Write or Rewrite Introductions and Conclusions and Titles Last in Your Paper-Production Process

• Start introductions from what your best readers would agree is the obvious evidence of the type you are interpreting, and explain how and why you will lead them to something non-obvious, and what (in brief) the significance of that non-obvious conclusion will be.
• Toward the end of the introduction, consider asking a question that the paper will answer, if that helps focus your thesis, but ask only one question--but avoid sequences of rhetorical questions that should be replaced by statements.  Usually, do not ask questions you will not answer.
• Use quotation sparingly in introductions, and especially beware beginning a paper with a direct quotation of someone else--it's a tired-out strategy, though not illegal.

 

• Conclusions should keep in mind that, if the paper has persuaded readers that the thesis should be believed, the thesis should not need mere repetition at the end.  Don't give readers the impression you think they are too dumb to remember what they just read.
• Conclusions should hear the best readers asking, "So what should I think/believe/do as a result of this thesis?," "what consequences are likely to follow from this thesis being true?," "where should the next stage of inquiry go and how might it proceed?" (AKA, "call for further research," AKA "job security for the researcher writing this paper").

 

• Titles are the gateway through which readers first encounter your ideas, and they should unambiguously communicate where the paper is going. 
• Titles of all academic papers should communicate clearly both the topic and the key terms used in the thesis--don't mistake the genre of your paper and give readers "teaser" titles like those used in novels or mysteries.
• Titles of humanities papers most commonly use colons to separate a short, memorable phrase about the paper's thesis from a longer phrase describing the topic, and sometimes the method of analysis.
• Titles of social sciences papers may follow humanities rules if their analysis is mainly qualitative, but highly quantitative analysis papers tend to follow natural science rules.
• Natural sciences titles tend to be extremely long and follow more strict formulae than those for humanities or social sciences papers, naming the organism or compound or other phenomenon studied, the method used in the study, and the kind of result being investigated.  This is because natural scientists have to process far more published articles every month than the typical humanities or social science researcher reads.