Introduction of a Journal Article: tips for crafting a compelling introduction

A well-written introduction in scientific journals typically includes what is currently known in your field, the approaches you used to try and find an answer, and your main findings. There are four main components in making the Introduction:

1. General background information
2. Specific background information
3. Knowledge gap
4. A statement of study objective
5. (optionally) a brief of summary of study

Here is “10 tips for writing an effective introduction to original research papers” by John Zepernick:

1. Start broadly and then narrow down
2. State the aims and importance
3. Cite thoroughly but not excessively
4. Avoid giving too many citations for one point
5. Clearly state either your hypothesis or research question
6. Consider giving an overview of the paper
7. Keep it short
8. Show, don’t tell
9. Don’t bury your readers in detail
10. Check the journal requirements

As an example of a journal article introduction, I’ve included one I wrote below.

Synthesis of Fe3O4/ZnO-Ag Composite As a Photocatalyst for Degradation of Tetracycline

Antibiotics are a class of drugs used to prevent and treat bacterial infections in humans and contagious diseases in animals. Tetracycline is a broad-spectrum antibiotic used to treat infections caused by gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, intracellular mycoplasma, chlamydia, and rickettsia. However, tetracycline cannot be completely absorbed or metabolized by humans and animals. Residual antibiotics and their metabolites can affect aquatic organisms, terrestrial animals, and the food chain, impacting both aquatic ecosystems and human health (Wu et al., 2020). Therefore, efficient strategies are needed to detoxify tetracycline antibiotic residues from the environment.

Metal oxide semiconductor photocatalysts such as TiO2, ZnO, and SnO2 have been widely used in photocatalytic technology to degrade organic pollutants with the assistance of UV light (Wang et al., 2016). ZnO is a semiconductor photocatalyst with a band gap energy of 3.37 eV at room temperature. The large band gap energy limits the photocatalytic activity of ZnO to UV light exposure, while the presence of UV light in nature is only around 5–15%. Therefore, the use of sunlight as a light source is limited for environmental applications (Ebrahimi et al., 2019).

Previous studies have shown that ZnO exhibits strong excitonic emission in the UV region but weak emission in the visible light region (Roychowdhury et al., 2013). Therefore, ZnO modification is necessary to broaden its optical absorption. This modification involves the use of transition metal ion Ag as a dopant in ZnO. In addition, the addition of magnetite to the photocatalyst is required for the recovery of the photocatalyst from the solution using an external magnet after the photocatalytic process. This study synthesized a Fe3O4/ZnO-Ag photocatalyst material with the aim of producing a photocatalyst material that is responsive to visible light and can be easily separated from the solution and reused after the photocatalytic process. The synthesized material was tested for its activity in the photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline.

References:

• Charlesworth Author Services, “How to write an Introduction to an academic article”, Charlesworth Author Services, 17 Aug 2020, url https://www.cwauthors com/article/How-to-write-an-introduction-to-an-academic-article [20240318]
• John Zepernick, “10 tips for writing an effective introduction to original research papers”, ThinkSCIENCE, 2022, url https://thinkscience.co.jp/en/articles/effective-introductions-to-original-research [20240318]