Writing Introductions
The introduction to a qualitative research report accomplishes two goals:
- informs the reader by providing information from the research literature necessary to understanding the project;
- persuades the reader that the research question is credible/valuable by providing motivation for the research.
How are these goals accomplished? In qualitative research, let’s first define the “Introduction” as everything that occurs before a Methods statement is provided. Given this definition, the “Introduction” will often cover more than one major section of a paper, but generally includes 3 critical moves: Establish Topic and/or Set the Scene, Review the Literature Framework, and Reveal the Research Goal/s.
The 3 moves provide a “template” for writing an effective and persuasive introduction. Variation on the order of these steps abounds! This is especially true in qualitative research where creating a sense of the field site or culture (setting the “scene”) is just as important as identifying a research goal. Because qualitative research is context-dependent, the writer has the responsibility to create a model of the field site for the reader. Hence, there is more description in the Introduction. In addition, qualitative reports more often include explicit statements about theory, and may have more extensive literature reviews when theory components are especially important.
Though the 3 Moves below can be written in the order specified, one of the true pleasures of qualitative research writing is that writers can mix it up a bit. In the examples below, we divided the qualitative literature into two broad camps: a more classic science approach and a more narrative ethnographic approach. Both approaches should be viewed on a continuum: writers select their spot on the continuum by considering audience and subject matter.
3 Moves in Writing the Introduction
- Establish Topic — Set the Scene
- Describe the Field Site / Introduce the literature framework
- Reveal the research goal/s (and sometimes, overview outcomes)
Establish Topic — Set the Scene
In the more classic science approach, the research topic is established first, followed by a description of the field site (the physical, social, and/or environmental context of the research). This approach is found more often in health, education, and sociologically-oriented research (though this by no means writ in stone!).
Example || Children, Play and Computers in Preschool Education
Pre-school education is a particularly interesting area for investigating the use of computers. Pre-school environments offer opportunities to observe the relationship between formal and informal learning, the balance between learner-centred and adult-directed activities, and the use of computers by children who are unable to follow text-based instructions. The study described here took place in Scotland, where almost all 4-year-olds (99%) and 83% of 3-year-olds are in part-time pre-school education, funded by the government and provided by the public, private, or voluntary sectors (Scottish Executive, 2003). Children start formal school education at the age of five in Scotland so “pre-school education” is defined as provision across these three sectors for children aged between 3 and 5 in the two years before they begin school.
Analysis: The sentences in blue provide information about the area of study this project targets, and explains why it is a useful area of computer research despite being a largely pre-literature population. The reader knows immediately that the research is going to be about pre-school children’s use of computers. The sentences in orange describe the basic social context in which the study takes place.
In this article I explore women’s physical activities in Prospect Park, an urban public park located in Brooklyn, NY, USA. The 526-acre park was designed and built in the 1860s by the landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvin Vaux. Like Central Park, its more famed counterpart, Prospect Park was one of the nation’s first ‘pleasure ground’ parks, meant to preserve nature within the industrialized city and provide opportunities for healthy recreation, socialization, and spiritual elevation of the urban masses (Fein, 1986; Szczygiel and Hewitt, 2000). Throughout its history it has embodied both the anxieties and ideals of North American culture, from urban decay and government disinvestment, to the ‘rescue’ and renewal by corporations and the wealthy elite. Above all, it is a well-utilized resource in an urban community, and at over 130 years old Prospect park continues to provide a number of outdoor opportunities to local residents.
Prospect Park is not necessarily typical of urban and suburban parks in the United States, but I have chosen it as the subject of this research as a case study of some of the ways that humans connect with their immediate surroundings, and how that connection becomes important for physical activity. I believe that this is typical of people’s experiences across different types of settings, and later in this article I suggest some ways that our understanding can be broadened through an interdisciplinary approach toward the study of physical activity and the environment.
Analysis: The blue paragraph sets the scene with a historical description of Prospect Park — the historical stance is important because it signals that the topic of research is the intersection of designed spaces and users of such spaces . The orange sentences identify the particular focus: where physical activity and designed space meet.
