Philosopher Chad Engelland writes with an interesting query:
A friend who is reading my CUP Divine Hiddenness book manuscript suggested that readers today tend to skip right over introductions and to start reading in earnest with chapter one. He points out that I do too much important stage setting in my current introduction and hence he recommends I rename it chapter 1 in order to signal to readers its importance.
Does that sound right? Is it common to skip over the introduction and begin with chapter one? Or, to put it another way, is it the trend for writers to do very little in the introduction other than to preview the book's contents?
I'll speak only for myself: I always read the introductory chapter, or whatever chapter gives an overview of the project. That often tells me whether I want to read more, or whether I want to skip ahead to particular chapters. But maybe I'm an outlier? What say you professional philosophers? Academics in other fields are welcome to weigh in too, but please indicate your discipline.
