Getting a good start on your research: Writing up the paper’s introduction

Publishing research in quality academic journals is always challenging. To improve the odds of publishing in the better business and allied social science journals, an author needs to get the paper off to a good start. To do that, much attention should be devoted to the paper’s introduction. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the introduction of some exemplary articles in the social sciences, primarily in the management and international business areas, and contrast those with some problematic examples. This research draws on a purposive sample and presents three of the exemplary article introductions for detailed discussion. Structural problems with the introduction are a major reason why otherwise good research can immediately run into problems with editors and reviewers. Thus, this paper contributes in providing guidance to authors in writing and organizing their introductions, from which they can also better organize and develop their full manuscripts and increase the odds of papers being accepted by good scholarly journals. Additional helpful examples and sources for authors are also provided and discussed