Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [232]
The intro offers readers some representative piece of your evidence— some data from your poem: perhaps a binary that you see in both poems or some other tendency of the language in both that you found interesting and that you think is worth exploring. The reader should come away from your opening paragraph knowing what you found interesting and worth pursuing and why.
Resist dumping a great lump of background into the intro. You should do some contextualizing in the opening, but don’t overdo it. Stay focused on the poem and what you notice about the kind of thinking it is inviting us to do.
Resist what is known as “freshman omniscience”—recognizable by sweeping claims and a grandiose tone … “Since the beginning of time poets have been …”
The last sentence of the paragraph should make some kind of claim. It should not be the standard tri-partite thesis of the 5-paragraph form essay.
HOW MUCH TO INTRODUCE UPFRONT: TYPICAL PROBLEMS
Introductions need to do a lot in a limited space. To specify a thesis and locate it within a larger context, to suggest the plan or outline of the entire paper, and to negotiate first relations with a reader—that’s plenty to pack into a paragraph or two. In deciding how much to introduce up front, you must make a series of difficult choices about what to include and exclude.
The danger is trying to turn the introduction into a miniature essay. Consider the three problems discussed next as symptoms of overcompression, telltale signs that you need to reconceive, and probably reduce, your introduction.
Digression
Digression results when you try to include too much background. If, for example, you plan to write about a recent innovation in video technology, you’ll need to monitor the amount and kind of technical information you include in your opening paragraphs. You’ll also want to avoid starting at a point that is too far away from your immediate concerns, as in “Communication has always been a necessary part of being human.”
As a general rule in academic writing, don’t assume your readers know little or nothing about the subject. Instead, use the social potential of the introduction to set up your relationship with your readers and make clear what you are assuming they do and do not know.
Incoherence
Incoherence results when you try to preview too much of your paper’s conclusion in the introduction. Such introductions move in too many directions at once, usually because the writer is trying to conclude before going through the discussion that will make the conclusion comprehensible. The language you are compelled to use in such cases tends to be too dense, and the connections between the sentences tend to get left out, because there isn’t enough room to include them. After having read the entire paper, your readers may be able to make sense of the introduction, but in that case, the introduction has not done its job.
The following introductory paragraph is incoherent, primarily because it tries to include too much. It neither adequately connects its ideas nor defines its terms.
Twinship is a symbol in many religious traditions. The significance of twinship will be discussed and explored in the Native American, Japanese Shinto, and Christian religions. Twinship can be either in opposing or common forces in the form of deities or mortals. There are several forms of twinship that show duality of order versus chaos, good versus evil, and creation versus destruction. The significance of twinship is to set moral