Example || The “knucklehead” approach and what matters in terms of health for formerly incarcerated Latino men
Health is an abstract concept in the everyday lives of most young men in the United States. Young men have limited, if any, interest in protecting their health. After all, why should they care about illness? Young people tend to have a very low prevalence of debilitating illnesses or conditions that affect older people, such as cancer or cardiovascular disease, and they are highly asymptomatic to many ailments that affect young people, such as sexually transmitted diseases. Thus, many diseases and conditions are not concrete or meaningful to young people (Armstrong, Kalmuss, Franks, Hecker, & Bell, 2010). Scholars in the field of public health have documented the gap between young men’s actual risks for early mortality, drug dependence, obesity, and HIV/STI risk and their general regard for public health messages about these risks (Lindberg et al., 2008 and Mulye et al., 2009). In this paper, we examine what matters to formerly incarcerated Latino men (FILM) who have been imprisoned in jails or prison within the past 5 years in terms of their health and well-being and what conflicts exist between public health prevention messages and the “knucklehead” approach to life that is assumed by many young FILM. The concept of the “knucklehead” emerged from the ethnographic fieldwork of this study, and it is defined as the decision-making approach that involves knowingly acting in ways that are harmful or risky in spite of clear awareness of the risks entailed.
Analysis: The sentences in blue identify the area of study as health research, narrow down to the population of young men, and clarifies the interesting relationships inherent to this area of research. The orange sentences identify the social, and to some extent cultural, contexts of the study’s participants.
In the more narrative approach, the writer begins by setting the scene, then moves to establishing the research topic. This approach is more common to anthropology and ethnographic writing, and works especially well when the field site may not be well understood by readers.
Example || The Dialectical Gaze: Exploring the Subject-Object Tension in the Performances of Women who Strip
Paper Dolls1 is a “first-class” strip joint nestled between a Shell gas station and a Budget rental car shop. The “hottest show on earth” depends on the manufacturing of a seamless performance where outside men in tuxedos park cars and inside women in G-strings take off their clothes for money. As such, Paper Dolls is a “sexploitation organization, where sexuality is exploited for the benefit of the managers and owners” (Hearn and Parkin 1987, 68). As members of “sexploitation organizations,” striptease dancers are categorized as sex workers along with prostitutes, erotic models, and erotic film stars: their work is based on a sexual trade.
Analysis: The sentences in blue immediately situate the reader to a particular social environment. The orange sentences identify the research area, that of sex workers.
Example || Willing to Work: Agency and Vulnerability in an Undocumented Immigrant Network
THE BUSBOY SHOW
On weekend nights, when “Il Vino” (a large Chicago-area restaurant) is busy and the lounge is crowded with diners waiting for a table, five Mexican immigrant busboys get together to stock the bar.1 I call this “the Busboy Show.” First, the busboys load about 20 cases of beer and two bins of liquor onto a wheeled cart. Then they push this cart through the restaurant to the service station at the bar. Two or three of them will stay on the outside of the bar with the cart, and the other two or three will go behind the bar. The bartenders and servers get out of the way. Like a sped-up assembly line, one busboy will snatch a case of beer from the cart and throw it—literally, throw into in the air—to a second busboy standing closer to the bar. This busboy catches it easily and tosses it across the top of the bar, where a busboy standing behind the bar grabs it and throws it to a fourth busboy, who catches it and stacks it in front of the beer coolers. A final busboy will rip open the cases and stock beer in the coolers. They work lightning quick—it only takes them about one minute to empty the cart. Customers and restaurant employees gather around to watch, commenting on the busboys’ strength and speed. The busboys enjoy the attention and ham it up for onlookers, prodding each other to go faster and faster. They also try to outdo one another by throwing the cases as high into the air as they can. Sometimes, when there’s a new busboy, the other guys will throw him an empty case just to laugh as he juggles it in the air.
The Mexican busboys at Il Vino have a reputation as “the hardest workers that we have,” in the words of their supervisors and coworkers alike. This association of Mexican immigrants with hard work is not unique to Il Vino.2 In fact, the conception of Mexican immigrants as a laboring class has a long history in the United States, and for more than a century Mexican workers have often been considered a diligent, tractable segment of the U.S. work force (De Genova 2005; Gamio 1971; Gutierrez 1995; Heyman 2001). Ethnographic research shows that the perception of Mexican immigrants as hard workers continues to have popular currency (Coutin and Chock 1997; De Genova and Ramos Zayas 2003; Waldinger and Lichter 2003). In particular, many low-wage employers express their approval of Mexican immigrants’ apparent willingness to do low-wage, low-status work (De Genova 2005; Neckerman and Kirschenman 1991; Waldinger and Lichter 2003). But where does this apparent willingness to work hard come from? And why would presumably permanent members of the low-wage labor force put so much effort into being hard workers?
