Review what you know about your subject before you start writing your introduction. Make an outline detailing what information you think would work well in an introductory paragraph.
Present your subject by starting with general information. According to the Purdue University online writing lab, you want to “set the context” for your subject so that readers will be able to “make sense of the topic and the claims you make and support.” Explain anything that a reader needs to know to be familiar with your subject, and give some background information to make the topic more understandable.
Grab your readers’ attention. There are several ways to do this. Find a startling fact or statistic related to your subject. Give a short, compelling story about your subject. Share what first interested you in the subject.
Create a thesis statement. A thesis is a sentence or two that states the main idea or argument of your paper. The Indiana University writing program explains that distilling your main idea into a sentence, makes you better able to organize your ideas and present them to the reader. The thesis allows the reader to clearly understand the central point of your essay.
Proofread your introduction for grammatical and spelling errors to avoid giving a bad first impression. Do this with all of your paragraphs, but proofreading is especially important for your introduction because it establishes the tenor of your paper. Often, if the introduction is sloppily written, the reader will assume that you did not take much time or care in writing the essay.