Structure

Material in a dissertation or thesis should be arranged in a logical sequence, which helps readers find their way around. Also it is helpful for readers, if forthcoming sections are signposted with brief introductions. This sets the scene and draws a readers attention. Your school may have a template for the structure of a dissertation or thesis. If such a template is available, you should use it. It is convenient to distinguish three basic sections: preliminary information, text and end matters.

Preliminary Information
Preliminary information precedes the text of a dissertation or thesis. The British standard for the Presentation of theses and dissertations has been withdrawn but it remains good practice. It recommends the following sequence of preliminary material in a thesis: Title and subtitle Correction sheet Abstract List of contents List of tables, illustrations, etc List of accompanying material Preface Acknowledgement Author's declaration Definitions (British Standard Institution 1990:25) Some of these headings will be considered further. Title and subtitle. The title page of a thesis should include: the full title, a statement about the qualification for which the thesis is to be submitted, your name, school, the University and the date of submission. If you are writing a doctoral thesis at Brunel University, you should have received information from Registry about the title page layout and other thesis requirements. This information is also available on the web in an appendix of the Research student handbook, entitled "Theses: notes for guidance: http://intranet.brunel.ac.uk/registry/hbook.shtml Abstract. It is best to write the abstract of your thesis, when all the rest is finished. The abstract should have single line spacing, not exceed 300 words and not cover more than one side of A4 paper. For theses produced at British universities, an extra copy of the abstract is required for the Index to Theses. You should give the following information at the head of this extra copy: Brunel University, campus; school; your name; title; year; degree. Information

about the Index to Theses database is available from the Librarys enquiry desks and on the web: http://intranet.brunel.ac.uk/library/guides/databases/theses.html List of contents. The list of contents should have the main headings on the left hand side and indented subheadings. Word processors have the facility to store heading styles to help ensure that your headings are consistent. Your headings specifications could include: font, text size, boldfacing and justification. You are encouraged to use this facility, because it will keep your presentation consistent throughout your document. Having standardised your headings and automated your page numbers, you can easily create a contents list using your word processors Table of Contents feature. You can find it by going to Insert/ Index and Tables/ Table of Contents. This will give you a list with main headings on the left and indented subheadings. As you write your document, you specify the level of each heading (using perhaps two or three levels) and generate an updated contents list at regular intervals. This saves time and is also very convenient, because you can view the contents list as it develops. List of tables, illustrations, etc. You should include separate listings of the tables and figures in your thesis. Acknowledgement. You may wish to have an acknowledgement thanking people who have helped you with your research and your thesis. Author's declaration. An author's declaration is a statement that the work was performed by the author and, when appropriate, an acknowledgement of assistance from other persons.

Text
The main body of your dissertation or thesis will probably include the five broad sections: introduction, literature review, methods, results and discussion. Even though these sections may not be used as headings or chapter titles, they will probably represent the underlying structure, at least in some guise. Introduction. The introduction should state the aim(s) of the research. Literature review. This should include a discussion of the previous work on the topic with citations to references in the bibliography. It is usually presented as a separate chapter in a dissertation or thesis. After your initial literature search, you should consider setting up literature alerts for the duration of your research project. Literature alerts enable you to keep up-to-date with the latest publications and developments in your research field. Many of the Librarys databases offer alerting services, which will provide you with regular e-mail updates. To find our more about alerting services, see the relevant library web page: http://intranet.brunel.ac.uk/library/brio/alerts.html

Methods. This section could cover equipment, materials and experimental procedures or methods such as questionnaires and interviews. Results Discussion. You should discuss the significance of the results and perhaps the limitations of the work and ways in which it might be extended. You should draw conclusions and if appropriate make recommendations. It is recommended that, because of its length, you should keep each chapter of your dissertation or thesis as a separate document in a word processing folder. This way you will be able to print drafts chapter by chapter, as required, instead of having to print the whole thesis.

End Matters
The British standard for the Presentation of theses and dissertations recommends the following sequence for material at the end or a thesis: Appendices Glossary List of references Bibliography Index (British Standard Institution 1990:25) Appendices. Questionnaires should be included in an appendix and if you have several tables of data they should also be put in the appendix. For further discussion, see subsection Tables and figures in the Presentation section. Bibliography. Compiling a bibliography is a big subject and warrants a separate section. See the section Making references.