Analysis: This article begins with a vivid play-by-play of a scene from a field site, creating a mini-movie in the reader’s mind (sentences in blue). The orange sentences narrow the focus to the topic of the research study: the examination of the culture of hard work as cultivated in this community.
Example || A Couple of White Guys Sitting around Talking: The Collective Rationalization of Cigar Smokers
In the summer of 1997, curious to learn more about America’s trendiest new fad, I serendipitously discovered what can best be described as my city’s “most unique retailing establishment” — Tullio’s Cigar Shop. 1 Along with selling a wide variety of cigars, Tullio’s has also evolved into a de facto men’s smoking club where no dues are charged,no application form is needed, and no pledging is inflicted. In fact, the only requirement to become a “member” is a desire to participate in the community of cigar-smoking, basketball-loving, gregarious men…
It is the purpose of this ethnographic study to explain why such efforts from loved ones, the media, and the medical establishment are unsuccessful at persuading these men to stop smoking. I will argue that the regulars at the shop participate in a process of group rationalization that, ironically, protects them from the anxiety that such messages are designed to produce. The linguistic outcome of this group rationalizing process takes the form of five prosmoking arguments that (1) refute the findings of the medical establishment, (2) anesthetize the regulars from the impact of antismoking messages, and (3) relieve cognitive dissonance and anxiety created by the act of smoking.
Analysis: The blue paragraph is the first paragraph of the article, and sets the general scene through concise yet vivid description. The paragraph in orange states the research goal of the study and the major outcomes the study uncovered. The paragraphs between these two describe the field site (see below).
Stylistics Note: Qualitative research on the ethnographic side of the spectrum has looser “rules” than are typical of standard science prose. The first person is used to openly acknowledge the ontological belief (see Trochim’s quote above) that the researcher brings an idiosyncratic point of view.
Stylistics Note: In two of the above examples, the gender of the researcher is an important element of the research process: a female researcher in a strip club experiences that context quite differently than a male in the same environment. In the cigar shop, women are not allowed, so only a male researcher could enter this environment as a true participant. Therefore, each writer-researcher must contend with this reality in some way. Both choose one grammatical solution, which is to write in the first person, emphasizing their identification with the self as an influence on the research process. Each will also make explicit statements in the Methods for how gender impacted their work; please see Methods for more information on this topic.
Describe the Field Site and/or Introduce the Literature Framework
The next task of the Introduction is to provide the reader a concise yet vivid description of the research context. Academic writers know that their research area comes pre-equipped with a published literature within which the study is situated. For qualitative reports using the classic science approach, the research context may mostly be the literature itself (as is typical of research reports). For those with more narrative reports, the literature first provides a theoretical or conceptual frame within which the outcomes will be interpreted.
Qualitative researchers acknowledge the impact of environment on the study, and thus supply information about the context, ranging from simpler descriptions focusing on demographics to “thick descriptions” which characterize a human environment sufficiently for the reader to feel familiar with the context. For more science-y approaches, field site description might be very brief, perhaps only mentioning the general context (e.g. “hospital”). For studies where the environment itself is a major influence on the study, then more description takes place, usually in the Introduction. Additionally, the amount of description required varies with the method employed: when participant-observation is employed, typically in ethnographic research, then more field site description is warranted.
Of the four examples below, the first sets the scene primarily through a literature review, as is classic to problem-statement oriented science prose. This will lead directly to the research goal of the study. The second example employs both scene setting through specific descriptions from the literature of the study population and a short theoretical section which then leads to the research goal. The third example demonstrates a primarily theoretically-driven literature review in an ethnographic study, where the fourth example shows an ethnography with field-site-driven scene setting leading directly to the research goals.
NOTE: To better preserve readability of the page, only the first paragraph of each reading is pasted below. Please follow the “see more” link for the complete versions of each example.
NOTE: the research goals are NOT listed in these examples. They will be covered in the next section!
