“Introduction” and sometimes as a series of shorter sections with generic titlessuch as “Theoretical Background” or domain-specifc titles such as “PriorResearch on Drunk-Driving”. Regardless of how it is organized, the frontendanswers several critical questions, roughly in the following order. Phenomenon: What is the domain, field or phenomenon that you areinvestigating? Why is it important to study it? Many qualitative research articlesbegin with a provocative data vignette or news story to pull readers in andindicate the importance of the phenomenon. For example, “After a brief decline inthe last decade, fatal accidents caused by drunk-driving are again increasing at analarming rate of x per cent per year”.
Another approach is to begin an article witha brief description of the focal phenomenon in plain (non-specialist) language.Common reasons given for studying a phenomenon are that it is historically new,growing in size, changing in nature, critical to a profession or critical to a socialcause such as environmental sustainability or public welfare
