. Plesner and Haar 2006 to as evidence that this statement is true. This is very important in your research paper. You can't write from your head. You need to back up everything you say with evidence and that evidence either comes from a logical argument or it comes from your own experiment or it comes from previous research papers. Everything needs to be backed up with evidence now. It might seem reasonable referees and umpires exert a major influence on the outcome of sports competitions but without the reference. That's just your opinion and your scientific paper needs to be 100 percent justified so that other people will believe what you write now. If we want to know what this paper is we can go to the list of references at the end of the paper and here is all the details. You have the names of the authors. The year the name of the paper the name of the journal that it comes from the volume number the pages okay and your research. Paper will also have to have a reference list at the end like this. You can use the book that I gave you in class this one to find out how to do these references and also. I have another video. That explains how to do this in. Word okay let's just go back here for a second two ways you can put citations in your paper. One is to say the point and then put this at the end in parentheses family names of the authors and the year. The other way is if you use the names of the researchers in the sentence like this. Hill and Barton showed that wearing red sports attire. Okay then in this case you just put the year in parentheses after the name. Okay one last point about citations as I said don't write from your head for example you might know from maybe uh high school science class or maybe you saw something on TV.

You might know that honey can be used to prevent apple slices from turning brown but just because you know that you can't write it in your paper you need to find a trustworthy source of information to be evidence for your statement. That honey can stop apples from turning brown. Okay so in your introduction. You're going to be doing a lot of summarizing sources a couple other things to note: don't copy from your sources this is considered plagiarism and will get you in big trouble okay. Don't copy more than let's say three words in in a row you have to change what's written in the sources into your own words your own way to explain it next. Don't quote from your sources. Don't use quotation marks. Just explain what the sources say in your own words and lastly this is the third time. I've said this now. Summarize in your own words a good technique for doing this is read your source read the research paper and make sure you understand it keep reading it until you understand it then. Close the book or put the paper away and write notes. Then when you write your paper use your notes instead of looking at the original research paper when you're writing okay. So just to review. When you're writing the introduction you want to start by getting the reader's attention you want to organize it properly with a summary of previous research the problem to solve, your hypothesis and your statement of purpose and you want to back up your statements with citations. Don't write from your head. Summarize your sources. Don't copy or quote and format your citations and references correctly.