The introduction is the chapter most undergraduates write twice: once at the start, when they do not yet know what the dissertation is about, and once at the end, when they do. If you are staring at a blank first page, the useful thing to know is that a dissertation introduction is not an essay opening. It is a sequence of seven specific moves, each doing a job the marker is looking for, and they can be drafted in an afternoon once you know what they are.
This guide sets out the seven moves, shows you a complete worked introduction with each move labelled, and gives you a fill-in template. Everything here is written for a UK undergraduate dissertation; your module handbook takes precedence where it differs.
The seven moves of a dissertation introduction
A good introduction narrows steadily. It starts wide enough that any academic reader can follow, and ends narrow enough that the reader knows exactly what you did and how the rest of the document is arranged.
| # | Move | Job it does | Rough length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Topic and context | Establishes the broad area and why it matters now | 150–250 words |
| 2 | Narrowing to the specific problem | Moves from the area to the particular issue you address | 200–300 words |
| 3 | What is already known | A compressed sketch of the literature, not the review itself | 200–350 words |
| 4 | The gap | Names what is missing, unresolved or untested | 100–200 words |
| 5 | Aim, objectives and research questions | States explicitly what you set out to do | 150–250 words |
| 6 | Significance and scope | Why it is worth doing, and what you are not doing | 150–250 words |
| 7 | Structure of the dissertation | Tells the reader what each chapter contains | 100–150 words |
That totals roughly 1,000 to 1,700 words, which is a normal introduction for a 10,000-word undergraduate dissertation. Moves 4 and 5 are the ones markers look for hardest, and the ones students most often leave implicit.
A complete worked introduction, move by move
The example below is a full introduction for a fictional business dissertation on hybrid working and retention in UK SMEs. Read it as a shape you can fill, not as content to reuse. Each move is labelled so you can see where one ends and the next begins.
[Move 1 — topic and context] Hybrid working moved from an emergency arrangement to a permanent feature of UK employment within a few years, and it did so unevenly. Large employers formalised policies quickly; smaller firms, which employ a substantial share of the UK workforce, largely improvised. For small and medium-sized enterprises the stakes are high, because they compete for staff against larger organisations that can offer more money, and flexibility is one of the few levers available to them.
[Move 2 — narrowing to the problem] Retention is where that lever is supposed to pay off. Yet SME managers report that hybrid arrangements introduced to keep staff have sometimes coincided with weaker team cohesion and slower informal learning, particularly among junior employees. The practical problem this dissertation addresses is therefore not whether hybrid working is popular, but whether — and under what conditions — it actually improves an SME’s ability to retain the people it has trained.
[Move 3 — what is already known] Existing research on flexible working and retention is substantial but concentrated in large organisations, and it tends to treat flexibility as a single variable rather than as a set of arrangements that differ in how much autonomy they confer. Studies of job embeddedness suggest that the social ties an employee has at work matter as much as the terms of their contract, which implies that arrangements reducing incidental contact could weaken retention even while improving reported satisfaction.
[Move 4 — the gap] What has not been established is how these mechanisms operate in firms too small to have formal HR functions, where policy is set informally by owner-managers and enforced inconsistently. The SME context is not a smaller version of the large-firm context; it is a different one, and the retention literature has not yet been tested there.
[Move 5 — aim, objectives and research questions] The aim of this dissertation is to examine how hybrid working arrangements influence employee retention intentions in UK SMEs. The objectives are: (1) to identify the hybrid arrangements currently operating in a sample of UK SMEs; (2) to measure the association between arrangement type and retention intention; and (3) to explain any association with reference to job embeddedness theory. Two research questions follow. RQ1: How do hybrid working arrangements in UK SMEs differ in the degree of autonomy they confer? RQ2: What is the relationship between that degree of autonomy and employees’ stated intention to remain with the firm?
[Move 6 — significance and scope] The study offers SME owner-managers evidence on which to base an arrangement they are currently choosing by instinct, and it tests an established theory in a context where it has not been examined. Its scope is deliberately narrow: it covers firms of fewer than 250 employees in England, examines stated intention rather than actual turnover, and does not address hybrid working’s effects on productivity or wellbeing.
[Move 7 — structure] The remainder of this dissertation is organised as follows. Chapter 2 reviews the literature on flexible working, retention and job embeddedness, and develops the conceptual framework. Chapter 3 sets out the methodology, including the survey design, sampling strategy and ethical approval. Chapter 4 presents the findings. Chapter 5 discusses them against the literature and states the limitations. Chapter 6 concludes and makes recommendations for practice.
Notice what the worked example does not do. It does not open with a dictionary definition, it does not review the literature properly, and it makes no claim it does not immediately narrow. Move 6 is the one students skip most often, and it is the move that stops a marker writing “scope unclear” in the margin.
