Heading 3,h3
...
Heading 5,h5
Spacing is adjusted before and after the paragraph so you don't have to press the Return key.
Note: Word has many default styles that can't be deleted. To avoid confusion from thesis-specific styles and Word's default ones, look for a comma after the name of thesis styles (e.g., Heading1,h1).
See specific instructions for your version of Word:
If you don't like the way a style is defined, you can easily modify it!
Tip: Want to change the font type in the entire thesis? Modify the " Normal " style.
If your document suddenly loses styles from the template, you can readd them without worry!
The thesis template is designed for double-sided printing, so you need to insert an Odd Section Break at the end of each chapter. This will ensure the next chapter falls on the right side (or odd page) of the document. Odd section breaks should also occur at the end of each section in the front matter.
Note: Have you converted the thesis template to single-sided? If so, you need to use Next page breaks instead of Odd.
See specific instructions for your version of Word: 2016 & newer (Mac); 2013 & newer (Win)
Multiple consecutive section breaks will create extra blank pages in your thesis. Delete them this way:
Note: If that doesn't work, go to the View menu > Outline. Click on the section break to highlight it, and delete it.
The Table of Contents, List of Figures, and List of Tables will automatically populate based on the styles you apply to certain text like chapter titles, figure titles, and table titles. Periodically, you will need to update the Table of Contents and other tables so it will populate this information.
If you want to add a new table of contents, follow these steps, which use a table of schemes as an example.
There are specific pagination rules you must follow, all of which are outlined in the Senior Handbook. Some important ones to keep in mind:
Inserting images is more than a simple copy and paste. Follow these guidelines:
How to leave space for a large figure
Sometimes you may need to insert a figure that takes up an entire page. To do this without causing any pagination errors, follow these instructions:
There are a number of ways to insert tables into your thesis.
In order to insert a footnote in your thesis, follow these instructions:
Footnote text should be in the "Footnote Text" style. The number within the footnote, as well as the in-paragraph reference number, should be in the "Footnote Reference" style. Footnotes should automatically be in the appropriate styles, but if you encounter any problems with your footnotes, checking the style is a good first step.
If your footnote numbering gets out of order, click on "insert" in the top menu bar, select "Footnote...", select "Convert...", and then "Convert all footnotes to endnotes" and select OK. Don't hit "Insert", instead hit "Convert..." again, and this time select "Convert all endnotes to footnotes" and select OK. Once that is done, select "close".
Some of the sections are optional, such Acknowledgments and Preface. The trick is to delete the text and the corresponding section break or you'll end up with multiple blank pages.
Thesis needs to be formatted with mirror margins, here's how to do it (and see screenshots included).
When writing a thesis in another sort of document (e.g. Google Docs, LibreOffice, etc), you'll have to eventually transfer this into the Reed-provided templates. However, the formatting on your documents might interfere with the Word template
Here is how to copy and paste from Google Docs:
Formatting the thesis to be single-sided (note: this is not the same as printing single-sided).
Though rotating a page in Word may seem like the right thing to do, DON'T DO IT. Instead, leave these pages in a separate document; then insert them by hand after printing. It's OK to display no page numbers on these pages, but they still must be counted in the pagination. Insert a one blank page (using Insert > Break > Page Break) for each manually inserted page.
Here are four different methods for inserting a properly formatted, good quality version of a long excel table!
Adobe Illustrator :
Inkscape ( free download here! ):
Google Drawings:
If the quality of the image doesn't need to be extremely detailed, you can try this fourth method with Word :
Here's how to add them back:
For seniors writing their theses using multiple languages, the line spacing may be inconsistent, especially if the body is copied and pasted from another document into the template. This can be fixed by selecting the paragraph(s) and clicking "body, b" in the Styles Pane, or by changing the font of the non-Latin characters to the ones listed below. For some languages that use non-Latin characters (e.g. Greek, Russian), simply switching the language on your computer's keyboard input (not Word) between English and the other language will generally preserve the correct line spacing.
4. writing up your research: thesis formatting (ms word).
Other Research Support Guides >> >> >> >> |
Haere mai, tauti mai—welcome! These instructions are designed to be used with recent versions of MS Word. Please note there is no template or specific formatting guidelines for a thesis at UC. Please talk to your supervisor and take a look at theses in the UC Research Repository to see how they are usually formatted.
Some useful documents.
For APA formatting advice see the official APA Style Blog's excellent Style and Grammar Guidelines . They cover most formatting topics with examples and sample papers, figures, and tables in Word documents you can download. Even more detail can be found in the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association that the Library has copies of.
Look at examples and ask your supervisor.
The best guide on how to format your thesis is a combination of:
The following is an example only of preliminaries to the thesis that could be included.
Using styles for headings allows you to create an automatic table of contents.
The Navigation Pain is useful for seeing the outline of your document as well as providing links to quickly go to any section of the document.
In order to create an automatic table of contents heading styles must be used.
To create automatic lists of figures or tables you first have to give a caption to all your figures and tables.
This can be used to have different page numbering styles of different sections of your document or to have certain pages landscape to display a large table or graph.
NOTE: A section break is usually only needed if page orientation or separate page numbers are required.
Workshops run throughout the year. |
While Sandel argues that pursuing perfection through genetic engineering would decrease our sense of humility, he claims that the sense of solidarity we would lose is also important.
This thesis summarizes several points in Sandel’s argument, but it does not make a claim about how we should understand his argument. A reader who read Sandel’s argument would not also need to read an essay based on this descriptive thesis.
Michael Sandel’s arguments about genetic engineering do not take into consideration all the relevant issues.
This is an arguable claim because it would be possible to argue against it by saying that Michael Sandel’s arguments do take all of the relevant issues into consideration. But the claim is too broad. Because the thesis does not specify which “issues” it is focused on—or why it matters if they are considered—readers won’t know what the rest of the essay will argue, and the writer won’t know what to focus on. If there is a particular issue that Sandel does not address, then a more specific version of the thesis would include that issue—hand an explanation of why it is important.
While Sandel argues persuasively that our instinct to “remake” (54) ourselves into something ever more perfect is a problem, his belief that we can always draw a line between what is medically necessary and what makes us simply “better than well” (51) is less convincing.
This is an arguable analytical claim. To argue for this claim, the essay writer will need to show how evidence from the article itself points to this interpretation. It’s also a reasonable scope for a thesis because it can be supported with evidence available in the text and is neither too broad nor too narrow.
Given Sandel’s argument against genetic enhancement, we should not allow parents to decide on using Human Growth Hormone for their children.
This thesis tells us what we should do about a particular issue discussed in Sandel’s article, but it does not tell us how we should understand Sandel’s argument.
Reference management. Clean and simple.
Is a thesis statement a question, how do you write a good thesis statement, how do i know if my thesis statement is good, examples of thesis statements, helpful resources on how to write a thesis statement, frequently asked questions about writing a thesis statement, related articles.
