Writing week four

Academic Introductions

Structure and stance

Discussion

Watch the advert for the UK supermarket chain Iceland; does it make you want to change your shopping behaviour?
Do adverts for 'ethical' products make you want to be more socially responsible?
In the reading class this week we have looked at forms of ethical consumerism in Scandinavia. Do you have an opinion on what you've read so far about whether these initiatives make people more socially responsible in general?

Writing academic introductions

When we produce a piece of academic writing, there is no one correct structure or style. You'll notice that many academic and semi-academic articles have their own style, and your lecturers at university will similarly have differing expectations and preferences. However, there are some basic principles of good writing that we can follow:

Engage the reader - this is one of the most important things to keep in mind, as you always have to make sure your reader is interested in what you're writing about. What's your rationale for writing about this particular area? Why is the topic relevant? Of course, if it's an assignment that you've been told to write in order to pass a module, you may well not find it interesting -- we all have to study subjects that we're not that excited about from time to time. Even so, it's important to find an aspect of the topic that you can get enthusiastic enough about to make your writing interesting to another reader.
Get to your point early - nearly every piece of work you produce at University will be expected to have some kind of argument, overall conclusion or key finding. We usually give a very brief summary of what this is at the end of our introduction. We call this our thesis statement. This can be difficult for students to incorporate into their writing as they might be expecting not to reveal this information until the very end. However, knowing the writer's stance right from the start is very helpful for readers.
Have a hook - a hook is where you introduce a controversy within the topic, or a development which makes it interesting to write about. Often this is signaled with a however, or something similar. An essay with no hook will leave the reader wondering why you're writing about the topic in the first place, and the essay may end up being a bit too descriptive, and sounding more like a Wikipedia entry.

Glossary

Engagement - the act of being interested and involved in something
Rationale - the reasons for a decision or a belief
Stance - a publicly stated opinion
Thesis statement - The statement at the end of your introduction in which you provide an answer to the essay question

Task 1

Read the introduction to the paper by Mazar and Zhong (2010). What stages are there to their introduction? How do they engage the reader, and what is the main argument?

Do Green Products Make Us Better People?

In the past few decades, consumers have become increasingly attentive to social and ethical considerations in areas such as energy consumption, animal husbandry, and trade Chen, 2001; Crane, 2001; Torjusen, Lieblein, Wandel, & Francis, 2001). This increased concern and feeling of responsibility for society has led to remarkable growth in the global market for environmentally friendly products (Hunt & Dorfman, 2009). At the heart of this trend, which is often referred to as ethical consumerism or green consumption (Anderson & Cunningham, 1972; Kinnear, Taylor, & Ahmed, 1974), lies the assumption that purchasing choices express not only price and quality preferences (Monroe, 1976), but also norms, values, and beliefs (Caruana, 2007; Irwin & Baron, 2001). This assumption has motivated a stream of research focusing on identifying the “green consumer” by sociodemographic variables, personality measures, or values that are directly related to environmental consciousness (e.g., Schlegelmilch, Bohlen, & Diamantopoulos, 1996; Shrum, McCarty, & Lowrey, 1995). What is not sufficiently understood is how green consumption fits into people’s global sense of social responsibility and morality and affects behaviors outside the consumption domain. On the basis of recent theories in behavioral priming and moral regulation, we argue that mere exposure to green products and the purchase of such products will have markedly different effects on subsequent behaviors. Whereas mere exposure can activate concepts related to social responsibility and ethical conduct and induce corresponding behaviors, purchasing green products may produce the counterintuitive effect of licensing asocial and unethical behaviors by establishing moral credentials. Thus, green products do not necessarily make for better people.

Adapted from: Mazar, N. and Zhong, C, (2009). Do Green Products Make Us Better People? Psychological Science, 21 [4], pp. 494-498 Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1463018 [Accessed 10 July 2019].

Structure of introductions

One way of planning an introduction is to follow a template of background, hook and thesis.

