Defining The Format Of A College Thesis: A Quick Guide For Beginners

Writing a thesis is likely one of the most challenging tasks you'll undertake in your entire life. It's time consuming, a lot of work, and it usually takes months to tackle all of the elements that go into a fantastic result: research, content structuring, styling, overall layout, and so on properly.

One of the easier things to tackle is the overall format of the thesis: sometimes also called the layout or structure. There are two reasons that this part is easier than the rest. Firstly, it's one of the very last things you'll do after you've done all your research and work it's just a matter of piecing it all together within your layout. Secondly, you can follow someone standardised format to fit all your information into.

Tips for a Fantastic Thesis Format

• Start with an abstract. An abstract is essentially a synopsis of the whole document, with the aim being to give the reader an overall understanding of both the objectives and outcome of your actual thesis.
• A table of content is essential. You may think this is not necessary if your document is somewhat short, but this is not the case. A contents page gives a great overview of all the major sections and sub-sections of your workings and is essential to help the reader to navigate your document.
• Give some background. A common practice when writing a dissertation is to include a literature review. This is simply an outlining of all previous research which has been undertaken on your topic of choice. It provides great background and context for the reader.
• Describe your methodology. This means describing your research methods, and you should also describe how you collected empirical data - interview, questionnaires, and so on.
• Analysis of your data: perhaps the most important part. This is where you present all the data you've collected and researched and highlight any issues that occurred. Be sure not to draw conclusions as you write the analysis section.
• The final parts of your thesis should be discussion and a conclusion, followed by a bibliography and appendices. Also, don't forget to reference or cite every source where you take information from - if you don't do this you could risk committing plagiarism and invalidating your entire document.

Follow these tips to ensure that you produce a fantastic thesis that will not only be praised by your professors, but also be a pleasure to read for anyone who takes the opportunity.