ABSTRACT
As indicated in Topics 75 and 76, in theses and dissertations Chapter 1 is the Introduction and is followed by Chapter 2, the literature review.1 (See Topics 14-18 and 77 for information on writing literature reviews.)
Chapter 1 should start by introducing the problem area for the research and the reasons why it is important. When the researcher is establishing its importance, some literature may be cited, but only specific statistics (e.g., “up to 59% of adults are estimated to have…”) and direct quotations. Note that direct quotations should be used exceedingly sparingly because they can interrupt the flow of the texts. The vast majority of the Introduction should be in the students’ own words.