Task 2

Can you identify these stages in the text above?
Below are some examples of language that we often see in these types of introduction. In which of the stages would you expect to see them?

However, surprisingly little research has focused on...
Over the past fifteen years, increasing attention has been paid to...
Nevertheless, there is substantial disagreement over...
This paper argues that...
The causes of the decrease in numbers of giant purple squirrels is also examined...
Podcasting has become an increasingly influential form of knowledge dissemination and public debate...

Task 3

Below is an abridged version of an introduction to a research article in the field of education. Identify the background, hook and thesis.

Relationship between lecture capture usage and examination performance of Biology undergraduates

In general, lecture capture is highly valued by students (O’Callaghan et al., 2015). Questionnaire data show that students find the facility useful for revision and to aid understanding of challenging concepts (Elliott and Neal, 2016, Toppin, 2011, Settle et al., 2011, McCunn and Newton, 2015). Based on this evidence, several reviews thus propose that lecture capture is a useful tool to aid independent study (Karnad, 2013, Kinash et al., 2015, Elliott and Neal, 2016). However, the relationship between student absence from lectures and usage of lecture capture appears to be complex and highly variable; a large proportion of students who miss lectures do not catch up by accessing captured lectures (Brady et al., 2013). Indeed, lecture capture usage appears to vary with time, such that there are clear spikes in the number of viewings coinciding with the days preceding summative assessments (Elliott and Neal, 2016), suggesting that the assessment is a more important predictor of usage than absence (Brady et al., 2013). As such, more careful analysis of available evidence, considering potential confounders, is required. The objective of this research project was to study the relationship between lecture capture usage and examination performance of Biology undergraduates in order to test the hypothesis that students who use lecture capture recordings more extensively perform better in their end of module examinations. The hypothesis was tested using data from students enrolled on a range of stage 2 and stage 3 Biology modules (n = 4 from each stage) which were taught in the 2017 autumn term and examined in the January 2018 common assessment period, considering potential confounding based on gender, nationality and disability status. Results from this study will improve understanding of the implications of lecture capture usage within the Department of Biology and may inform future departmental policy and teaching practice.

Adapted from: Brackenbury, W. (2019), Relationship between lecture capture usage and examination performance of Biology undergraduates. York Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Journal. 3. [Online]. Available at: https://www.york.ac.uk/media/staffhome/learningandteaching/documents/academicpractice/sotlnetwork/access-controlled/Vol%203%20March%202019.pdf [Accessed 11th July 2019].

Discussion

Do you think the excerpt above could be improved as an introduction? E.g., is there too much or too little information? Is everything relevant? Does the thesis statement sufficiently answer a question?
The excerpt above has been adapted from the original. Read the original via the link above and see which introduction you prefer.
Do you think the background/hook/thesis model is suitable for all disciplines? What variation might you find in other fields?

Task 4 - The first and last sentences of an introduction

Look at the three examples of opening sentences below on the essay question: Is social media a force for good? Which one most makes you want to keep reading?

Nowadays, many people use social media because it lets us talk to each other.
Since 2007, use of social media sites such as Facebook have fundamentally changed the way we interact with each other.
1.5 billion people now use Facebook compared to 1.8 million in 2007, and it is mainly used by people Europe and the United States to connect with and then ignore each other while giving artificially inflated impressions about how interesting and great their lives are.

Now look over the three possible thesis statements. Which one do you feel gives the clearest stance and answers the question?

This essay argues that social media is a really interesting way to spend time.
This essay looks at the advantages of social media, then the disadvantages, then reaches a conclusion.
This essay puts forward that while social media has the potential to be a force for good, the ad driven business model and the misuse of personal data mean that this potential cannot be realised without stricter regulation.

Task 5

Imagine we're writing an essay based on the reading text we looked at earlier in the week. Think about the essay question: Should second-hand stores receive tax breaks? Write an introductory paragraph using the structure we've been working with, and upload your work to Google Classroom.

Teacher's notes

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