Giving Introductions

The purpose of the introduction is to show your listener what you are doing in your talk.
It is also helpful to explain why you are doing it and how you are doing it.
Move 1: Establishing a research territory

Note particularly the language used in the first two sentences to express Move la.

Of particular interest and complexity are ....

Recently, there has been growing interest in ....
The development of ... has led to the hope that....
The .., has become a favourite topic for analysis ....
The study of ... has become an important aspect of ....
A central issue in ... is ....
Many researchers have extensively studied ... in recent years.
Many recent studies have focused on ....

Move 2: Establishing a niche

In many ways, Move 2 is the key move in Introductions. It connects Move 1 (what has been done) to
Move 3 (what the present research will do). Move 2 thus establishes the reason for the study. By the
end of Move 2, the listener should have a good idea of what is going to come in Move 3.
Move 2s establish a niche by indicating a gap. Probably the most common way to indicate a gap is to
use a "negative" subject. Presumably, negative subjects are chosen because they signal immediately
to the reader that Move 1 has come to an end. Note the following uses of little and few:

However, there is little information/attention/work/data/research ....

However, few studies/investigations/researchers/attempts ....

Of course, not all RP Introductions express Move 2 by indicating an obvious gap. You may prefer, for
various reasons, to avoid negative comment altogether. In such cases, a useful alternative is to use a
contrastive statement.
The research has tended to focus on ...,rather than on ....
These studies have emphasised ...,as opposed to ....
Although considerable research has been devoted to ... , rather less
attention has been paid to ....

The previous research ... has concentrated on ....

Most studies have been content to ....

So far, investigations have been confined to ...

Move 3: Occupying the Niche

The third and final step is to show you want to fill the gap (or answer the question) that has been
created in Move 2.

The purpose of this talk is to ...

The purpose of this investigation is to ...
The aim of this paper is to ...
This paper reports on the results obtained ....
This study was designed to ...
The subject of this talk is .
This talk is designed to .
This paper argues that ....
In this talk, we give results of ...
In this paper, we argue that ....
What I/we'd like to do is to discuss .
What I/we intend to do is to explain .

In my/our talk today, .

My/our topic today is .
Today, I'm/we're going to talk about .
I'm/We're going to talk to you about .
My colleagues and I are going to give a short presentation on .
Today I/we want to consider .
In this talk, I/we would like to concentrate on .
We have organise the rest of this talk in the following way ....
This presentation is structured as follows ....
The remainder of this paper is divided into five sections ....
I'm/We're going to deal with three aspects of the subject .
I'm/We're going to divide my presentation into three sections.
I/We've divided my presentation into three sections.
I/We thought it would be useful to divide my/our talk into three

sections.

This subject can be looked at under the following headings: .

Introducing
At the beginning of a lecture, or a section of a lecture, the lecturer will give you some idea about the
structure of the lecture. Listen for these signals as it will help you understand what the lecturer is
saying.
What I intend to say is
What I'd like to do is to discuss
What I intend to do is to explain
In my talk today,
My topic today is
Today, I'm going to talk about
I'm going to talk to you about
My colleagues and I are going to give a short presentation on
Today I want to consider
In this talk, I would like to concentrate on
The subject of this talk is
The purpose of this talk is to
This talk is designed to

Giving background information

Before the new information is given, the lecturer will often summarise what you are expected to
know about the subject to be covered. This could refer back to a previous lecture or to some
background reading you should have done.
As we know
As we have already seen
As we have all read
It's clear that

It goes without saying

We all understand
It is understood
You'll remember

Creating a new Web page

You don't need any special tools to create a Web page. You can use any word processor, even
WordPad or SimpleText, which are included with the basic Windows and Macintosh system software.
To create a new Web page:
First, open a text editor or word processor.
Then. choose File > New to create a new, blank document.
Next. create the HTML content as explained in the rest of this book.
When you've done that, choose File > Save As.
In the dialog box that appears, choose Text Only (or ASCII) for the format.
Next, give the document the .htm or html extension.
Then. Choose the folder in which to save the Web page.
Finally. Click Save.