How to write a preface

Preface - the introductory part of an article or book that contains the author’s comments, necessary for a better understanding of what is written by readers. The foreword may contain historical, critical, textological remarks.

You will need

• - text of the work;

• - computer;

• - text editor.

Instruction manual

one

State the main goal of your work. Since the preface is written, as a rule, after the end of all work on the text, you should have clearly defined goals and objectives for yourself. In scientific work, the goal is to develop a program of measures to bring reality to an ideal state.

2

Describe the motives for your writing. The motives may be the desire to convey your theoretical and practical experience to the reader and encourage further development of the problem described in the work.

3

Give definitions and reveal the essence of the basic concepts that are used in the work. These should be only those terms that are fundamental to the written work. As a rule, they are present in the title of the work itself or its chapters and subheadings. All other concepts in the preface do not need to be described, it is enough to place them in the glossary at the end of the work.

4

Briefly describe the main ideas considered in the text of the work, state the conclusions that you made in the process of writing the work.

5

After the draft preface is ready, postpone the work for a while. And then re-read the text. Consider whether everything is written in the preface that the reader needs to know to study the work. Remove repetitions, grammar, lexical, and syntax errors.

Useful advice

Also in the introduction, you can briefly outline the main historical milestones in the study of the problem under consideration, the views of those scientists whose ideas are used to achieve the goal, the relevance of the theme of the work, its scientific novelty and practical significance.

A good preface should not be long and complicated, its purpose is not to scare the reader away from reading the work, but to briefly explain what will be discussed in the future, to set up for the correct perception of the information presented in the work, to provide explanations about particularly complex topics considered in the study.