The fill-in template
Copy this into a blank document and complete each bracket in a single sitting. Do not polish as you go; the point is to have all seven moves on the page before you improve any of them.
[Broad area] has become significant because [recent development]. Within the UK, [specific context] is particularly affected, because [reason].
The specific problem is that [problem], which matters because [consequence for a named group].
Research to date has established [finding 1] and [finding 2]. Studies of [related concept] suggest that [mechanism].
However, [what has not been done], particularly in [your context]. This gap matters because [why the existing findings may not transfer].
The aim of this dissertation is to [verb + object + context]. The objectives are to (1) [identify/describe], (2) [measure/analyse], and (3) [explain/evaluate]. RQ1: [question]. RQ2: [question].
This study contributes [practical contribution] and [academic contribution]. Its scope is limited to [population], [setting] and [measure]; it does not address [named exclusion].
Chapter 2 [does X]. Chapter 3 [does Y]. Chapter 4 [does Z]. Chapter 5 [does W]. Chapter 6 concludes.
Two pieces of drafting advice that save a rewrite. Write move 5 first, even though it comes fifth — everything before it exists to make it inevitable, and you cannot build a funnel until you know where it points. And write move 7 last of all, after the chapters actually exist, because a structural paragraph describing chapters you later reorganised is worse than none.
How the introduction differs by subject
The seven moves hold across most UK undergraduate dissertations, but the emphasis shifts.
- Psychology and sport science. Moves 3 and 4 do more work, and move 5 often ends with hypotheses rather than open questions — our guide to writing hypotheses for a psychology dissertation covers the conversion from question to hypothesis.
- Business and management. Move 1 usually names an industry or organisational context, and move 6 is expected to state a managerial implication, not only an academic one.
- Law. The introduction states the legal question and, unusually, states the argument you intend to make. There is no gap statement in the empirical sense — see our guide to the doctrinal law dissertation.
- Nursing and health. Move 1 is usually prevalence or policy, and move 6 is framed as implications for practice.
- Computer science. Moves 3 and 4 become “related work and its limitations”, and move 5 states requirements as well as aims.
Where your introduction sits in the wider document depends on which of the standard shapes your project takes, set out in our guide to undergraduate dissertation structure by subject.
Five mistakes markers flag in introductions
- The dictionary opening. “The Oxford English Dictionary defines motivation as…” signals an essay, not a dissertation. Open with the situation, not the word.
- A literature review in disguise. Move 3 is a compressed sketch of about 300 words. If your introduction is citing twenty sources, you have started chapter 2 early.
- Aim and objectives used interchangeably. One aim, stated as a single sentence; three or four objectives, stated as steps that achieve it. Markers check this specifically.
- No scope statement. Without move 6, every limitation you name in the discussion reads as an oversight rather than a decision.
- Research questions the dissertation never answers. Whatever you write in move 5 has to reappear, answered in the same order, in your discussion. Mismatches between the two are among the easiest faults for a marker to spot.
If the structure is clear and it is the drafting that has stalled, that is a common place to be three weeks before a deadline. Tesify drafts your introduction move by move from your aim and research questions, so you start from a structured draft rather than an empty page. Everything stays 100% written by you, and it is free to start.
Frequently asked questions
How long should an undergraduate dissertation introduction be?
Around 10% of the total word count is the usual working figure, so roughly 1,000 to 1,500 words in a 10,000–12,000-word dissertation. Check what your own limit is and what counts towards it in our guide to undergraduate dissertation word counts.
Should I write the introduction first or last?
Draft it first so you know where you are going, then rewrite it last so it matches what you actually did. Almost every introduction that reads well was rewritten after the discussion was finished.
What is the difference between the aim and the research questions?
The aim is what you want to achieve, written as one sentence. The research questions are the specific things you will answer in order to achieve it. Objectives sit between them as the steps you will take.
Do I need to include the research gap in the introduction as well as the literature review?
Yes, in compressed form. The introduction states the gap in two or three sentences; the literature review evidences it across several pages.
Can the introduction include citations?
It should. Moves 1, 3 and 4 all need support. What it should not do is attempt the comprehensive coverage that belongs to chapter 2.
Should I state my findings in the introduction?
Not usually at undergraduate level in the UK, though a few departments ask for it. If yours does not specify, leave the findings to the abstract and the discussion — our guide to writing the abstract covers where the results do belong.
What tense should the introduction be in?
Mostly present tense for established knowledge and past tense for what you did. The full chapter-by-chapter breakdown is in our guide to choosing the right tense for each chapter.
Is the introduction the same as the proposal?
No. A proposal is a forward-looking document written before the work, with its own sections including a timetable. Our guide to writing a dissertation proposal sets out the difference.