A thesis statement is the main argument of your paper or thesis.
The thesis statement is one of the most important elements of any piece of academic writing . It is a brief statement of your paper’s main argument. Essentially, you are stating what you will be writing about.
You can see your thesis statement as an answer to a question. While it also contains the question, it should really give an answer to the question with new information and not just restate or reiterate it.
Your thesis statement is part of your introduction. Learn more about how to write a good thesis introduction in our introduction guide .
A thesis statement is not a question. A statement must be arguable and provable through evidence and analysis. While your thesis might stem from a research question, it should be in the form of a statement.
Tip: A thesis statement is typically 1-2 sentences. For a longer project like a thesis, the statement may be several sentences or a paragraph.
A good thesis statement needs to do the following:
Once you have written down a thesis statement, check if it fulfills the following criteria:
As previously mentioned, your thesis statement should answer a question.
If the question is:
What do you think the City of New York should do to reduce traffic congestion?
A good thesis statement restates the question and answers it:
In this paper, I will argue that the City of New York should focus on providing exclusive lanes for public transport and adaptive traffic signals to reduce traffic congestion by the year 2035.
Here is another example. If the question is:
How can we end poverty?
A good thesis statement should give more than one solution to the problem in question:
In this paper, I will argue that introducing universal basic income can help reduce poverty and positively impact the way we work.
A thesis statement is part of the introduction of your paper. It is usually found in the first or second paragraph to let the reader know your research purpose from the beginning.
In general, a thesis statement should have one or two sentences. But the length really depends on the overall length of your project. Take a look at our guide about the length of thesis statements for more insight on this topic.
Here is a list of Thesis Statement Examples that will help you understand better how to write them.
Every good essay should include a thesis statement as part of its introduction, no matter the academic level. Of course, if you are a high school student you are not expected to have the same type of thesis as a PhD student.
Here is a great YouTube tutorial showing How To Write An Essay: Thesis Statements .
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What if I told you that one sentence in your essay or thesis could be the difference between a First and a Fail?
It may sound absurd – perhaps even unfair – but it’s true. I refer, of course, to the thesis statement. A thesis statement is your entire essay if it were condensed into a single sentence. If your essay title is a question, then your thesis statement is the one-sentence answer.
It tends to arrive near the end of the first paragraph of a thesis.
Let’s take a look at an example from a Master of Education degree thesis:
Thesis title What constitutes ‘good writing’ for GCSE students of English?
Thesis statement The examination rubric by which GCSE English writing performance is assessed, influenced by a long history of variable ‘tastes’, may now be said to describe ‘good writing’ as that which is grammatically accurate, sophisticated, and suited to purpose, genre and audience.
(The thesis statement would be located in paragraph 1, after a brief overview of the subject).
As I mentioned, the way your thesis statement is written can be the difference between a First and a Fail. But how?
To answer that, let’s think about what ‘thesis’ means. From the Greek thésis, meaning ‘proposition’, your thesis is your main argument.
It is the position you have to support and defend for the remainder of your essay. Without something clear to defend, the fortress you build will crumble and the army you deploy will run about like headless chickens.
In essence: without a clear thesis statement, you don’t have an essay.
“Establishing a clear thesis at the start of your essay is crucial for both you and your examiner. For your examiner, it’s evidence that you have answered the question. For you, it can function as an essay plan.”
For both of you, it’s a litmus test for the quality of the argument: if you can’t fit your essay’s arguments into a sentence, they are too diffuse; and if you can’t stick to your thesis statement’s focus throughout your essay, you are not focused.
A precisely focused and well-grounded essay is more worthy of a First Class grade than one with a scattergun approach.
What your thesis statement includes is determined by three things:
1. The subject and topic of the essay. 2. The purpose of the essay. 3. The length of the essay.
Let’s examine each of those in more detail to see how they can help us refine our thesis statement.
Look at this real-life title from an undergraduate Sports Science essay:
What are the key differences between training recommendations for maximising muscular strength and maximising muscular hypertrophy?
The first task is, of course, to determine the subject of the essay.
In this example, that would be ‘training recommendations for maximising muscular strength and training recommendations for maximising muscular hypertrophy’.
Knowing that means that I know I will need to deploy my knowledge about those two similar but distinct areas. It also means that I should be using the specialist terminology relevant to the field, such as load, isotonic and volume.
Next, I need to determine the topic.
Here it would be ‘the key differences’ between training recommendations for those two goals. That phrase ‘key differences’ is likely to be at the heart of my thesis statement, to show that I’m on track.
With that in mind, my thesis statement might look like this:
Whilst both training outcomes require resistance training centred upon isotonic contractions, it is likely that the absolute load requirements may need to be higher for strength purposes, whilst the total training volume may need to be higher for hypertrophy purposes.
It is by no means a complete essay, but it states clearly what the ‘short answer’ to the question is, whilst paving the way for the ‘long answer’ to follow.
But what if the essay isn’t just looking for the facts organised into a specific order? What if the essay is asking for analysis? Or an argument?
Different essay purposes require different thesis statements. Fortunately, there are only three main essay purposes, and they’re pretty easy to recognise:
1. The expository essay: This is an essay type that asks for the key facts on a subject to be laid out, with explanations. The Sports Science question above is an example of this. It asks for the WHAT and HOW of something.
2. The analytical essay: This essay type asks you not only to lay out the facts, but also to analyse and deconstruct them to better understand them. It is typical in subjects such as English Literature and Fine Art. It asks for the WHY of something.
3. The argumentative essay: This type of essay asks you to use the facts available, to analyse them for value, and then to provide a point of view about the subject. It moves more quickly through the WHAT, HOW and WHY of a topic through to: WHY DOES IT MATTER?
All of the above essay types need a thesis statement that includes a proposition (a statement which answers the question or addresses the title).
Beyond that, these three essay types all require different additions.
For the expository essay , you need to add an overview of the details of the conclusion. Let’s look at an example:
Expository essay title: What are the key differences between training recommendations for maximising muscular strength and maximising muscular hypertrophy? (BSc in Sports Science)
Expository thesis statement: Whilst both training outcomes require resistance training centred upon isotonic contractions, it is likely that the absolute load requirements may need to be higher for strength purposes, whilst the total training volume may need to be higher for hypertrophy purposes. (The basic conclusion is that both approaches need isotonic resistance training; the details are teased out in bold.)
For the analytical essay , you need to add an overview of the analysis performed. Here’s an example:
Analytical essay title: Why did England and Wales vote to leave the European Union? (BA in Politics)
Analytical thesis statement: A close consideration of the voter demographics, the populist nature of political messages leading up to the referendum, and the history of Britain’s status in the EU, will demonstrate that Brexit was primarily motivated by the machinations of the Right.
(The basic conclusion is that Brexit was influenced by politicians; the analytical approach is in bold.)
