What if there are several background facts I want to start with, not just one? How do I know which one to begin with? The shape of the Introduction in Fig. 1.1 starts wide and gradually narrows. This means that you start with a fairly general item of information, one that many of your readers already know. This represents a ‘meeting place’ fact from which all readers can start together, after which you can move on to more specific information. Always show your readers the general picture before you proceed to the details: show them the wall before you start to talk about the bricks! How much background information should I provide? It is extremely difficult to predict what knowledge readers bring to the paper. Your readers are not part of your research group, so the background information that is very familiar to you and your colleagues is not necessarily known to all potential readers of your research paper. Given that most research reading is now done via the internet, readers may access the paper from a different discipline or even a non-STEMM discipline. As a general rule it is better to provide slightly too much background information than slightly too little. In addition, if you jump straight from very general to very specific information early in the Introduction this is likely to cause difficulties, particularly for the interdisciplinary reader. It is therefore essential to close the information gaps between the opening sentences (see Section 1.5.2) so that all readers can move smoothly through the background information in the Introduction.