Structure and presentation style[edit]
Cover page to Søren Kierkegaard's university thesis
(1841).
Structure[edit]
A thesis (or dissertation) may be arranged as a thesis by
publication or a monograph, with or without appended
papers, respectively, though many graduate programs
allow candidates to submit a curated collection of
published papers. An ordinary monograph has a title
page, an abstract, a table of contents, comprising the
various chapters like introduction, literature review,
methodology, results, discussion, and bibliography or
more usually a references section. They differ in their
structure in accordance with the many different areas of
study (arts, humanities, social sciences, technology,
sciences, etc.) and the differences between them. In a
thesis by publication, the chapters constitute an
introductory and comprehensive review of the appended
published and unpublished article documents.
Dissertations normally report on a research project or
study, or an extended analysis of a topic. The structure
of a thesis or dissertation explains the purpose, the
previous research literature impinging on the topic of
the study, the methods used, and the findings of the
project. Most world universities use a multiple chapter
format :
a) an introduction: which introduces the research
topic, the methodology, as well as its scope and
significance
b) a literature review: reviewing relevant literature
and showing how this has informed the research
issue
c) a methodology chapter, explaining how the
research has been designed and why the research
methods/population/data collection and analysis
being used have been chosen
d) a findings chapter: outlining the findings of the
research itself
e) an analysis and discussion chapter: analysing the
findings and discussing them in the context of the
literature review (this chapter is often divided into
two—analysis and discussion)
f) a conclusion.:[6][7] which shows judgement or
decision reached by thesis
Style[edit]
Degree-awarding institutions often define
their own house style that candidates
have to follow when preparing a thesis
document. In addition to institution-
specific house styles, there exist a
number of field-specific, national, and
international standards and
recommendations for the presentation of
theses, for instance ISO 7144.[2] Other
applicable international standards
include ISO 2145 on section
numbers, ISO 690 on bibliographic
references, and ISO 31 on quantities or
units.
Some older house styles specify that front
matter (title page, abstract, table of
content, etc.) must use a separate page
number sequence from the main text,
using Roman numerals. The relevant
international standard[2] and many newer
style guides recognize that this book
design practice can cause confusion
where electronic document viewers
number all pages of a document
continuously from the first page,
independent of any printed page
numbers. They, therefore, avoid the
traditional separate number sequence for
front matter and require a single sequence
of Arabic numerals starting with 1 for the
first printed page (the recto of the title
page).
Presentation requirements, including
pagination, layout, type and color of
paper, use of acid-free paper (where a
copy of the dissertation will become a
permanent part of the library
collection), paper size, order of
components, and citation style, will be
checked page by page by the accepting
officer before the thesis is accepted and a
receipt is issued.
However, strict standards are not always
required. Most Italian universities, for
example, have only general requirements
on the character size and the page
formatting, and leave much freedom for
the actual typographic details.[8]
