Page 28 - PPW (Paper Proposal Writing)

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Five Elements of Introduction

Part 1: Context, Issue, and Gap

The following example provides you with the introduction part of a paper proposal. Read and

discuss with the class on the words or expressions differentiating one element from the others.
Introduction

In Southeast Asia (ASEAN), English is learned and used either as a second language or as

a foreign language. As a second language, English is used in the countries colonized by the United
Context
Kingdom and the United States, namely Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore. English as a foreign
language is learned in countries not colonized by the United Kingdom and the United States i.e.,

Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar (McArthur, 1998).

There have been some recent studies about Indonesian students’ attitudes towards

different aspects of English (see e.g., Setyaningrum, 2017; Setianengsih, Salam, & Arifin 2017;
Setyowati & Qibtiyah, 2017; Novianti, 2015; Rodliyah, Imperiani, & Amalia, 2014; Siregar, 2010).
Issue
These studies were mostly conducted on small scales with a small number of populations (no
more than 110 participants). They also focused on Indonesian students’ attitudes towards

English only with one study (Rodliyah, Imperiani, & Amalia, 2015) investigating Indonesian
students’ attitudes towards both English and Indonesian reading materials (more discussion

about these studies, see literature review section below). None of these studies investigated Gap
students’ attitudes towards English and Indonesian language from different universities.

Adapted from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1225832.pdf

The first three elements in Introduction are Context, Issue, and Gap as presented in the
example. Before the discussion focus on those three elements, let us now get closer with

the five elements of an Introduction.

In writing a paper proposal, an introduction provides the background to give context and

encourage the readers to read more. An introduction generally covers the following points:

• The identification of the context (background) of the study
• The discussion of some problem areas in your field that have been known (issues)

• The statement of what questions/ issues remained to answer (gaps)

• The formulation of problems that are going to be answered in your research

(questions)

20 Paper Proposal Writing