MSc Thesis Structure

MSc Thesis Structure

Student research activities should result in a final, comprehensive, consistent and clear thesis report. You should write your thesis as if it were a scientific article for publication, but with rather more detail in the introduction and methods sections. The thesis should be understandable for a non-specialist. The thesis is not restricted by any fixed length requirements, but as a general rule, the thesis should consist of 40 - 80 pages, excluding annexes. A good thesis is not necessarily a long thesis!

A good thesis: – Should be clearly written and presented. – Should be concise. – Should be consistent in style and logic.

Thesis structure

Title

Table of contents: The table of contents gives an overview of the thesis’ chapter structure and its page numbers. It should also include the summary and any annexes.

List of tables and figures: The outline is followed by a list of the tables and figures appearing in the text, including their (short) titles and respective page numbers.

Summary: Provide a short (one page), complete summary of all chapters, including comments and/or recommendations.

Acknowledgment: Additional help must be mentioned, such as field workers’ activities or active support and practical help from technicians and colleagues. Similarly, any official financial support given to you or the project must be mentioned here. You could also acknowledge others who supported you or your thesis in other ways.

Introduction and Rationale: The introduction includes relevant background information or a brief overview of the field, including a review of the literature and the theoretical concepts you plan to use. This is the basis from which you formulate the problem statement and your hypothesis leading to a statement of your research questions and objectives.

You can also give a characterisation of the type of work carried out and a short outline of the chapters that follow. During your research, you may have come up with additional questions. These should also be mentioned here, but it should be clear that these questions were not originally planned.

Goals and Objectives: This part states the overall goal of the project. It also contains a number of specific objectives, usually 2-4, which can later form chapters of the thesis or be converted into manuscripts for publication.

Material and Methods: This part reports on the information sources used, the methods applied, and the materials used for lab work or data collection, and for data analysis. You should present what was actually done, and reference any problems encountered. In the case of fieldwork, you should describe the area and sites at which the research was carried out. For experimental work, you should give all

relevant details of the procedures followed. If relevant, the process for ethical clearance should also be mentioned.

Results: Results should be presented in the most comprehensive and yet succinct manner. Mixing results with interpretation and discussion should be avoided, unless the work is very descriptive. Where appropriate, the findings should be illustrated or summarised with tables and figures. Tables and figures must be drawn in such a way that they can be read on their own, independently of the main text. Avoid showing the same data in figures and tables. Do not forget to include measurement units and explanations of abbreviations. References to tables and figures should be made in the text (e.g., see table 1; as shown in figure 2).

Discussion: The discussion section should always start with a discussion of the methodology or approach chosen, and its limitations. Next, link your own findings, as presented in the results section, with those of other researchers. What do your results mean and imply? The challenge here is to argue for and against the findings and the related theoretical concepts. Literature references are therefore required and you must discuss your findings in the context of both the scientific objectives and the research questions laid out in the introduction. An internal and external validation of your results is also required. The discussion should not simply be a summary of the results!

Conclusions: This section brings together the most important consequences of your research, normally referring to: 1. The scientific objective and the research questions (results); 2. Suggestions for future research on this topic 3. Practical implications of the findings

References: It is very important that you give proper references when making statements from the literature. References acknowledge the work of others, and provide the reader with information on the sources that you used. You can use either the system of giving the author’s surname, and year of publication, with an alphabetical list of references at the end of the thesis, or you can number your references in the text and include a numbered list of references at the end. We recommend that you use a reference management software.

Annex or Appendix: An annex or appendix should be added to incorporate any information, which is too long or detailed to be included in the main body text, but is relevant for understanding the research or important steps taken. This could mean for example: providing original data, detailed statistical analysis, etc.

Font: Font should be Helvetica, Times New Roman, or comparable (Universal, Arial). Font size is normally 11. Do not use very small fonts. Line spacing should be at least 1.5 to allow for hand written corrections by the supervisor.

Figures and tables: Figures and tables complement and clarify text. All tables and figures should be referred to in the text. Figures and tables should be clear, avoiding unnecessary lines and frames. Avoid vertical lines in tables. Similarly, coloured or grey backgrounds for figures should be removed if these do not add to comprehension. Each figure and table should have a legend that allows the table or figure to be understood without reading the text.