For the argumentative essay , you need to add an overview of your reasoning. Another example:
Argumentative essay title: To what extent do you consider the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays to be in question? (BA in English Literature)
Argumentative thesis statement: Shakespeare’s authorship of his plays is beyond question, given both the entirely unconvincing nature of any counter-theories and the relatively unstable conception of the playwright’s identity as it stands. (The basic conclusion is that Shakespeare did write his plays; the reasoning is in bold.)
As you can see from these examples, the purpose of the essay gives a very clear demand for something beyond a simple answer.
But, there’s more!
The prescribed length of the essay also defines what you need to do with your thesis statement.
Your thesis statement is a microcosm : a miniature, compressed version of your whole essay.
So, it makes sense that the length of the actual essay is going to impact upon the content of the thesis statement.
If, for example, your essay is expected to be 800 words long and on the subject of Eve in the Bible, then it would be overly ambitious for your thesis statement to say: ‘through comprehensive study of the Bible and extant criticism’. For an 800 essay, more precision will be necessary. It would be better for your thesis statement to say: ‘with due awareness of the complexity of the issue, focusing on feminist readings of Genesis .’
“Matching the scope given in your thesis statement to the depth you provide in your essay is a very effective way to ensure precision.”
Contrastingly, if your essay is expected to be 80,000 words long (a PhD thesis, for example), on the subject of stop-motion animation, it would be rather unambitious to suggest that the essay will ‘provide a visual analysis of Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers’, only. For a PhD, we would expect more content to be covered, and multiple approaches to analysis to be considered.
Indeed, matching the scope given in your thesis statement to the depth you provide in your essay is a very effective way to ensure precision.
It’s a simple, three-part process:
1. Identify the question in the title (or make a question from the statement). 2. Answer that question in as few words as possible. 3. Complete the sentence by providing an overview of the foundation behind your answer.
Easy, right? It can be!
That said, there are plenty of traps that essayists can fall into with this part of the essay. Let’s look at some of these pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Pitfall #1: amateurish style.
This is common throughout academic essays written by beginners. It’s not just the thesis statement that falls foul of sounding amateurish. There are plenty of ways this happens, which are beyond the scope of this argument, but the following example is a prime example: In this essay, I will explore the various pieces of evidence before concluding.
This is amateurish for a few reasons. Firstly, it doesn’t actually say anything. You could otherwise word it, ‘I will write an essay which answers the question’ – a rather wasted sentence. The next, and more forgivable issue is the use of the first-person. We want to get a sense that an individual wrote this essay, but we never want to hear them mentioned! Make sense? No? Sorry.
This should instead read more like:
This essay considers evidence from X in light of Y which ultimately reveals Z at the heart of the issue.
(It focuses on the specifics, X, Y, and Z, and is devoid of any mention of its author.)
This is similar to amateurish style. However, empty phrasing is not just amateur-sounding; it’s manipulative-sounding.
Using phrases such as “in order to” instead of, simply, “to” – or “due to the fact that” instead of just “as” – look like attempts to fill up the word count with waffle rather than content. The same goes for phrases that can be substituted for one word: ‘it is evident that’ can (and should) become ‘evidently’.
Watch this thesis statement from a GCSE essay on Music go from hideous to tolerable:
Beethoven was unable to hear his work, due to the fact that he was deaf, so it is evident that he musically conceptualised the notes in order to compose. (Wordy!)
Beethoven was unable to hear his work, as he was deaf, so it is evident that he musically conceptualised the notes to compose. (Slightly less wordy.)
Beethoven’s deafness made him unable to hear his work, so evidently he musically conceptualised the notes to compose. (About as concise as such a complex sentence will get…)
Do not mistake wordiness for sophistication. Your ideas should be sophisticated; your writing should be clear.
For an examiner, the English language is not just a vehicle for your ideas. It should be, but the academic process always involves the assessment of your expression.
So, to satisfy our examiners’ prescriptive tastes, we need to adhere to the basic tenets of Standard English.
Take a look at the following thesis statement example from an A Level Sociology essay: Considering the status of BAME in Internet culture, the demonstrably racist treatment at the hands of the police, and the energy behind the BLM protests, concluding that there is hope for the future.
This sentence has no finite main verb, so it is technically not a sentence. To become a grammatical sentence, we would need to make ‘concluding’ finite: ‘it can be concluded’, or ‘we conclude’.
The writer got lost in this example because the sentence was so long!
Long sentences can also lead to a failure to make subject and verb agree, like in the next thesis statement example from a school Geography essay:
The most populous municipalities of Spain, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, and Zaragoza, does not rank in the top ten most dense populations of the country, with the exception of Barcelona.
Because the subject ‘municipalities’ is separated from the verb ‘does’ by eight words, it is easy to forget that they do not agree. It should, of course, be ‘do, not ‘does’.
The thesis statement, as I said at the start, can be the difference between a First and a Fail. So, take your time with it.
Write it carefully.
Then redraft and refine it several times, until it’s as good as you can make it.
The payoff is a slick, coherent thesis statement that paves the way to a great essay that really impresses your examiner.
Advice for successfully writing a dissertation, writing services.
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What is a thesis.
The most frequently asked questions concern what is actually in a Thesis (how much detail, how long should it be, etc.). This section of the guide is a strictly informal set of guidelines that a student may use to orient him/herself as to the basic components of a thesis. Since projects differ widely, it is impossible to develop a general outline that applies equally to all students. Regardless of how well you think your own research fits the following guidelines, you should talk to your advisor to determine the most appropriate style of presentation for your own work.
The essence of any scholarly work, which a thesis is supposed to be, is to establish the following:
Toward these three goals, the following list of questions may prove useful for organizing both your research effort and the final writing of the thesis.
You must begin by defining your problem. In the introduction of the thesis, however, you want to do this in a general way that gives the reader a sense of the scope of the project and a basic understanding of your problem area. For example, you may be solving a problem of interest to a particular company, or developing a new approach to a problem that may be of interest to the research community as well.
Motivate your work – both within the research community, and more broadly. Explain to the reader why you will not simply waste his/her time on an uninteresting problem if he/she reads your thesis. Establish who will benefit from your work and why.
With a rough idea of what your problem is, you must firmly now establish the state of the art in the area. This is particularly critical if you wish to claim that you have a better way of solving/approaching a problem than has appeared previously in the literature. If you are duplicating the approach of others, but using a different data set that is of particular interest to you, it is important say so and describe why you have chosen this particular approach/data.
At this point, you may need to review your problem again but at a much higher level of detail, introducing any mathematical notation required and describing any subtle aspects of your problem. Empirical research, which involves gathering data to prove some relationship, can often be introduced by citing one or more hypotheses which you feel your research will prove (or disprove).
After stating the relevant hypotheses, your work should describe the process of collecting and analyzing data to confirm or deny your hypotheses. The most interesting hypotheses are ones that run counter to prevailing public opinion, although these can be very difficult to prove.
