Writing Wednesday: An Introduction in Theory and Practice

Over the last semester, I’ve had the good fortune to read some of my brilliant colleagues introductions to book length projects. Not only was their work thought provoking, but it was also inspiring. It got me thinking about how I write introductions to books and papers. As I pondered this, I realize that my ideal introduction has four main parts. First, it has a prelude. At their best, my prelude establish the relationship between me as author, my reader, and the topic. If the topic is methodological, then a prelude might locate the reader and the author in the field. If it’s historical, I might step out of the frame and introduce the reader to the historical situation with a short narrative. If the book is historiographic, I might try to make the prelude particularly vivid to stave off the inevitable boredom of the litany of works and authors. The next section tends to focus on “the problem” that the work seeks to solve. At best, this is the “problematique” with all the underlying…