Many academic papers make the mistake of including a "summary paragraph" at the end of the introduction, containing an outline of the structure of the paper. I'm talking about the paragraphs that state "In the next section, we describe …, then we talk about …, and finally we conclude." These paragraphs contain absolutely no information. Please just delete them, and similar information-free "connecting" sentences (In the next section, we discuss …) from your papers. This will give you more precious space to actually talk about your work. I was happy to discover I'm not the only one who just skips these paragraphs. Margo Seltzer, professor of Computer Science at Harvard, skips them as well: "True confessions here: I never read the [summary] paragraph in most papers."
I recommend reading all of Margo's advice on writing a thesis if you are a graduate student. I also like Matt Welsh's advice on how to get your papers accepted. In particular, his sixth point, "get to the point," is relevant to this subject.
(Yes, I know I'm guilty of including these paragraphs in some of my own papers. I have become enlightened since then. Don't make the same mistakes I did.)