Academic Text Structures
Academic Text Structures
Academic Text Structures
1
The Three-Part Essay Structure
Introduction. Its purpose is to clearly tell the reader the topic, purpose and structure of
the paper. As a rough guide, an introduction might be between 10 and 20 percent of the
length of the whole paper and has three main parts:
You should write your introduction after you know both your overall point of view
(if it is a persuasive paper) and the whole structure of your paper. You should then
revise the introduction when you have completed the main body.
The Body. It develops the question, “What is the topic about?”. It may elaborate directly
on the topic sentence by giving definitions, classifications, explanations, contrasts,
examples and evidence. This is considered as the heart of the essay because it
expounds the specific ideas for the readers to have a better understanding of the topic.
It usually is the largest part of the essay.
Conclusion. The conclusion is closely related to the introduction and is often described
as its ‘mirror image’. This means that if the introduction begins with general information
and ends with specific information, the conclusion moves in the opposite direction. The
conclusion usually begins by briefly summarizing the main scope or structure of the
paper, confirms the topic that was given in the introduction, ends with a more general
statement about how this topic relates to its context. This may take the form of an
evaluation of the importance of the topic, implications for future research or a
recommendation about theory or practice.
The sections of the IMRaD structure are Introduction, Methods, Results and
Discussion. The Introduction usually depicts the background of the topic and the
central focus of the study. The Methodology lets your readers know your data collection
methods, research instrument employed, sample size and so on. Results and
Discussion states the brief summary of the key findings or the results of your study.