If you’re enrolled in a Master’s or Doctorate program, you must’ve worked on your thesis. Nowadays, it’s a requirement of every university and you get a degree if you’ve finished all the proceedings of the thesis. Thesis writing is the longest piece of academic writing and to do it effectively you’ve to follow a proper thesis writing format.
There are six main parts of a thesis structure that you must follow while writing:
Abstract
The abstract is a summarized version of the thesis and the length of the abstract is normally from 150 to 300 words. It’s recommended that once you write the complete thesis that you should move to this part. In abstract, you must:
- Mention the main topic and aim of the study
- Mention the methods used
- Summarize the results
- State the conclusion
In the thesis writing format, the abstract is the first thing that reader reads and it gives the first impression to the readers about your thesis. So, you need to write this part correctly and concisely.
Introduction
After the abstract, the important part of the thesis writing format is the introduction. In this part, you write about the aims and objectives of your thesis and the purpose of writing it. In this part, you also write about the relevance of the topic and the research problem you’ve identified. Normally, in this part of the thesis structure, you mention the following headings:
- Background of thesis
- Problem statement
- Aims and objectives of the thesis
- Research Questions
- Rationale of thesis
- Structure of thesis
Every part of the introduction should be clear, relevant and engaging. The introduction part of your thesis should answer 4Ws and 1H (what, why, when, where and how).
Literature Review
Another key part of thesis writing format is the literature review and before you start working on your thesis, you must work on a literature review to get an understanding of the existing work related to your topic. In the literature review, you have to collect material from journal articles and books and select the most relevant ones.
In this part of thesis writing, you don’t have to summarize the existing studies, but make coherent arguments that make the thesis structure clearer. In this part you must:
- Address a gap in the literature
- Identify new methodological and theoretical approach related to the topic
- Give a solution to an unresolved issue
- Strengthen existing knowledge with new data
In this part, you have to make a basis of theoretical framework in which you define theories, models and concepts within which your thesis surrounds.
Methodology
Another main part of the thesis writing format is a methodology and it explains that how you work on your thesis. The methodology aims to report accurately what you did and convince the readers that the used approach is the best that answer the research questions. In this part you must:
- Identify the appropriate research philosophy, approach, and method
- Examine the method of data collection
- Assess the method of data analysis
- Identify the material or tools used
- Discuss the challenges you face in conducting research and how to resolve them
- Evaluate and justify the methods
Results and Discussion
The next part of the thesis writing format is the results and discussion. You can work on this part by examining the hypotheses, research questions and themes. In this par, you must:
- State the relevant results
- State how the results are related to the research question and hypothesis.
- Make figures and tables that help the readers to understand the results.
Another part of the thesis structure connected with results is discussion and in this part, you explore the implications and meaning of the results related to your research questions. You must interpret the results and discuss how well they fit with the theoretical framework.
- State your interpretations
- Work on the implications
- Acknowledge the limitations
When you write the discussion part, you must refer back to the existing sources to depict how your results fit with current knowledge.
Conclusion
This part of the thesis structure concisely answers the research question and gives the readers an understanding of the argument in which the thesis will contribute. The conclusion is the final chapter in which you summarize the findings of the thesis. Normally, in conclusion, you give some recommendations and future research areas.
By following all these points of thesis writing format, you’ll be able to write a good thesis and secure good marks. If you involve in good thesis writing, there’re also high chances that you get your thesis published in any high indexed journals.
Thanks for the good article, I hope you continue to work as well.