Three Templates for Introductions to Political Science Articles

Learning to write strong introductions to journal articles is one of the most important skills to develop as an academic. However, most young scholars do not acquire this skill until they start piling up rejection letters, often with phrases like “poorly written,” “should be framed differently,” “not sure what the contribution is,” or “unclear why I should bother reading this.” (I speak from personal experience, both on the giving and receiving end.) Whether they realize it or not, what the referees are often trying to tell you with these complaints is “the introduction sucks.” Despite the clear importance of writing strong introductions, and many articles and books about academic writing in general,1 I am unaware of any guide dedicated solely to the art and science of the introduction. One might think this is because there are no rules, or that only practice and experience can teach how to write those first few pages. The main advice I received as a graduate student and in the years just after graduating was to have mentors and other experienced writers read my work and to heed their (inevitably harsh) criticism. No guide can fully spare you from this process. However, after reading many introductions across top political science journals (and related fields) in order to give some advice to graduate students in a writing seminar, I was surprised to find there really are not many ways to structure an introduction. Here I present these structures as templates, along with some more generic advice, in the hope that it will slightly steepen your ∗Assistant Professor of Government, Cornell University. [email protected]. 1Sword (2012) gives an overview of the advice given in many books on academic writing, including some suggestions for opening “hooks,” but not a comprehensive approach to intoductions. (McCloskey, 1998) and (Weingast, 2010) are two I find useful for economics and political science.