THESIS WRITING GUIDELINES

A) Thesis Structure
Your thesis might have the following components:
1. Title page: gives the title of the thesis in full, the candidate’s names and degrees, a statement
of presentation in the form ‘This thesis is presented for the fulfillment of MSC degree at
AAU,… the department and year of submission”.
2. Summary or abstract—of approximately 300 words. (It should not exceed 700 words.): The
Abstract or summary should summarize the objectives, scope and conclusion of the thesis.
3. Table of Contents
4. Acknowledgements
5. Main Text
6. Bibliography or References
7. Appendices

B) Main Text
The main text might include:
1. Chapter 1: Introduction
2. Chapter 2: Theoretical Background and Review of Literature
3. Chapter 3: Research Methods
4. Chapters 4 Data Collection and Analysis
5. Chapter 5: Design and Simulations
6. Chapters 5: Conclusions/Recommendations

C) Introduction
1. The Introduction is where you ‘launch” your reader on the work described in your thesis.
Lead the reader from the known to the unknown.
2. State the hypothesis clearly. Give a preview of your thesis,
3. Your Introduction has done its work if you have captured the reader’s curiosity and interest.

D) Discussion/Conclusion
1. The Conclusions record the power of your scientific thinking. You have to unite all that has
gone before with a “thread of unified perspective”. This is where you say why you think
your story is a good one and present evidence from your work to support your claim.
2. The strength of your hypothesis is revealed here.
E) General Considerations in Writing Thesis
The following principles will be helpful:
1. Remember that a thesis is basically a piece of written communication. To be effective, your
communication should be concise, clear and direct. Write what you mean to communicate.
2. Your thesis, like all good communications, must have a central message. Lead your readers
through this central message or argument from the beginning to the end.
3. Your audience is not only the professors on your committee. They are the controllers who
ensure that the quality of your thesis meet certain professional standards. Aim at
communicating to an educated audience in the scientific community.
4. Leave no gaps in the chain of logic or ideas you express. Your overall thesis has to be one
continuous presentation. There must be a logical sequence to it and every part is related to
other parts as well as to your central theme.
5. Your thesis should be a presentation of arguments. Through your thesis, you are presenting
an argument to the scientific community. To you, what is important may be that you have
discovered an important fact, made a contribution to the literature, etc. The scientific
community, however, says show me and convince me. To be effective, you must lead the
audience through your study. Basically, you must tell them several things: What is the
background of the study? What did you do to seek answers to your questions? and What
were the answers? You need to lead your readers through these three questions regardless
of format.
6. Outlines and formats are meant to help you in preparing this logical sequence. Don't
sacrifice logical sequence and connectedness of parts for the sake of format. Chapters, titles,
and headings are meant to be dividers and labels throughout your manuscript to guide
readers through your thinking. The logic and continuity of presentation must be kept in the
whole text.
7. Read what you have written, slowly and carefully and take corrective actions accordingly.
8. Scientific writing must be unambiguous. It must communicate clearly, precisely and briefly.
Say what was done; how it was done; why it was done etc.
9. Precision distinguishes science as a field of intellectual endeavor. It is vital in quantitative
work. Vagueness hides in expressions like “quite small”, “a considerable length” etc. Avoid
them. They will besmirch your writing and your work.
F) Typing Specifications
1. Most important in typing a thesis is consistency of format and adherence to the specific
instructions given in the guidance of Thesis format. It is important to note that all one-and-
a-half spaced and pages must be numbered throughout.
2. For the final copy, superscripts and subscripts must be typed and equations must be
consistently numbered.
3. Footnotes, bibliographical entries, long quoted passages, and items in lists and tables may
be single spaced
4. Use a standard typeface of 10- 11-, or 12-point size. Do not use italic (script) print except for
foreign words, book and journal titles, and special emphasis. Use larger size type for the title
of the thesis and for chapter headings. Boldface type may also be used on the title page and
for headings, as well as in the text for special symbols or for emphasis.
5. If at all possible, use the same font for the entire thesis but, if necessary, you may use
different fonts within tables, figures, and appendices. To avoid distracting variations,
changes in the font should be kept to a minimum.
6. Font Sizes between 10 pt and 12 pt are considered to be the most readable for main texts.
The effective sizes can differ for different fonts.

G) Chapter Head Pages and Page Layout

1. Begin each chapter on a new page.
2. Try to avoid typing a heading near the bottom of a page unless there is room for at least two
lines of text following the heading.
3. A margin of at least 4.0 cm must be left at the top and left side of each page and a margin of
at least 2.5 cm on the right and bottom.
4. All chapter headings should be typed consistently, as well as all first-level subheadings, and
so on. For headings, work downward from the top without skipping levels.
5. Each level of heading should be clearly distinguished typographically from the other levels,
and the variations should be selected so as to reflect in an obvious way the hierarchy of
headings (that is, higher level headings should look more important).
6. Always allow at least one extra line of space above subheadings, and preferably below as
well. Without this extra space, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish headings from text. A
heading must never appear alone at the bottom of a page without at least two lines of text
under it.
H) Page Numbers
1. Every page in the thesis, including those with tables and figures, must be counted.
2. Use small Roman numerals for the front matter and Arabic numbers for the text (the text
must begin with page 1).
3. Make sure that all pages are present and in proper order when they are numbered. It is not
permissible to number a page with "a" or "b" or to skip numbers.