Not all work is conducive to initial statements of hypotheses, particularly methodological theses which are aimed at better solutions to existing problems (the implicit hypothesis is that your method is better than others, but this need not be stated as such). In any event, unless your work is purely theoretical, you should describe in detail your experimental design: how you structured your data collection, problems you encountered, and how you conducted your experiments.
In any case, the description of your work should be sufficiently detailed to allow another researcher to duplicate your efforts. A key part of your description should be a clear list of major assumptions you are making and why you are making them. It is useful at the same time to indicate which assumptions are perfectly reasonable (e.g. other researchers have used the same assumption and have obtained good results) and which are likely to affect your results but are required for time/budget reasons.
One of the most difficult aspects of research is understanding exactly what you did and what you did not do. If you were limited by your data, explain how you think this might affect the generality of your conclusions. Discuss openly any shortcuts required due to time/budget/data availability constraints. Be humble!! Do not try to claim credit by stating that you feel that your method/model will work in more general situations if you have done only limited testing. At the same time, do not feel you are getting off the hook by over-qualifying your work. Clearly drawing the line between what you did and did not do is a central step in the scientific method since it helps define the state of the art.
In view of the limitations above, what conclusions can you draw from your research? Because your conclusions are often inextricably intertwined with the limitations of your research, both questions are often answered simultaneously. It may be useful to discuss limitations of specific aspects of your work while you are describing the results, but generally you should defer a discussion of how such limitations until later. Your section on conclusions should specifically and clearly describe your contributions to the field and the relevant limitations. Again, do not underrate your work, but do not claim to have solved problems that are not firmly substantiated in the body of the thesis.
Finally, you should identify areas for future research. Now that you are an expert in your particular area, you should have both a narrow understanding of a well-defined problem as well as a broader understanding of the field as a whole. As such an authority, you can guide others in directions that you feel will provide the greatest good. Such recommendations are usually based on an evaluation of the major weaknesses in your own work, in which case you might recommend how others (preferably with more time and funding than you enjoyed) could overcome these weaknesses. Be sure, however, to specify those weaknesses that you feel would have the greatest impact on your conclusions. Some assumptions that you may have made may be perfectly reasonable!
The Senior Thesis process is a full year, 12-month effort, which really begins during the end of students’ junior spring semester. In both the Fall and the Spring semester, you should be prepared to devote about the same amount of time that would be needed to attend and satisfy all of the requirements of a normal advanced course. Administratively you are required to register for ORF 498 in the Fall, and ORF 499 in the Spring of your senior year. Keep in mind that in order to be a full-time B.S.E student, you need to enroll in at least four courses each term.
The Senior Thesis Classes (ORF 498/499) are intended to help structure your research time and gauge your progress so as to avoid the dreaded Thesis rush at the end of the year. We also aim to provide you with greater and more continual feedback on your work, while introducing you to different tools you might need during your Thesis. Key dates and deadlines and certain rules and procedures governing the preparation of the final document are also contained herein.
Students who don’t wish to continue with their Thesis can switch to ORF 497 (One Semester Project) by September 13, 2024 (the end of the Add/Drop period), and will be required to take eleven departmental electives instead of the ten required when doing a Senior Thesis.
The following dates represent the key milestones over the year. Further details on each milestone are given in later sections of this guide.
Date | Milestone |
---|---|
Friday, September 20, 2024 | SENIOR THESIS PROSPECTUS |
Friday, October 25, 2024 | ORF 498 MIDTERM REPORT |
Friday, December 13, 2024 | ORF 498 FINAL FALL REPORT |
Friday, February 28, 2025 | ORF 499 PROGRESS REPORT |
Thursday, April 10, 2025 | DEADLINE FOR SENIOR THESIS |
Tuesday, April 29, 2025 | SENIOR THESIS SYMPOSIUM (oral presentations) |
Limited funding is provided by the School of Engineering and Applied Science for theses which require financial support for special travel needs, acquisition of data, or other special requirements. Awards are typically around $250-500, but not all proposals can be funded. Talk with your advisor if you feel you may qualify for this support. Thesis funding is announced in both the fall and spring semesters, and students should plan on creating a detailed proposal if interested.
Mudd Library’s Senior Thesis Archive enables Princeton students to access submitted copies of senior theses online. When using the database, students may select the department to view theses from previous ORFE classes.
Every thesis looks very different, and as a result it is difficult to provide a single, universal timeline for students’ progress. However, time management and organization are extremely important skills to develop during your work.
It may be helpful to divide the effort into some primary tasks:
Both ORF 498 and ORF 499 will aim to support your organization and time management through precept-like ‘Research Groups’, where you and your peers will share progress, ideas, and challenges.
Please do not underestimate how long it takes to write the thesis. Be sure to plan ahead!
In preparation for doing two semesters of focused research during your senior year you are required to prepare an initial report that serves as a prospectus or guide for your Senior Thesis research. This Senior Thesis Prospectus is due on Friday, September 20, 2024. It serves the purpose of ensuring that you have a clear vision of the work that lies ahead for you and your faculty advisor. You have had the summer to start thinking about your Senior Thesis research, and you should aim to return to campus organized and prepared to begin conducting your research. The Senior Thesis Prospectus should be a short document consisting of two paragraphs: i) the primary context / motivation for your work, and ii) the set of research questions you aim to focus on.
Later in the semester you will be defining the preliminary scope of your proposed thesis project by working out an outline. What major chapters or sections do you envision your thesis having? When might you expect completion of these parts? This is an opportunity for you to organize your time around smaller and more manageable ‘parts’.
The Fall Progress Report is due the week after Fall Recess (Friday, October 25, 2024). It is designed to serve as an initial checkpoint on your progress and provides an early opportunity for feedback. It should be a substantial update and expansion of the Senior Thesis Prospectus with expanded references, detailed description of data sources, if appropriate, and include an initial draft of at least some sections. You can think of this as being a “1st draft” of your thesis – albeit very much a work in progress.
It will be graded by your advisor and hence you should discuss with them what is expected. In general, however, the Fall report is expected to be 5 to 10 substantive pages in length and neatly presented. The basic outline of the report might be as follows:
After submitting your reports, you will give a short presentation to your classmates on your progress. You are encouraged to think about this as being the first part of what you will present at the Symposium in the spring. Presentations should aim to be 3-5 minutes long, and cover all main parts of the midterm report.
The ORF 498 Final Fall Report is due on Dean’s Date (Friday, December 13, 2024). It is a summary of your progress to date. In general, 30-40 typed pages are expected for this report.
The progress report will be graded by your advisor, and hence you should talk to them regarding the stage of your project and content of your report. You should aim for this to constitute about one third of your final Thesis – although students’ projects will vary. Your outline for this report will likely be extremely similar to the ORF 498 Midterm Report, although more detail is expected on every front.
