Prologues to What Is Possible: Introductions as Metadiscourse

Abstract

It is commonly assumed that writers' introductions are crucial to success of their texts. So, as teachers of writing, we stress importance of effective We urge students to draw from those textbook laundry lists of tricks and formulas for getting a reader's attention, introducing or providing background on a subject, or stating or implying a thesis. Yet students who find introductions difficult to write will not find in these lists full discussion of what we call the rhetoric of introductions. For that, students and teachers alike would do better to return to Aristotle's Rhetoric. For in Aristotle's ambivalence about introductions we discover metadiscur-