Forecasting

If your audience if familiar with your subject or if what you are writing is short, you 
may not need  a full introduction; rather just focus reader's attention  via a brief 
opening that forecasts what is to be presented in the body of the paper.   This opening 
should be interesting and comprehensive so that it catches the reader's interest and 
adequately represents what is to follow.

Forecasting statements function as a way of providing your readers with organizational 
information  as it previews what lies ahead in the body of your paper and how that 
content is going to be organized.   As such, forecasting statements aid reader as they 
give your reader an initial sense of the meaning and content of your paper.  Also they 
help your audience read more easily and to remember what you wrote.  A forecasting 
statement is similar to a topic sentence, but it encompasses the entire paper, not just a 
single paragraph.  Forecasting statements also help you as they are a 1-2 sentence 
summary of the main point/purpose of your paper.  If you are having difficulty in 
generating a forecasting statement you may not have a clear idea of what your paper is 
about, and, thus, you may need to rethink what you are writing and why.

When deciding how much detail to include in your forecasting statement, consider the 
following rules of thumb: 

1)  Provide enough detail so that your audience knows something specific about the 
arrangement of your paper.  Usually, the more complex the relationship among the 
sections of your paper, the more detail you will need to include in the forecasting 
statement.

2) Do not provide more detail than your audience can easily remember.  The purpose of 
a forecasting statement is to help your audience understand what is to come, not to test 
anyone's memory.  For example, if you are introducing the three  steps of  a solution, 
you might want to name the three step before explaining them.  However, if the 
solution contains eight step, you will probably be better off stating the number of steps 
without naming them in the forecasting statement. 

3) Do not forecast more than one level at a time.  People sometimes are tempted to 
explain all the contents of a document at its beginning.  But this burdens the reader 
with a confusing amount of detail.  To work effectively, a forecasting statement tells 
only the major divisions of a particular section.  If those divisions themselves are 
themselves divided, then each of the divisions will have its own forecasting  statement.  
[NOTE: this rule of thumb is more applicable to your analysis and contribution papers 
and may not be a concern for synthesis paper.]
Forecasting