How to Write Brilliant Psychology Essays. Paul Dickerson
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but, equally, it may not. Your writing will create reactions in your reader – why get them in an agitated mood right at the start, when instead you could demonstrate the luminosity of your thinking? A strong introduction is within reach – reach for it, it will make all the difference.
Introduction: What it is and why it matters
Fiction and non-fiction, books, films, plays and musicals often introduce explicitly or implicitly some of the characters, issues and contexts that will be addressed. Academic introduction writing is one, quite specific, example of that. As has been argued above, introductions really do matter. Done well, they help you to take your reader with you. Look at how it feels to read an essay without an introduction. Below are two brief essay extracts. Imagine that they are the very beginning of an essay. Each shows a first paragraph and then the first sentence of the next paragraph.
Extract one
Point illustrated: Unless directed otherwise – you need a proper scene-setting introduction.
Reader’s reaction: Where’s the introduction gone?
Essay title:
‘Outline and evaluate Milgram’s interpretation of his obedience experiments.’
Sample essay one
Milgram found that approximately two thirds of participants obeyed in his obedience studies. They demonstrated obedience by continuing to administer (what they thought were) electric shocks to a confederate, as prompted by an experimenter in a learning experiment. Milgram interpreted this obedience in terms of a shift to the agentic state. The agentic state describes a change in a person’s sense of agency, from feeling responsible for their own actions, to feeling that they are no longer responsible for their actions, but rather that they are following the orders of someone in authority over them.
Another approach to making sense of Milgram’s findings was put forward by Reicher and Haslam (2011), who argued that …
Extract two
Point illustrated: Again, you need something prior to the material that actually answers the question – you need an introduction which acknowledges the title with an orientating sentence and includes a statement of intent which outlines how the essay will address the essay title (these are detailed later in this chapter).
Reader’s reaction: This essay has launched into answering the essay – the essay has merit but is not introduced to the reader.
Essay title:
‘Critically evaluate the contribution of fMRI research to understanding psychological processes.’
Sample essay two
One particularly important strand of research has involved using fMRI data to localise psychological function to specific brain regions. An example of this is found in the work of Downing, Liu and Kanwisher (2001), who investigated whether the same regions of the brain were employed in object recognition regardless of the specific object being perceived. A particular interest for Downing et al. was whether different modules of processing were involved in perceiving human bodies as compared to other types of objects. Downing et al.’s fMRI research identified that there was a region within the right lateral occipitotemporal cortex that was associated with the perception of human bodies.
While Downing et al.’s research can be seen as evidence of the use of fMRI to examine functional specialisation, this work and the approach that it exemplifies has been challenged. …
Making sense of the sample essays
Without getting too concerned about content (it really doesn’t matter how familiar you are with the right lateral occipitotemporal cortex), think about how reading these two sample essays made you feel. They were both on-topic, and in that sense answering the question, but something didn’t feel quite right. You might find that it is a bit like missing the start of a film. Perhaps you feel that you want to rewind – that you have been cheated out of something. Possibly you feel like saying to the writer ‘hold on a minute’. Both of these examples launch straight in on the topic but do not really do what is necessary to clearly show how they are addressing the essay title. Not doing this is like the train, ship or plane leaving before the passengers are ready – the reader is left stranded and might never really feel that they are on board with the essay.
You might have noticed something that is emphasised here, which is how writing – in this case, the writing of introductions – makes the reader feel. That could strike you as odd in an academic essay. Surely an academic essay is supposed to be about ideas and evidence, and not feelings. However, the concept of our reader’s experience of our writing is really key for effective academic writing. Not including an introduction in your essay will produce a reaction in your reader – they will feel that something expected is missing, and that is not the frame of mind you want them to have from the very beginning of reading your essay.
How to write a brilliant introduction – step by step
To connect to our reader, and to help them to be in the frame of mind that is most able to appreciate our essay, our introduction should really do two things: first, it should orientate to the topic of the essay title, and second, it should outline how the essay will address the essay title. We can think of these two parts of the introduction as the orientating sentence (although it could be longer than a sentence) and the statement of intent.
Our orientating sentence provides the reader with a sense of how we understand the context of the essay title, for example, conveying a sense of why it is relevant, important or worth considering. Without an orientating sentence, the reader experiences a sudden jolt as they move from the essay title to the essay. We can avoid that by setting the scene for the essay title. Our statement of intent communicates, with some level of specification, a sense of how our essay will address the essay title, signposting the ideas, evidence and debates that will be covered. Without the statement of intent, the reader is left in a strange place without a map or GPS. But it doesn’t need to be like that. We can give the reader a sense of where the essay will take them and a sense of the logic to this journey.
Good and bad introductions
The best way to get a clear, useable sense of what a good introduction should look like is to contrast some examples of good and bad introductions, and then to try it yourself. If you practise converting a poor orientating sentence and a poor statement of intent into something stronger and – strange though it may seem – can also do the reverse, you will start to identify very clearly what makes for an effective introduction. Keep writing orientating sentences and statements of intent and you really will improve – don’t wait until the crunch time of an assessment to try to work out how to write an introduction.
Look at the essay title below and the orientating sentences. To aid clarity, some of these samples will include the beginning of the statement of intent that would follow on from the orientating sentence(s).
The orientating sentence
Essay title: ‘Critically evaluate Kelley’s Covariation Model of Causal Attribution.’
Sample orientating sentences
Look through these orientating sentences:
1 Attribution is all around us. We are always trying to work out why things happened. This essay will examine the omnipresent phenomenon of attribution.
2 Human beings are cognitive creatures for whom thinking is crucial. Our social world is a vital part of our lives. This essay will examine attribution, which is a very important