As far as creating context is concerned, first drafts of introductions can have one of two problems. Either they say too little, providing no context, or they say too much, providing context that is too vague to be meaningful.
Saying too little seems to be the most common problem. Many papers begin with an introduction that is too short to do the complicated job that an introduction has to do. If your introduction is less than half a typed page, it may well fall into this category. Contextualizing a thesis is similar to the everyday introduction of two people. Suppose you were introducing one person to another and hoped that the two people would form a relationship. You'd say something about them besides their names. You'd include something about their interests or mention something they had in common that would allow them to relate to one another. You want the reader to build a relationship with your thesis, so you give them background information that will let them understand and appreciate your point of view.
The need for contextualization can lead to introductions of more than one paragraph. The thesis of William Lutz's "Notes toward a Definition of Doublespeak" (The Anteater Reader, Spring 2001, p.137-138) occurs in the third paragraph. He argues that "language can easily distort perception and influence behavior and thus be a tool, or weapon, for achieving the greatest good or the greatest evil." Before we hear that language can "distort perception," we learn in paragraphs one and two that language acts as a "tool" to "shape reality." After we are comfortable with this idea, we move to a certain kind of shaping--distortion.
One useful test in judging whether your introduction effectively contextualizes your thesis is to look at your second paragraph. If the second paragraph doesn't advance the argument in your thesis but instead seems to start the paper over again, then you have probably withheld important background information that you are only now getting to, information that would be better placed in paragraph one.
Another way that introductions can go wrong is by saying too much. This "too much" usually takes the form of a vague beginning that contextualizes in such an unfocused way it hardly says anything. Students have been advised to begin with the general and work toward the specific, which is sound advice, but "general" is a relative term. How general is too general? Suppose Lutz had begun his essay on doublespeak with the sentence "language is an important form of communication." Yuk! True, but painfully obvious and hardly helpful in directing the reader to his eventual thesis.
The writing process usually involves some preliminary thinking that is useful to us as we discover what we want to say but not useful to the reader. Some of this preliminary thinking is done on paper but wastes the reader's time if it remains in a final draft.
As you review your final draft, ask yourself two questions. Have I given the reader all the help they would need to understand my thesis? Are the first few sentences of the draft really necessary? The right answers to these questions will help you arrive at a happy medium--adequate background but no fluff. For additional examples of adequately contextualized theses click here.