This document provides an introduction to parsimony methods for phylogenetic tree analysis. It begins by defining phylogenetic trees and their use in representing evolutionary relationships. It then describes the basic structure of rooted vs unrooted trees and bifurcating trees. The document introduces parsimony analysis, which works by determining the best fit of character data to potential tree models and finding the most parsimonious trees that minimize evolutionary changes. It concludes by discussing some advantages of parsimony methods in being simple and having good statistical properties, as well as some disadvantages like underestimating branch lengths and having an implicit evolutionary model.