Example || First assessments by specialist cancer nurses in the community: An ethnography
Specialist nurses use many different methods to assess and elicit patient problems and a number of different assessment tools are used in practice few studies have focused on the process of carrying out first assessments by specialist nurses in the community. However, Hunt (1991) carried out a ground-breaking study of conversations between terminally ill patients and specialist nurses. Hunt found that specialist nurses used their interpersonal skills to present themselves as ‘friendly and informal’ during conversations with patients; this enabled the patients and nurses to break down barriers so that trust developed and patients’ concerns were elicited. However this approach also enabled the nurses to keep control of the flow of topics and questions asked. Few studies have looked at how interpersonal and relationship building skills are used in conjunction with the use of a validated assessment tool (Wilkinson et al., 2003). {see more }
Analysis: In this article, qualitative methods are treated as “just” another tool in the researcher’s belt, and the Introduction is clearly on the classic science prose end of the spectrum. The writer begins with a topical statement of the research area (context of specialist nurses of terminally ill patients), provides a research-based statement of significance (ground-breaking study of interpersonal skills), and ends with the gap motivating the current study. From there, the Introduction employs a standard review of the published literature focusing on assessment tools in before narrowing to the research goals of the study.
Example || The “knucklehead” approach and what matters in terms of health for formerly incarcerated Latino men
There are multiple types of groups of teenaged and young adult men who could have been selected for an examination of the salience of health and public health promotion messages. FILM exist among the lowest in social class and labor force hierarchies in the United States and other countries (Freudenberg, Daniels, Crum, Perkins, & Richie, 2005). From a physiological perspective, this age group is one that is presumed to be at the healthiest stage in life, and yet, among heterosexual men, this group has the highest exposure to a cluster of health risks, including HIV/STIs in jail/prison, overdose and chemical abuse and dependence, and head and body injuries that are obtained due to interpersonal violence that occurs prior to, during and post-release (Ballard et al., 2002, Belenko et al., 2004, Bryan et al., 2006, Grinstead et al., 2001and Grinstead et al., 1999). These men are also Latinos, which is the ethnic group that has the highest prevalence rates of diabetes and obesity (Cowie et al.,). Thus, FILM represent an ideal case study for identifying how teenaged and young adult males who have high exposure to health threats and have low resources and competing priorities engage or disengage with health matters. {see more }
Analysis: The Introduction to this article is written in a well-established social-behavioral science style. The opening paragraph (above) identifies the population being studies, then establishes the real-world significance of this population. Following this paragraph, the writer narrows the focus to Puerto Rican FILM, in a standard lit review format. Before stating research goals, the author provides explicit discussion of the theoretical framework guiding the questions and interpretations of the research. The theoretical framework is given its own subheading, reinforcing its impact for the reader. This is a smart writing move when there is reason to think the reader might not be familiar with or may be resistant to the theoretical frame. The writer has the opportunity to argue for the relevance of the theory and the contribution it makes to the study.
Example || The Dialectical Gaze: Exploring the Subject-Object Tension in the Performances of Women who Strip
Sexploitation organizations, and in particular strip clubs, have been the subject of academic interest and controversy.2 The majority of literature on stripping, whether male or female, professional or amateur, defines the activity as deviant (Calhoun, Fisher, and Cannon 1998; Ronai and Cross 1998; Wood 2000). They question why strippers are drawn to the “stigmatized” profession (Skipper and McCaghy 1970; Carey, Peterson, and Sharpe 1974) and consider the justifications they make to rationalize their choices (Thompson and Harred 1992). They analyze the types of relationships the strippers develop (and often fake) with the customers (Enck and Preston 1988; Ronai and Ellis 1989) and with each other (McCaghy and Skipper 1969; Carey, Peterson, and Sharpe 1974; Reid, Epstein, and Benson 1995). And they explore the consequences for self-esteem and identity for the women and men working in this industry (Reid, Epstein, and Benson 1994; Ronai and Ellis 1989; Dressel and Peterson 1982). While most of the literature focuses on professional female strippers, a few studies have emerged distinguishing between male and female strippers (Peterson and Dressel 1982; Margolis and Arnold 1993; Montemurro 2001; Tewksbury 1994) and professional and amateur shows (Calhoun, Cannon, and Fisher 1996; Calhoun, Fisher, and Cannon 1998; Cannon, Calhoun, and Fisher 1998). {see more }
Analysis: This paragraph sets the research stage for the central theoretical topic of the study: the degree of agency women workers have in this environment. The rest of the Introduction provides a highly focused lit review of the two sides of the “academic…controversy” in terms of subjects and objects in relationship to agency. The article begins with a long quote from the writer’s field notes, thus incorporating both rich field site description and theoretical frame as found in the academic literature.
