Introductionomachy (Or, The Introduction Wars).

I just wanted to start this post by thanking everyone for their amazing support when I launched this blog. Thank you all for the likes, shares, and page views, as well as the messages of encouragement and questions about when the next post would be published. Here it is, I hope it was worth the wait! 

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Shelby. Let’s break the ice with two truths and a lie: I am most productive with my PhD when I am in my flat, lying on my sofa, in my pyjamas, surrounded by books and snacks; I am not very good at breaking the ice; and I love the colour green. (As you probably guessed, I do not love the colour green).

My point is that introductions can be hard. It can be hard to say ‘this is my name, this is a summary of myself, and that is why I am a person worth knowing’. Academic writing introductions are the same. You are saying ‘here is my topic, here is a summary of what I will be writing about, and I will prove to you that my topic is important for these reasons’. 

Here are a few reasons why I think people struggle to get started with introductions*: 

1) It is daunting. 

It is daunting to look at all the work you are about to do, and sum it up. It can be hard to detail all of the chapters or sections of your writing, to say here is a list of things I will talk about and the things that I will find. Even if you know your topic / your argument / your essay / your plan inside out, it can feel like a really massive task to outline it. If your essay is a journey, and each chapter is a phase of that journey, the introduction is the first leg of it. It might be a journey that you’re looking forward to, one that you know you’re going to enjoy, but in that first leg of it, you know that all the hard work is ahead of you. Even though this part is technically easier than the rest (in that it will not be as in-depth as the rest of your work), it is the beginning, so you can feel a bit rusty and out of practice, and as though you’re yet to find your rhythm. 

2) You have to know what you’re going to be writing about. 

Sometimes, you do not know your plan inside out. Sometimes, you do not start writing an essay and know exactly how it is going to turn out. Heck, sometimes you start writing a sentence and don’t know exactly how it is going to … banana. Ahem, sorry. Anyway, my point is that even the most regimented planners (like myself) sometimes start working on something without a perfectly formed plan ahead of them and, if you’re not much of a planner, if your writing process includes a lot of free-form, stream of consciousness writing that you later sculpt into academic writing, introductions can seem pretty impossible. 

3) Your biggest undertaking yet. 

No matter what stage of academia you’re at, the likelihood is that you’re following a forward trajectory. This means that This Essay could be the first one you’re writing as a university student, or the first one you’re writing as ‘no longer a fresher’, or the first essay you’re writing in the last year of your degree, or your first ever dissertation, or your first essay as a postgraduate student, or the first essay you’re writing that’s this long, or … you get the point. The likelihood is, this is your biggest undertaking yet. It may be that you’ve never written something this advanced or long before, or it is a completely different style to what you’re used to. Either way, remember that this means you’re moving forwards, and that can only be a good thing.  So, how do you introduce something you’re new to? 

4) The blank page.

You know the one. Whiter than white, curser flickering expectantly, fingers hovering over keys, twitching uncertainly. Eesh. 

*Here, I am assuming that you are doing your introduction at the beginning of your writing process. I know a lot of people choose to completely ignore their introductions, and save it until last. That is perfectly valid too, and I will get to it. 

So there you have it. A not at all comprehensive list of reasons why writing introductions can be difficult. But what can you do about it? 

For one, make sure to go back to your introduction at the end. Of course, I advocate for going over the entirety of your essay with a fine-tooth comb again and again, editing obsessively until it is perfect, but that’s not what I mean by this. What I mean is, when you reach the end of your essay, read it through, then go back to the introduction. Has your argument changed? Has the structure or order of your essay changed? Do you make all the points you promised in your introduction, or have you since added points that have not been mentioned in your introduction? If not, then congratulations, your introduction is perfect. If there have been changes, make sure your introduction is also changed, so that it still accurately introduces the essay. This also helps with the daunting/blank page hang-ups too, as I have found that it feels much less daunting to write an introduction if you remind yourself that it is not set in stone, and that whatever you write can be amended later. 

This is why a lot of people choose to write their introductions at the end. Some people will jump straight into the main body of their essay and then, at the end, write an introduction, comfortable in the knowledge that it is introducing their essay exactly as it will be, as said essay has already been written. If you’re staring at that blank page, and you know exactly what you want to write for another part of your essay, don’t feel as though you need to start at the beginning or write in a linear way at all. As with most things, my advice is just to write. If you want to write in a linear way, and work through your blocks as they come, then start with your introduction and work through to your conclusion, but if you want to jump from idea to idea, from inspiration to inspiration, filling in the gaps at the end, then go for it! As long as you’re writing, the order you do it in really does not matter. 

