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Topic : Re: In academic writing why do some recommend to avoid "announcing" the topic? In academic writing, several articles on the topic of writing papers denounce the practice of "announcing" the topic. - selfpublishingguru.com

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There are reasons to repeat yourself, but they differ to what you imply.

Academic readers are usually skimming through hundreds of papers to find the results relevant to their current work, so

Try to tell them everything they need to know in the title
If that fails, try to tell them everything they need to know in the abstract, including results and conclusions. (Some journals discourage this, IMO wrongly).
If that fails, still be careful not to withhold information early on. i.e. in the introduction don't say "We test to see whether X predicts Y", say "We demonstrate that X predicts Y (R2=0.8, p=0.001 - or indeed better stats if your audience will understand them).

In a large paper on a complex topic it's easy to get lost, so do include signposting to help the reader remember their context. E.g. "The link between X and Z is a relevant consideration for our study of X and Y, therefore in the following section we discuss existing literature discussing links between X and Z."

But don't use the rhetorical device of "tell someone what you're going to tell them, tell them the thing, tell them what you told them" for the sake of driving a point home, as you would in rhetoric, or delivering spoken material as a teacher, etc. (Excepting the first sentence of the discussion/conclusions section where it is usual to summarize what you already told them, in shorter form). You repeat to make it easy for readers to find the appropriate part and remember context.


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