Handout: Opening Paragraphs from Published Articles
Psychology
Read each of these introductions from real articles published in psychology journals. Do you believe each is a good or bad introduction? If it is a bad introduction, how would you re-write it? Could you "translate" the introductions into clear, simple sentences?
Example 1
Title: Sex-role attitudes and the anticipated timing of the initial stages of family formation among Catholic university students
A number of researchers have stated the need to clarify the determinants of fertility in terms of a developmental process that culminates in given family sizes by way of variant patterns of family formation (Westoff et al., 1963; Bupass & Westoff, 1970; Namboodiri, 1972a; 1972b; 1974; Ryder, 1974; Scanzoni, 1976, 1977). This approach is based on a view of family life as an ongoing system in which fertility is in part a function of events and states defined at earlier ages, and in part determined by events and reevaluations as the process unfolds through time. From this perspective the initial stages of family formation take on considerable importance insofar as they define the limitations upon which later events and evaluations are contingent.
Example 2
Title: Influence of parents, peers, and partners on the contraceptive use of college men and women
Contraceptive use among unmarried youth has, until recently, been a neglected area in the study of fertility. The number of young, unmarried women in the United States who are sexually active and potentially in need of contraceptive protection is substantial and increasing. Although contraceptive practice has shown improvement in recent year among both adolescents (Zelnik & Kantner, 1977) and college age youth (Bauman & Wilson, 1974), the number of young women who are contraceptively at risk is still great.
Example 3
Title: The decision to parent or not: Normative and structural components
Fertility studies have, traditionally, investigated quantitative differences between large and small families, ignoring the voluntarily childless family as a legitimate research area. The current study attempts to counteract this selective research bias by focusing on normative and structural factors associated with parenthood vis-à-vis nonparenthood. The theoretical framework underlying this research is the assumption that the widely documented preference among American couples for two-to-four child families (Blake, 1966; 1972; Commission of Population Growth and the American Future, 1972; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1976) reflects a pervasive array of interacting norms and sanctions that act to regulate the number of children that one ought to want and ought to have.
My translation of the first three sample introductions
Sample 1
Translation: Researchers are interested in how people decide how many children to have. Because that decision develops from influences over time, it is determined in large part by events before marriage.
Sample 2
Translation: With the increase in sexual activity in young people, and even with increased contraceptive use, ever more sexually active young people still do not use contraception. What are the influences from other people that determine whether young people will use contraception?
Sample 3
Translation: Many couples decide about family size because they think they are expected to have two to four children. By studying couples with children, as well as couples who have decided not to have children, we want to investigate the factors that lead to these expected norms.
Malcolm W. Watson
Developed at Brandeis University through a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation
Faculty Spotlight
"I learned to use three particularly valuable practices to teach writing.
"First, by talking about writing in every class session and discussing some pointers and at the same time stressing to students that we are all on a continual course to becoming better writers, I saw a change in the students in that they internalized this same attitude toward writing and began focusing on making continual progress. This became one of their goals as well.
"Second, by using concrete examples, many provided by students, we worked through many aspects important to clear writing.
"Third, by sticking with one large paper that students wrote in pieces and then continually revised through multiple drafts, they focused on the process of writing and working on continual improvement."
Professor Malcolm Watson