But, no matter at what point you choose to write your introduction, at some point it does have to be written. Below is my skeleton plan for introductions. In my experience, I have found that this works no matter the length or scope of your essay, from 1,500 word undergraduate essays to 20,000 word Masters dissertations, this outline has not failed me yet. Obviously, the longer your piece of writing, the longer - and more detailed - your introduction and, conversely, the shorter your piece of writing, the more bare-bones, straight to the point, your introduction needs to be. 

1) Introduce your topic. 

 This can start as simple as paraphrasing your title. If your essay title is ‘Assess the manifestations of misanthropy in Gulliver’s Travels’, you can start by saying ‘Misanthropy is a present theme in Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels’. From there, you may want to define misanthropy and give some background on Swift and his novel. 

2) Introduce your sections/chapters.

Here, you are introducing the structure of your essay. Think of your introduction almost like a contents page or a map, to help your reader to navigate your essay. After introducing the topic you’re telling your reader what they are going to find and where they are going to find it. Straight after this intro you’re going to be in ‘Section One’, which is about X, and then after that you’re going to find ‘Section Two’, which is where I talk about Y, and then once you finish that, dear reader, you’re going to find yourself reading about Z, which is what I affectionately refer to as ‘Section Three’. If you’re struggling with this, try writing it out in a list format, like “Firstly, I will talk about X. Secondly, I will talk about Y. Thirdly, I will talk about Z.’, and then rework from there into something more academic. 

3) Link to aim of your essay. 

Ultimately, X, Y, and X will show A, B, and C. (Remember: You’re not going to say how they show A, B, and C: save that for the ends of your sections and your conclusion!) 

Now, I will use this structure to introduce my PhD thesis to you: 

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the adaptation of mythology in contemporary women’s literature for feminist purpose; more specifically, to analyse the use of mythology by the female authors within the Canongate Myth Series through a feminist lens. Feminist authors have often focussed on rewriting mythology because, as Weigle argues, “women’s [oppressed] position in society is thought to derive from how they originated and their behaviour in mythic times, as in the well-known Western myths of Lilith, Eve, and Pandora.” (Weigle 1999: 970). Theoretically, to rewrite these patriarchal myths about women is an act of intellectual liberation, liberating not only the mythical characters - such as Medusa or Pandora - but also contemporary women who are still writing within patriarchal belief systems. Susan Sellers summarises this literary activism in the following manner: “Feminist writing can thus be thought of in two categories: as an act of demolition, exposing and detonating the stories that have hampered women, and a task of construction - of bringing into being enabling alternatives.” (Sellers [2001] 2011: 189). Ultimately, contemporary female authors who rewrite myth must simultaneously “demolish” the historical, patriarchal myth and “construct” a replacement myth which embodies contemporary feminist problems, ideas, and arguments. 

The publishing house Canongate launched The Myths series in 2005, with the aim of having contemporary authors rewrite ancient myths. The series opened in October 2005 with Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, and Jeanette Winterson’s Weight. The series was later contributed to by Ali Smith’s Girl Meets Boy, and Salley Vickers’ Where Three Roads Meet in 2007. In 2011, A.S. Byatt contributed Ragnarok, and in 2013 Natsuo Kirino’s The Goddess Chronicle was published. These novels will form the primary sources of the thesis. Although the series is not only comprised of female authors, nor is it the only example of mythological revision in contemporary literature, this thesis will primarily examine on the female authors within The Myths series, thereby focussing the research on contemporary female authors who rewrite mythology. The chapters which will constitute the main body of the thesis are entitled  ‘Methodology’, ‘Theoretical Framework’, ‘Overt Feminism’, ‘Covert Feminism’, ‘Writing About Writing (About Myths)’, ‘Palimpsest/Pastiche’, and ‘Mythic Storytelling Techniques’. Ultimately, each of these chapters will contribute to the aim of the thesis, which is to analyse the adaptation of mythology in contemporary women’s literature, and whether these adaptations can serve feminist purposes. The texts written by female authors within the Canongate Myth Series will be analysed from different, feminist perspectives in order to answer the primary research questions of this thesis. Those research questions are as follows: ‘Can the Canongate Myth Series be analysed through a feminist lens?’ and ‘What impact can contemporary adaptations of myth have upon the feminist movement?’

I invite you all to comment with the aspects of introductions that you find difficult, or your tips on how to overcome them! Let me know if anything I’ve written here has been useful to you, or what you would have found more useful. Also feel free to request topics for future posts, or ask questions you want answered. Next, I am thinking of writing a post introducing you to each of the novels in my PhD, and the myths they have adapted.