Activity

It is often a good idea to write a draft introduction after you have scoped the field and settled on a general idea for your essay

What do you know so far about your essay?

Complete the table below as far as you can with the key information your reader will need to understand the main topic area you are discussing, the focus of your research, what you will be doing (your aim), and why (how it fits in with the material you have read and discussed on your module), how you plan to approach presenting this work to your reader, and possibly your final conclusion
Remember that you are introducing your reader to what they will be reading and giving them a reason to read on (sounds obvious, but that is the function of an introduction)

The table
Content	Comments	Your ideas so far
main topic area	from your essay title
focus of your research	from your essay title
what you hope to achieve	the aim of your essay - try to interpret your essay title in your own way
why it is of interest	is there a debate to address, or are you applying a theory or a method of investigation to a new situation (a source text / a real life situation / a historical event ) or is there another reason for you to engage in this question?
how you plan to achieve your aim	this is where you introduce your source texts / films / primary data that you plan to use as illustration for your argument
draft conclusion (if you have some idea yet of what your findings will be)	if you do have an idea where you hope to end up, it's a good idea to make a note of it

Don't forget that

this is a draft - you will no doubt be much clearer about all this by the time you finish writing your essay
in some disciplines (e.g. History and Philosophy) it is commonly expected that you will state very clearly how you plan to answer the question from the start. Your tutor wants to know what you plan to argue from the beginning and stating your position early on can help you stay focused
in others, this is not expected. Do check out some samples on the Bank of Assessed Work to see how successful students in your discipline introduce their essays
either way, when you get to it, do be sure that your conclusion answers the question posed in your introduction... it’s a good idea here to return to the wording in the title you were given.