By the end of the fall, you should aim to have some results to present, discuss, and interpret in light of your original research question. In this report (and those that follow), we will be looking at the product of your research process – not just the process itself.
In the spring course ORF 499 (Senior Thesis), students will be asked to submit another substantial progress report, which will be due on Friday, February 28, 2025. You should aim to show additional progress from the ORF 498 Final Fall Report, and this document should aim to constitute two thirds of your Thesis.
Final theses are due by 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 10, 2025, in the following two formats.
All students are invited to come to the Sherrerd Hall Atrium on April 10, 2025, at 4:00p.m. for ORFE’s Thesis turn-in celebration.
Capping the thesis effort is a day of oral presentations during which seniors share their work with faculty and peers. This symposium will be held during Reading Period, on Tuesday, April 29, 2025, from 9:00am to 12:00 p.m., and will be followed by a lunch.
You will have 12 minutes to describe your work, and then 3 minutes for Q&A by the audience. As it is very easy to run over this time limit, it is a good idea to practice your presentation beforehand. You are also encouraged to focus on high-level context and results of your work, since there isn’t enough time to get into all the details.
Both ORF 498 and 499 are graded A-F courses. However, the work you do during your Thesis is fundamentally different from your usual classwork. Instead of evaluating only the outcome of your work (i.e., your final Thesis), we are also aiming to evaluate the process behind your work. Did you demonstrate the ability to think and learn independently? To apply knowledge from other classes to solve a practical problem? Were you consistently engaged with your project? All assignments / reports / presentations in ORF 498 / 499 are intended to measure these aspects of your research process – along with the results of your investigation.
In ORF 498, your grade is broken down into the following categories:
Note that your grade for the Midterm and Final Reports will be determined by your advisor.
ORF 499 will have similar guidelines, but more heavily weighted towards the final Thesis:
Similar to ORF 498, the final Thesis will be graded by your advisor.
The participation component of the grade in both courses is primarily based on your attendance and engagement with your ‘Research Groups’ – precept-like sessions led by a graduate AI.
You will most frequently be submitting (for grade) written reports that constitute a piece of your thesis. In an effort to make the evaluation of these reports as uniform as possible, we have decided to grade them along several different categories – 6 are expected of all theses, and 4 depend on the specifics of each students’ project.
Your reports will be evaluated in each of these categories (excluding those not relevant to your specific project) on a scale of 0-3.
We expect that every thesis contains the following:
Category | Description |
---|---|
Writing Quality | Writing is clear, concise, and well-polished. The material is organized and tells a coherent story. All concepts and notation used are defined when needed. |
Creativity | The thesis demonstrates the student’s ability to work independently on novel topics. It shows originality and creativity in the problem formulation, methodology, and/or other parts of the work. |
Broader Context | The thesis is related to global, economic, social, or environmental issues. Any relevant contemporary issues are identified and tied to the thesis’ motivation and results. |
Literature Review | The student has demonstrated the ability to find, read, consolidate, and interpret scientific literature. Any gaps or unresolved questions are identified and used to motivate the project. The information in the thesis is scholarly, accurate, from relevant sources, and appropriately cited. |
Results | The results and their implications are clearly and objectively stated. Any takeaways are interpreted through the lens of relevant prior literature, or broader societal context. |
Depth | The student has demonstrated a collective, thoughtful, and exhaustive thought process in their approach to the problem. Several extensions to the students’ original problem have been presented and studied. Overall, the thesis left “no major stone unturned”. |
Almost all these will touch on at least one of the following:
Category | Description |
---|---|
Modeling | All modeling choices or assumptions are discussed and justified. The student demonstrates critical thinking in assessing the limitations of their approach. |
Mathematical Depth | Mathematical results are relevant, correct, and discussed in the main text. Mathematical reasoning is used to frame and advance the problem formulation. |
Computational Component | Any computational routines used are clearly communicated, and elegantly contribute to the results of the thesis. Any assumptions or limitations of these routines are critically examined and discussed. |
Data Analysis | The data collection and/or analysis performed is thoughtful, accurate, and appropriate for answering the student’s research question. Any inferences drawn from this analysis are sound and well-justified by the empirical evidence. |
There are certain guidelines that must be followed when preparing your theses. These guidelines have been developed as a response to certain legal requirements regarding copyrights as well as administrative needs for processing the thesis.
The requirements for preparing the thesis are as follows:
The front page of the thesis should include title, author, advisor(s), date (April 2024), advisor(s), and the statement: SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT OF OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND FINANCIAL ENGINEERING PRINCETON UNIVERSITY APRIL 2025
The second page should contain the following statements: I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. I authorize Princeton University to lend this thesis to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. (your signature) (your name) I further authorize Princeton University to reproduce this thesis, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. (your signature) (your name)
Students are not required to have the thesis printed and hard bound. In the event that advisors request to receive copies of their students’ bound theses, students should adhere to the following formatting guidelines:
Trying to write a killer English essay but can’t seem to get your thesis statement right?
You’re not alone! A common problem students run into is writing thesis statements that are too weak, vague, or just don’t stand out from the crowd.
As a HSC all rounder, I’ve written this definitive guide to outline the sacred thesis statement formula that helped me achieve a Band 6 in English.
Read on and learn exactly how to nail those thesis statements. Every. Single. Time.
Art thou ready?
What is a Thesis Statement? How to Write a Thesis Statement in English (Step-by-step) Step 1: Breakdown Question Keywords Step 2: Brainstorm Specific Ideas on Question Step 3: Identify Most Sophisticated Stance Step 4: Link Key Context & Module Links Step 5: Craft Your Argument & Effect Examples of Thesis Statements The Ultimate Exercise to Improve Your Thesis Statements
A thesis statement is a 1-2 sentence overarching argument in response to a specific essay question that you will prove throughout your essay.
Being the first sentence of an introductory paragraph on an essay, a thesis statement’s principal aim is to directly and concisely answer the question with the argument, stance, or position you are taking.
Strong thesis statements typically have the following the components:
These components can be arranged in various one and two sentence “structures” that depend upon:
With that said, let’s take a look at our general one-sentence thesis statement structure:
It’s important to note that there are several variations of this differentiated by the ordering of each component.
Now, let’s take a look at an example where this structure is in effect.
Question To what extent is Shakespeare concerned with the nature of jealousy and its interaction with power in “Othello”?
General Structure Thesis Statement Example
In our HSC English tutoring program we teach students how to effectively use these Band 6 thesis statement structures so they can level up their essays quickly for their specific texts.
In this section, we’ll go through step-by-step on how to write a thesis statement with clear examples for each step.
Follow along to ensure you’re on the way to writing strong and impactful thesis statements.
Have you ever gotten your essay back with feedback stating that you completely missed or didn’t really answer the question?
This usually happens when students don’t understand all the components of a question.
Continuing this practice could have detrimental effects to your thesis statements which risks the integrity of entire essays, both of which prevent you from achieving your goals.
