The opening sections of a dissertation introduction are frequently dedicated to introducing the topic area and briefly describing current thinking and paradigms in the field. The opening of the dissertation introduction will also highlight the importance of the topic in the field and to society as a whole. The dissertation introduction's job, in a sense, is to convince the reader to read the entire dissertation, so it is helpful to discuss reasons why the student's dissertation research is significant. While the student will go into far more detail in the dissertation literature review, a brief overview in the introduction will suffice.
The dissertation introduction will also include information regarding each chapter of the dissertation, in order to provide the reader with an idea of what to expect as he or she reads the dissertation. The student writing a dissertation introduction should say what he or she will cover in each dissertation chapter.
A dissertation introduction will often include a list of research questions and/or a list of hypotheses. Research questions are questions the researcher/writer of the dissertation poses at the outset of the study process and attempts to answer through the research. A dissertation introduction can contain any number of different but related research questions. They are often numbered, so that the dissertation writer can refer to them later. A hypothesis is an "educated guess" regarding the outcome of the research. Often, a dissertation writer will state one hypothesis in answer to each research question he or she poses.
After the research questions and hypotheses, the writer can briefly describe the research conducted to answer them. If all of these elements are present, the writer can consider the dissertation introduction complete and move on to the main body of the dissertation.
