For Germans, all new knowledge is based on previous knowledge. Before Germans accept new knowledge, they need to see how it flows from current knowledge.
Academic works in Germany, including Master‘s and Ph.D. level theses, almost always begin with a full account of relevant context information: definition of terms, lengthy description of topic, current status of research, methodology applied. The context can amount to as much as one-third of the length of the paper. Some universities expect that it exceed one-half.