Thus, the initial step to writing your thesis statement is making sure you completely understand the question.
So, grab a pencil, pen, or highlighter and identify those keywords.
To do this, ask yourself:
Question Through the telling and receiving of stories, we become more aware of ourselves and our shared human experiences Explore this statement with close reference to your prescribed text.
Keywords Telling and receiving of stories Aware of ourselves Shared human experiences.
Brainstorming can be actioned in a various way.
However, a fool-proof exercise we recommend practicing is that for each key term, ask each of the following mini-questions about the text:
The goal of this step is to get those ideas jotted down on to paper.
Question “ Henry IV Part 1 shows the disorder and conflict that result when society’s rulers are driven by greed and ambition.” Discuss this statement in relation to your prescribed text.
Keywords Conflict Society’s rulers Greed and ambition as motivations
Mini-Questions for Keyword: Conflict Mini-Questions Answers What / What Type? Political conflict How? Civil rebellions; infighting; power struggles Why? To demonstrate the difficulties associated with leadership and maintaining honour when one has seized the throne illegitimately So What? So that Shakespeare can uphold the Tudor Myth and glorify the divine right of kings. Who? Fictionalised representations of historical royal figures
Once you’ve answered each question, the next step would be to summarise it. The above can be summarised as follows:
Summary from Mini-Questions In order to demonstrate the difficulties associated with leadership and maintaining honour when one has seized the throne illegitimately, Shakespeare uses fictionalised representations of historical royal figures to depict internal political conflict after Henry IV usurped the English throne. This upholds the Tudor myth, glorifying the Divine Right of Kings under the reign of Elizabeth I.
You will then use these summaries of your key terms to write the specific idea component of your thesis statement.
Not answering in a generic way means that you’re not answering in the same way as everyone else, which automatically gives your essay that little edge .
A good thesis statement must have a stance or take a position in response the essay question.
There are typically three stances that a thesis statement can take:
Therefore, take into account which idea stands out and what stance it is taking. A sophisticated statement is one that shows critical thinking and adds something new to the conversation.
This does not mean that your thesis needs to be overly long and complicated in grammar and syntax (in fact you want to avoid that).
Just make sure it states exactly what points you’re planning to make.
Question — Module B Example To what extent does an understanding of your prescribed text’s context significant to an appreciation of its key concerns?
Keywords Context Key concerns
Now, comes the time to identify which the stance you’re going to take.
In 90% of cases it’s best to agree with the statement/question but still leave room for the slightest impartiality which makes for a “nuanced” response — this is taking a “ mostly positive” stance.
“Mostly” Positive Stance Thesis Statement Example
Taking a “moderate” stance with the aim of being completely in 50/50 is quite difficult to produce — this is because students think they are making a judgement when in fact they have just avoided making one.
Although, that does not mean that it’s impossible to create an effective “moderate” response.
Moderate Stance Thesis Statement Example
When you choose to argue against the question, or take a “negative” stance, in English, it is less about causing trouble and more about creating discussion — you want to surprise your markers, not confuse them.
There are a whole bunch of reasons why you should argue against the question when it comes to responding to an essay, most of which boil down to just not doing what’s expected!
“Mostly” Negative Stance Thesis Statement Example
As you can see, all three thesis statements focus on the same key words and concepts from the question, the only difference is that they are all looking into it in different ways.
With that being said, if executed well, any stance can work well.
And, while it’s important to present a unique argument, more importantly, it needs to be one that you can actually substantiate — making sure the evidence you provide supports your thesis statement is what will help you achieve higher marks in English!
To help you identify and analyse evidence in texts, consider brushing up on those English Literary Techniques .
To show that you have greater understanding of your studied text, you must be able to understand and place it within its key context, and identify links to the relevant course module.
Thus, to further elevate your thesis statements — ask yourself:
Question — Module A Example You have studied two texts composed at different times. When you consider these texts and their contexts, how has your understanding of the concepts and values of each text been developed and reshaped?
Keywords Texts and their contexts Understanding of concepts and values of each text Developed and reshaped
Arguably the largest context study out of all the HSC English Modules, it is important to at least implicitly incorporate elements of context especially in Module A responses.
However, this does not mean that context-related questions only appear in Module A.
Let’s analyse a thesis statement responding to the question above so you can get a taste of what makes for effective context and module linking in HSC English.
Thesis Statement The intertextual dialogue between Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ and Atwood’s ‘Hag-Seed’ illuminates the adaptive text’s capacity to reframe and question traditional power dynamics and colonial narratives. This relationship highlights a transformation in understanding societal structures and gender roles, calling into question established norms and offering a critique that resonates with contemporary views on equality and justice.
Linking Key Context From Thesis Statement Why It's Effective "Reframe and question traditional power dynamics and colonial narratives." - An implicit commentary on Shakespeare's "Age of Discovery" colonial context. - Outlines Atwood's reimagining through a postcolonial context that centres minority voices in contemporary Canada. "Transformation in understanding societal structures and gender roles, calling into question established norms and offering a critique that resonates with contemporary views on equality and justice." - Merges thematic concerns of each text and their respective contexts. - Establishes points of discussion in the changes of "societal structures and gender roles" from Shakespeare's to Atwood's time. Linking Module Rubric From Thesis Statement Why It's Effective "Reframe" - Relates to how the latter text responds to or does something new with the former text's concerns. "Adaptive text" & "Intertextual dialogue" - Both directly address how the latter text is an adaptation of the former. "This relationship [between the two texts] highlight a transformation ..." - Addresses how contexts have changed since the performance of the first text and the publication of the latter, therefore addresses how texts have changed. "Resonates" - "Resonances and dissonances" are keywords from the rubric which address the extent to which the latter text has adopted or discarded elements of the former.
Now’s the time to start formulating your thesis statement. So grab and cling to your paper and pens, and let’s get writing!
This step is where we need to craft the specific idea, and effect of your specific idea component of your thesis statement from our General Thesis Statement Structure:
Question “The representation of human experiences makes us more aware of the intricate nature of humanity.” To what extent does this statement align with your understanding of your prescribed text? In your response, discuss this statement with detailed reference to George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’.
Keywords Representations of human experiences Intricate nature of humanity
Stance To a great extent (agrees with the question)
Specific Idea Exploration of paradoxical and inconsistent human experiences of emotional and social repression within a totalitarian system.
Once you have this, you’ll then need to identify the effect of the specific idea.
To do this effectively, consider the following questions:
Continuing the example above, the effect of the specific idea using the above prompt questions would be:
Effect of Specific Idea In order to warn contemporary audiences about the dangers of totalitarianism and government overreach.
Remember, it’s not about crafting the most flawless thesis statement on the get go. Just keep in mind that practice makes close to perfect!
Revising and refining your thesis statements is what will make you a better writer, it’ll set you up for each and every essay question that may come your way.
