Most Students Would Probably Agree That Writing An Introduction: Comparative Public Policy Assignment, UCD, Ireland

Introduction

Most students would probably agree that writing an introduction is the most difficult part of any essay.  How on earth do I start? What should a good introduction contain?  Over the years I have had many arguments with academic colleagues about such matters. There are those that say you should define concepts in the title and explain them. Well, in my opinion, that simply isn’t good enough at a serious academic level and why bother to develop techniques you are later to abandon. If you want to build a house (however architecturally stylish) you make sure the foundations are sound.   That’s what this is about.

So, let’s avoid the cheap and abysmally cheerless option of a dictionary or Wikipedia to provide a definition of a concept to start the essay. Essays are about an argument (interpretation), how you construct it, present it, and, more importantly, defend it. Ever had an argument in a pub, or with your partner, and started it off with ‘in Wikipedia’s…. precisely.

Listed below are a number of useful points about how to construct a good introduction.

Try and introduce the reader gently to the topic.  Avoid specific references to the title, avoid offering questions as signposts, and situate the question within a wider context.  You could perhaps refer to something recent that has occurred an example of which is below. Here, I’ve used the taxi drivers dispute (2001, which was controversial, politicized, and front-page news) to highlight issues about the reform of the Irish State during the era of the Celtic Tiger.

As Christmas 2000 approached in Dublin there appeared little prospect that its citizens would avoid the annual rigmarole associated with securing a safe passage home after an evening out.  Anesthetized by now to forecasts of an integrated transport system the envy of Europe, this was a public that had become weary.

As for getting a taxi home, well there are few it seems who could not recount their own little horror story: two-hour vigils at a taxi rank in the rain had by now become firmly ensconced within the mythology of the Celtic Tiger.  And yet, as with so many other anecdotes of this period, they would have to vie for our attention in a conversation space crowded with incredulous descriptions of Dublin’s morning gridlock, its escalating house prices, or political and financial embezzlement.

It should surprise few then that the decision by the Irish Government to meet the Taxi lobby ‘ head-on and deregulate the licensing system should receive such a ringing endorsement from the general public. Surely, the government’s supporters argued, it was nothing short of scandalous that the outdated system of licensing which had pervaded the taxi system could so easily bring a major European city such as Dublin to its knees.

This was a cause presented as just, a cause of its times and one, more crucially, which reflected the ongoing struggle within modern Ireland to break with the shackles of an era of state-led modernization.  As for the media, like a pack of hyenas encircling a carcass, it could sense that political blood was about to be spilled.  And, if there was to be a casualty of neo-liberal politics it was an irony not to be lost on a public who had ventured out in the past, for more often than not they had appeared to be ‘hailing’ a taxi with an invisible hand.