Example || A Couple of White Guys Sitting around Talking: The Collective Rationalization of Cigar Smokers
As one enters Tullio’s for the first time, one is struck by the abundant humidor displaying thousands of cigars for public consumption (typical for most cigar shops), seating for twenty, and a refrigerator in the back brimming with patrons’ “favorite beverages” (the latter two entities are very atypical for most, if not all, cigar shops). As I would come to learn, Tullio’s has no liquor or food license but instead has an empty five-gallon pickle jar positioned at the main counter. The tacit protocol calls for patrons to put a dollar in the jar for each consumed beverage. James Tullio, the store’s owner and only employee, collects the money at the end of each day and replenishes the stock before the start of the next day’s business. {see more }
Analysis: This is a rich description of the field site, and is important to this article because the environment is the star feature of this research. There is very little that points to the published literature; in fact, in this study, the writer features the participant experience over the literature, which is normal for ethnographic field work.
Note: even in cases where environment is pivotal, the primary description may occur in the “methods” or some other part of the article.
Reveal the Research Goal/s
Qualitative research reports are driven by questions just as all other research is. However, the expression of the question/s tend to be written more as goals of the research. As in other research reports, the research goal is at the end of the Introduction material.
The examples of Research Goals will use the same 4 examples as above. For each, the statement of research goals immediately follows the lit review and/or field description.
Example || First assessments by specialist cancer nurses in the community: An ethnography
Aims of the study
This study investigates specialist nurses’ first visits to patients with cancer in the community. The study also explores how specialist nurses use the SCC in practice and their views on the SCC.
Analysis: The Research Goals are simply stated at the end of the Introduction, preceding Methods.
Example || The “knucklehead” approach and what matters in terms of health for formerly incarcerated Latino men
At the interpersonal level, FILM deploy a system of gender relations that is based on a hierarchy of respect (Bourgois, 1996, Bourgois, 2003, Ramirez et al., 2002 and Wilson, 1969). By drawing on the above theoretical framework, we aimed to explore how the pressures of performing a localized masculinity against the realities of ethnic/racial-gender exclusion in the labor market set the backdrop for FILM to deny their health needs, engage in risky practices as ways of coping with exclusion and proving their masculinity to themselves and others, and disregard health-promoting messages. The following section describes the methodology that we used to accomplish the above goal.
Analysis: This Research Goal statement includes both the main theoretical frame (gender relations) driving the interpretation of data and also a brief overview of the outcomes themselves.
Example || The Dialectical Gaze: Exploring the Subject-Object Tension in the Performances of Women who Strip
In this vein, this study will maintain that female professional stripping cannot be viewed as either entirely liberating or entirely constraining: strippers are neither completely with nor completely without power. I will explore the resources and constraints these women encounter and the rhetorical and performative tactics they enact as they negotiate power relationships both in and out of the workplace. First, I draw on relevant theories of power, performance, and communication. I focus on how expressions of power through performance complicate the subject-object tension; it is a dialectic rather than a dichotomy. Second, I present data from ethnographic observations and interviews of how power is performed and negotiated during interactions between customers and dancers, management and dancers, and the dancers and their families. Throughout, I argue that it is not about whether strippers are object or subject, or whether they have power or not. It is about how they discursively negotiate the ambivalence and contradiction inevitable when competing expressions of power are culturally and socially constructed and performed. Finally, I conclude that stripping may not be as deviant a profession for women as it has been previously defined. Whether through expression or suppression, for many professional women, sexuality is a spoken or unspoken component of work. Their jobs do not have to require them to take off their clothes for them to feel that to be successful they must shape and discipline their bodies toward a prescribed feminine image (Nadesan and Tretheway 2000; Tretheway 1998).
Analysis: The Research Goal is established via the final “big idea” of the study, stated in the first sentence. The remainder of the paragraph sets out the organization of the article, including both the actual sequence of ideas as well as the conceptual frame shaping the interpretation of data. The writer is setting up a complex argument, hence supplies more detail up front to prepare the reader for the challenging intellectual work ahead.
Example || A Couple of White Guys Sitting around Talking: The Collective Rationalization of Cigar Smokers
Throughout the course of this article, I (1) discuss my participation at the shop, (2) detail my methodology, (3) establish a theoretical foundation for the study, (4) describe how the regulars craft and converge their collective arguments, and (5) detail the five collectively rationalized prosmoking arguments most frequently used by the regulars in countering antismoking messages.
Analysis: In this Research Goal statement, the writer provides an overview of the kinds of information found in the rest of the paper; the fifth sentence conveys the “big idea” of the study overall.