If you’re a NSW student studying for the HSC, try put everything you have learnt so far into practice and check out some English past papers ! You can also exercise those writing muscles with our ‘Thesis + 3′ Technique’ .
Now, let’s examine some more questions and example thesis statements produced by some of our students.
In this section, we’ll also look at how our AI English Tutor, Artie , elevated each response from “good” to great.
Question “It is difficult to maintain individual identity in the face of homogenous collectives.” How does Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice align with this statement, and how does this representation help support his authorial purpose?
Original Student Response All representations are constructs , with composers incorporating or omitting certain concepts in line with authorial purpose and position. William Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice (1605) represents identity as a composite of intersecting factors shaping our understanding of the human experience, wherein those with greater privilege can invert the Christian patriarchal power relations to gain agency.
Artie Assisted Response Studying or revising for HSC English? Check out our guide on the Common Module: Texts and Human Experiences !
Question No texts are original, but some texts move beyond their origins. To what extent does this statement inform your appreciation of the textual conversations between the composers you have studied?
Original Student Response Each composition has its individual authenticity and originality however, more advanced texts such Al Pacino’s 1996 docu-drama “Looking For Richard” moves beyond the origins of it’s hypo text, William Shakespeare’s 1592 tragedy “King Richard III”, to engage in a textual conversation that highlights the inconsistencies in morals and values across their incongruous zeitgeists.
Artie Assisted Response
If you’re studying any of the two aforementioned texts (or any other of the prescribed texts!), rest assured that Artie can help level up your thesis statements and other aspects of your essay writing .
Need more thesis statement examples? We’ve got you covered!
Access more of Artie’s improved Thesis Statements!
Access our comprehensive Thesis Statement Step-by-step Template!
If you’re looking for some more help as to how to write a HSC Band 6 essay, make sure you check out this step by step guide here!
This section will cover a three step exercise to help you improve faster, making sure your thesis are as strong as can before exam time!
Writing improves with lots and lots of practice — so if you admire someone’s writing, know that it is ever rarely an inherent feat and they most likely have taken the time to improve!
One way to develop your own writing muscles, and so improve your thesis statements, is by trying this exercise:
Doing these writing bursts will ensure you’re able to adapt and answer any question NESA throws at you in reading time, while also building a library of thesis statements you can remix and use in the HSC Exams.
Here are 20 practice questions for each module: Common Module Module A Module B Module C
When writing and developing your thesis statements, ask yourself — “is my thesis statement… SUP? ”
Sharp — each word in your thesis statement matters, don’t ramble and unnecessarily aggrandise your sentences. Use your words wisely, and cut any that don’t effectively get your argument across.
Unique — will your thesis statement get lost among the sea of repeated and unoriginal statements? Avoid this by making sure to stands out by considering a fresh take or new perspective, thus subverting reader expectations.
Purposeful — what you state now will need to be supported by the rest of your essay. Does your evidence actually align with the key arguments you have laid out? Or will the train of your essay derail from its tracks?
Struggling with writing compelling linking sentences for your essay paragraphs? Learn how to write better linking sentences with our guide !
The law of the lid outlines that the highest mark you get in practice will be reflected in your performance when it comes to the real exam.
If you’re goal is to achieve a Band 6, you want to lift your lid, to make sure you’re hitting Band 6 level responses even in practice.
To do this, you must accelerate your feedback loop.
Here are five ways to establish a feedback loop so you can improve faster:
Here’s a guide to essay drafting, editing, and refining your English essays .
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Maddison Leach completed her HSC in 2014, achieving an ATAR of 98.00 and Band 6 in all her subjects. Having tutored privately for two years before joining Art of Smart, she enjoys helping students through the academic and other aspects of school life, even though it sometimes makes her feel old. Maddison has had a passion for writing since her early teens, having had several short stories published before joining the world of blogging. She’s currently deferring her studies until she starts her Bachelor of Communication at UTS in the spring.
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Published on September 6, 2022 by Tegan George and Shona McCombes. Revised on November 20, 2023.
The conclusion is the very last part of your thesis or dissertation . It should be concise and engaging, leaving your reader with a clear understanding of your main findings, as well as the answer to your research question .
In it, you should:
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Discussion vs. conclusion, how long should your conclusion be, step 1: answer your research question, step 2: summarize and reflect on your research, step 3: make future recommendations, step 4: emphasize your contributions to your field, step 5: wrap up your thesis or dissertation, full conclusion example, conclusion checklist, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about conclusion sections.
While your conclusion contains similar elements to your discussion section , they are not the same thing.
Your conclusion should be shorter and more general than your discussion. Instead of repeating literature from your literature review , discussing specific research results , or interpreting your data in detail, concentrate on making broad statements that sum up the most important insights of your research.
As a rule of thumb, your conclusion should not introduce new data, interpretations, or arguments.
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Depending on whether you are writing a thesis or dissertation, your length will vary. Generally, a conclusion should make up around 5–7% of your overall word count.
An empirical scientific study will often have a short conclusion, concisely stating the main findings and recommendations for future research. A humanities dissertation topic or systematic review , on the other hand, might require more space to conclude its analysis, tying all the previous sections together in an overall argument.
Your conclusion should begin with the main question that your thesis or dissertation aimed to address. This is your final chance to show that you’ve done what you set out to do, so make sure to formulate a clear, concise answer.
An empirical thesis or dissertation conclusion may begin like this:
A case study –based thesis or dissertation conclusion may begin like this:
In the second example, the research aim is not directly restated, but rather added implicitly to the statement. To avoid repeating yourself, it is helpful to reformulate your aims and questions into an overall statement of what you did and how you did it.
Your conclusion is an opportunity to remind your reader why you took the approach you did, what you expected to find, and how well the results matched your expectations.
To avoid repetition , consider writing more reflectively here, rather than just writing a summary of each preceding section. Consider mentioning the effectiveness of your methodology , or perhaps any new questions or unexpected insights that arose in the process.
You can also mention any limitations of your research, but only if you haven’t already included these in the discussion. Don’t dwell on them at length, though—focus on the positives of your work.
Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:
See an example
You may already have made a few recommendations for future research in your discussion section, but the conclusion is a good place to elaborate and look ahead, considering the implications of your findings in both theoretical and practical terms.
When making recommendations for further research, be sure not to undermine your own work. Relatedly, while future studies might confirm, build on, or enrich your conclusions, they shouldn’t be required for your argument to feel complete. Your work should stand alone on its own merits.
Just as you should avoid too much self-criticism, you should also avoid exaggerating the applicability of your research. If you’re making recommendations for policy, business, or other practical implementations, it’s generally best to frame them as “shoulds” rather than “musts.” All in all, the purpose of academic research is to inform, explain, and explore—not to demand.
Make sure your reader is left with a strong impression of what your research has contributed to the state of your field.
