Outline, if you’re writing a thesis

This didn’t really start out as a project but from various sources on the web and some intuitive digging (haha), here is an outline that can help you with your thesis. Actually you could use it for almost anything technical (or even non-technical). It will help you be thorough.

Here it is… in .pdf. The html version follows:

Thesis Outline

• Title should be succinct, clear and indicative of thesis content
• Abstract should cover:
  • Problem
  • Purpose of Study (thesis)
  • Major Evaluations
  • Conclusions —-(in that order)
• Introduction should have:
  • Enough background information
  • Describe previous studies (to get larger picture)
  • Clear problem statement
  • Well-defined choice of topic
  • Motivation for the choice
  • Significance of topic
  • The structure basically being:
    • Broad topic
    • Narrow topic
    • Thesis
    • Implications/Impact 
• Body of thesis should be:
  • Focused
  • Have equal treatment of ideas
  • Have thoughtful, critical analysis
  • Visually & textually clear
• Figures & Tables should:
  • Enhance understanding of text
  • Captions should be detailed and thorough
• Discussions/Conclusions should:
  • Restate motivation for study
  • Have sufficient & logical interpretations
  • Have clear, adequate and realistic discussions of the ramifications of the study (thesis)

Please feel free to comment and suggest any improvements.

~ by AmAr on July 24, 2005.