Introduction. You might draft your Introduction quite early, but it will probably be the last thing you revise into its final form

You might draft your Introduction quite early, but it will probably be the last thing you revise into its final form. It will be one of the first bits the reader looks at. Here you need to catch the reader’s interest, and persuade them that it is worth reading further.

Introduction in good academic writings tends to follow fairly standard patterns, consisting of particular items. But it is a piece of writing presented as a textual unity in which you explain the initial positions of your research and declare its aim and significance. Never use for your introduction the preambles of books on similar subjects. Different books have different aims and do not meet the requirements of your research.

First of all, you should state the object of study, i.e. the area of knowledge that interests you, for example, written texts belonging to specific spheres of activity. Then, you should narrow the field of research to a particular aspect and state the subject of research, e.g. special terminology (election / cardiology / basketball / glassblowing, if you are not going to deal with structural patterns) and terminography, that is the way terms are registered and standardized in terminological dictionaries.

Next, you should prove that the subject of your research is a matter of current topical interest to science and society. The subject of research should be up to date, immediately touching upon urgent linguistic problems, in your case, the problems of terminology, as it is in this domain that the development of civilization is indicated and special terms serve as an instrument of professional work and training.

The aim of research is to create new knowledge, whatever the discipline. The aim of your research is therefore to make a contribution to the field of linguistics which increases the sum of knowledge. It may be formulated, for example, in the following way: to present theoretical as well as practical aspects of compiling a dictionary of special terms; or to describe linguistic relations between terms and the general vocabulary; or to classify and systematise language units united by a common concept within the semantic field of business / electronics / sports, etc.

One of the steps you will need to take next is to formulate the main claim in the form of a statement, argument, or hypothesis. A hypothesis is a tentative or temporary solution to a scientific problem or an explanation for why something happens. Although a hypothesis usually develops from the intuition of the researcher, it is based on observation of facts. If there is no hypothesis or claim, your work will not meet the requirements of a research project and will present a collection of fact and examples, a description of the current or historical state of your problem. A hypothesis is always written in the form of a complete sentence, not a sentence fragment or a question. Most hypotheses are stated in the Present Simple, although it is possible to hypothesize about something that took place in the past or will happen in the future. Sometimes a hypothesis is expressed as a prediction, using the future tense with will.

As a next step you should prove the reliability of the results of your research. The reliability of your research is provided by the analysis of the authentic materials of English / American / Russian special literature.

Theoretical grounds is still another issue you should mention in your introduction. It is an area of approaches, ideas and opinions that you share with other people working in the same field of knowledge. You should state that in your research you apply the general theoretical principles established in the investigations by, for example, F. Grucza (1991), J. Lukszyn (2001), J.C. Sager (1990).

The following stage is to identify the novelty of your research in the ideas, approaches, methods which would attract people’s attention and interest. In this respect, of prime value is the material of your research, the data-base.

Theoretical and practical significance. As for theory, your research should contribute to the development of principles and approaches to terminology, lexicography and terminography, or translation. Practical significance lies in the fact that your data-base might provide the foundations for a special dictionary of legal / administrative / business, etc. terms based on historical / encyclopaedical and other principles.

The method applied in research may be identified as a method of overall extraction (moving) examples out of special literature. Then via parallel conceptual analysis and definition comparison you complete the terminology data base for the domain.

Introductions usually end with a brief preview of how the thesis is organized, so that readers have a rough map as they set out through the text.

Structure: the project consists of Introduction, two chapters: theoretical and analytical, Conclusion, Bibliography and Appendix.