Dr. Germaine A. Hoston
Department of Political Science
Senior Honors Thesis

Writing the Introduction/First Chapter ofYour Thesis

So you are ready to write the Introduction to your thesis. By this point, you havealready developed an outline and have gotten far enough into your research toconfirm that the key elements of your argument are included in that structure.
Once you have done this according to my handout on ʺHow to Structure andWrite an Effective Paper,ʺ you basically have the overall structure of your thesis
as a whole. Generally, each Roman Numeral of Your Outline will correspond to achapter of your thesis. Some items might have to be divided into two chapters,
depending on how much data there is, but you get the idea.
Roughly your chapter outline will look like one of the following two dominantpatterns:
Pattern #1
The Puzzle / Statement of Research Question
Chapter 1
Literature Review (How Others have Answered Chapter 1
This Question and Why Their Answers areInadequate)
Chapter 1
Your Answer (Your Thesis Statement)
Your Argument in Support of This Answer
Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Brief Historical Background
Overview of the Structure of the Thesis
Analysis of Empirical Data
Conclusion / Summary of Findings

Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Chapters 3‐4
Chapter 5

Chapter 2
Chapter 1
Chapters 3‐4
Chapter 5

Pattern #2
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 1

The purpose of the introduction is a make the reader want to read the rest of yourstudy. You need to:
1. State Your Research Question (The ʺPuzzleʺ you are trying to solve)
and indicate its significanceHere, your first chapter explains why the research question addresses
something that is both a real phenomenon that educated people outside yourHoston, How to Write a Thesis Introduction

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narrow specialty consider important and a puzzle that is significant in thecontext of the theories developed by specialists in the discipline of politicalscience. Try to relate your burning interest in a particular case or topic toissues of concern to a larger audience. It is important to be able to answer theperson who might respond to your argument by saying, “So What?”
Although an individual, non‐recurring event may be the inspiration for thepuzzle that interests you, the research question usually should not be aquestion about a unique or idiosyncratic event. Your research question
should address some recurring, patterned set of events in more general terms,
even if you are going to be addressing only a single case. For example, if you
are interested in the contribution of the Great Depression to the rise of Hitler,rather than ask ʺdid Hitler come to power because of the depression?ʺ you
might ask ʺare fascist movements more successful in states undergoinggreater social dislocations from economic depression?ʺ The first asks about asingle outcome, the second asks about a pattern of outcomes.
If your study seeks to address causal relationships, you should be able to stateclearly at the opening, “My dependent variable is. . . .” This may represent a
fundamental shift in the focus with which you have become familiar in
preparing for examinations. In the latter we often focus on the independent
variables in order to group authors into schools of thought.

2. Review the existing literature on the subject. Indicate what answers havealready been offered to your question. If there is a lot of material, youmight just want to offer a brief overview of, say, the three major
approaches to the problem, here, for example, and move the more detailed
critical discussion of the literature to Chapter 2.
The literature review should not just summarize relevant books andarticles. Instead, it should organize the literature (grouping works
where appropriate) into alternative approaches and alternative
answers to your research question. The objective of the literature
review is to identify alternative hypotheses and to identify why
your research needs to be done. Alternative theoretical approaches
to your research question are usually rooted in some distinctive
assumptions about what variables deserve close attention. Theories
present a logic or chain of reasoning that links larger concepts to themore specific question that you have posed. Your literature review

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should make clear the assumptions, reasoning, and hypotheses thatcharacterize each major theory or approach. You will be able toidentify in these approaches or theories what others have identified
as the independent variables that account for the dependent
variable (outcome) that you are trying to explain. The independent
variable is the cause or explanatory variable and, within the contextof the hypothesis is predetermined (that is, its causes are notspecified). The dependent variable is the effect that is determined bya cause specified within the hypothesis. Also note that in this thevalues of the dependent independent variable in the hypothesis
vary—that is, each can take on at least two values (e.g., high vs. low,
more vs. less, present vs. absent). A so‐called ʺvariableʺ that always
assumes one value (that is always present, always low, etc.) is aconstant and not a variable and cannot be included in a causal
hypothesis.
3. If you need to give some brief historical or larger theoreticalbackground, you might want to do that here, or if it is very lengthy,
move this to Chapter 2 .

4. Articulate your Thesis Statement (your overarching argument thatyou will be supporting in response to your Research Question).
This could be one of the hypotheses already offered in the relevant
literature, or it could be an alternative to existing hypotheses thatyou find (and show to be) unconvincing. Here you need to explain
to the reader that this thesis is an application to a specific situationof a larger analytic or theoretical tradition (in the second example,political institutionalism). You should explain the assumptions inthis tradition that begin the chain of reasoning leading to yourhypothesis and you should lay out this logical chain for the reader.
5. Outline your argument, by stating your supporting hypotheses.
Show how these supporting hypotheses are logically essential to youroverarching thesis statement.

6. Outline your research design, the approach you will be taking toresolve the question. This might be comparative, it might be one orHoston, How to Write a Thesis Introduction

Page 3 of 6more case studies, and it can rely on quantitative or qualitative data.1
You might make specific references to chapters in order to give yourreaders a roadmap to your Thesis (e.g., “Chapter 3 argues that[hypothesis 1]).

If you are doing a comparative study, I strongly recommend that you consult one or more of thearticles listed in the reference list below to make sure that your comparison makes logical sense
and is sustainable.
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References on the Comparative Method2

Mill, John Stuart. “Two Methods of Comparison.” In Comparative Perspectives:
Theories and Methods, pp. 205‐212. Edited with an Introduction by Amitai
Etzioni and Fredric L. Dubow. Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company(Inc.) 1970.
Lijphart, Arend. “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method.”
American Political Science Review. 65.3 (September 1971): 682‐693.

The

Lijphart, Arend. “The Comparable‐Cases Strategy in Comparative Research.”
Comparative Political Studies 8.2 (July 1975): 158‐177.
Zelditch, Morris, Jr. ”Intelligible Comparisons.” In Comparative Methods inSociology: Essays on Trends and Applications, pp. 267‐307. Edited by Ivan
Vallier. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press under
the auspices of the Institute of International Studies, 1971; paperback ed.,1973.
Bendix, Reinhard. “Concepts and Generalizations in Comparative SociologicalStudies.” American Sociological Review 28.4 (August 1963): 532‐539.
Wolin, Sheldon S. “Paradigms and Political Theories.” In Politics and Experience:
Essays Presented to Professor Michael Oakeshott on the Occasion of His
Retirement, pp. 125‐152. Edited by Preston King and B. C. Parekh
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., and Barton, Allen H. “Qualitative Measurement in the SocialSciences: Classifications, Typologies, and Indices.” In The Policy Sciences,
pp. 155‐192. Edited by Daniel Lerner and Harold D. Lasswell. Stanford:Stanford University Press, 1951.
Collins, Randall. “A Comparative Approach to Political Sociology.” In State andSociety: A Reader in Comparative Political Sociology, pp. 42‐67. Edited byReinhard Bendix et al. Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, and Company, 1968;
2I have listed these in the order in which they are best consulted rather than in alphabetical order.

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Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, paperback ed.,1973.
Sartori, Giovanni. “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics.” American
Political Science Review 64.4 (December 1970): 1033‐1053.
Scarrow, Harold A. “The Scope of Comparative Analysis.” Journal of Politics 25.3
(1963): 565‐77.
Holt, Robert T., and Turner, John E. “The Methodology of ComparativeResearch.” In The Methodology of Comparative Research, pp. 1‐20. Edited byRobert T. Holt and John E. Turner. New York: The Free Press, 1970.

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