The sample below is the introduction of a research paper exploring the strategies of translating English news to Chinese. Please read it through and note down in the space provided what you consider makes it a good introduction.

Strategies of Translating English News into Chinese

　1. Introduction

In recent decades, the development of media industry has undergone great changes. With China’s entry to the WTO, the international exchanges are becoming more and more frequent. The fast development of science and technology stimulates the exchange of culture and economy. All these are highly unlikely reached without the spreading of news. In order to convey the information correctly, news translators have to make great efforts to capture the most valuable news as well as avoiding ambiguity. News is involved in every field of life. It contains different styles that make the translating a harder work.

The research is intended to explore the translation strategies in the area of English news. The scope of the paper is mainly covered by practical examples from English news, translation principles and techniques based on comparative studies of translation and its original.

The research is divided into four parts. In the first part, the author will give definition of news and find theories to support the opinion. In the second part, the author will go further into the study in terms of words/phrases, sentences and rhetoric. Metonymy, euphemism, and words with extended meanings will be included in the discussion concerning with words/phrases. Proposed attributes will be the focus when discussing sentence structure. In the part dealing with rhetoric, the author will lay stress on varied figures of speech that frequently appear in English news, such as metaphor, exaggeration, personification etc. A large numbers of examples will be analyzed in these three data-analyzing segments, and each of the examples will be followed by its translation. In the third part, the author aims to conclude translation strategies according to analyzed data, finding the most appropriate way to translate the original, such as Literal Translation, Free Translation etc. Finally the author will summarize the research and look into the future of English news and its translation.

By interpreting data systematically, the author hopes to get a better understanding of characteristics of English news and be able to apply translation strategies found into daily work.

The example above contains all the required components: the background, objective, significance and organization of the research.

These components are organized logically. The researcher first sets the background under which the research is to be carried out, so the reader can understand WHY such a research needs to be made. He then puts forward the objective of the research to tell the reader what it aims to achieve. This is followed by the break down of research procedures (or paper organization) so that the reader will have a clear idea how the objective can be fulfilled. The “Introduction” ends up with the explanation of the significance of research with an attempt to convince the reader the value of research as well as to arouse his or her interest in reading the paper.

The language of the example is also formal and objective, which can be illustrated by the choice of words such as “decade”, “undergone”, “ambiguity”, “explore”, “metonymy”, “euphemism”, etc. and use of passive structures.

As this example illustrates, a good introduction should contain all the major components, and proper language style and also be coherently organized.