Some strategies to achieve this include:
Again, avoid simply repeating what you’ve already covered in the discussion in your conclusion. Instead, pick out the most important points and sum them up succinctly, situating your project in a broader context.
The end is near! Once you’ve finished writing your conclusion, it’s time to wrap up your thesis or dissertation with a few final steps:
Here is an example of how you can write your conclusion section. Notice how it includes everything mentioned above:
V. Conclusion
The current research aimed to identify acoustic speech characteristics which mark the beginning of an exacerbation in COPD patients.
The central questions for this research were as follows: 1. Which acoustic measures extracted from read speech differ between COPD speakers in stable condition and healthy speakers? 2. In what ways does the speech of COPD patients during an exacerbation differ from speech of COPD patients during stable periods?
All recordings were aligned using a script. Subsequently, they were manually annotated to indicate respiratory actions such as inhaling and exhaling. The recordings of 9 stable COPD patients reading aloud were then compared with the recordings of 5 healthy control subjects reading aloud. The results showed a significant effect of condition on the number of in- and exhalations per syllable, the number of non-linguistic in- and exhalations per syllable, and the ratio of voiced and silence intervals. The number of in- and exhalations per syllable and the number of non-linguistic in- and exhalations per syllable were higher for COPD patients than for healthy controls, which confirmed both hypotheses.
However, the higher ratio of voiced and silence intervals for COPD patients compared to healthy controls was not in line with the hypotheses. This unpredicted result might have been caused by the different reading materials or recording procedures for both groups, or by a difference in reading skills. Moreover, there was a trend regarding the effect of condition on the number of syllables per breath group. The number of syllables per breath group was higher for healthy controls than for COPD patients, which was in line with the hypothesis. There was no effect of condition on pitch, intensity, center of gravity, pitch variability, speaking rate, or articulation rate.
This research has shown that the speech of COPD patients in exacerbation differs from the speech of COPD patients in stable condition. This might have potential for the detection of exacerbations. However, sustained vowels rarely occur in spontaneous speech. Therefore, the last two outcome measures might have greater potential for the detection of beginning exacerbations, but further research on the different outcome measures and their potential for the detection of exacerbations is needed due to the limitations of the current study.
I have clearly and concisely answered the main research question .
I have summarized my overall argument or key takeaways.
I have mentioned any important limitations of the research.
I have given relevant recommendations .
I have clearly explained what my research has contributed to my field.
I have not introduced any new data or arguments.
You've written a great conclusion! Use the other checklists to further improve your dissertation.
If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!
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In a thesis or dissertation, the discussion is an in-depth exploration of the results, going into detail about the meaning of your findings and citing relevant sources to put them in context.
The conclusion is more shorter and more general: it concisely answers your main research question and makes recommendations based on your overall findings.
While it may be tempting to present new arguments or evidence in your thesis or disseration conclusion , especially if you have a particularly striking argument you’d like to finish your analysis with, you shouldn’t. Theses and dissertations follow a more formal structure than this.
All your findings and arguments should be presented in the body of the text (more specifically in the discussion section and results section .) The conclusion is meant to summarize and reflect on the evidence and arguments you have already presented, not introduce new ones.
For a stronger dissertation conclusion , avoid including:
Your conclusion should leave the reader with a strong, decisive impression of your work.
The conclusion of your thesis or dissertation shouldn’t take up more than 5–7% of your overall word count.
The conclusion of your thesis or dissertation should include the following:
If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.
George, T. & McCombes, S. (2023, November 20). How to Write a Thesis or Dissertation Conclusion. Scribbr. Retrieved October 12, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/write-conclusion/
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Making Your Thesis Master Document. To create the master document: 1. Open a new word file. 2. Go to the Outlining tool. 3. In the master document options, select " Show document ". This will create the option to "Create" or "Insert" files into the master document.
Manual formatting of TOC. To add right-aligned tabs with leaders: From the Home tab, open the Paragraph settings and click on the Tabs button. Enter the tab stop position, choose Right Tab and for Leader, choose the … option. Click Set (or the + sign on Mac), then click OK. Type the TOC entry, press tab, then insert the page number.
Step 5: Formatting Text and Paragraphs. To make your thesis visually appealing, you can enhance the formatting of your text and paragraphs. Use bold, italics, or underline selectively to emphasize important points. Adjust line spacing and indentation to improve readability. To access these formatting options, go to the 'Home' tab in Word.
Illinois Tech welcomes you to join our community of people who discover, create, and solve. Apply today, visit us in Chicago, and contact us for more information. MS Word Template Template The template above provides a basic thesis layout, which meets the IIT thesis manual requirements. It consists of the following parts:
UM-Dearborn Microsoft Word Thesis or Dissertation Template. Most students use Microsoft Word to write their thesis or dissertation. For previous assignments, you likely did not use some of Word's advanced features such as styles, section breaks, rotated pages, automatically generated table of contents, automatically generated list of ...
To use the outline function, click the " View " tab at the top of the Word menu and select " Outline ". This will give you the outlining toolbar. From here, you can start your thesis outline by jotting down your main headings for each chapter and building a plan for each section. At this stage, you will have a very rough idea of the ...
Expand the Styles options by clicking on the drop-down arrow on the bottom right of the tool bar. Select Create a Style from the list. In the Create New Style from Formatting window, add a name for the style. Click on Modify. In the Create New Style from Formatting window adjust the settings as required.
Select all and copy (Select > All and Edit > Copy) Create a new document in Illustrator (File > New) Paste in the copied document and rotate (Edit > Paste and Object > Transform > Rotate) File > Save as EPS. Insert the EPS into Word. Inkscape (free download here!): Save the Excel file to your desktop as a PDF.
Click on the Styles dialog box launcher [1], to open the Styles pane [2] Click on the New Style button at the bottom of the Styles pane [3] Within the 'Create New Style from Formatting' dialog box (see Figure 10) Give your new style a meaningful name [1]. e.g. SPECIALHEADINGS (no spaces in its name)
Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates. Published on June 7, 2022 by Tegan George.Revised on November 21, 2023. A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical early steps in your writing process.It helps you to lay out and organize your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding the specifics of your dissertation topic and showcasing its relevance to ...
Step 2: Write your initial answer. After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process. The internet has had more of a positive than a negative effect on education.
"We might all put "Microsoft Office" on our CV, but people from academic don't know how to REALLY use Microsoft word." This was from an actual informational ...
Haere mai, tauti mai—welcome! These instructions are designed to be used with recent versions of MS Word. Please note there is no template or specific formatting guidelines for a thesis at UC. Please talk to your supervisor and take a look at theses in the UC Research Repository to see how they are usually formatted.
In the "References" section at the top, locate the Table of Contents group. Click the arrow next to the Table of Contents icon and select "Custom Table of Contents.". Here, you can select which levels of headings you would like to include. You can also make manual adjustments to each level by clicking the Modify button.
Updated on April 13, 2023 Academic Writing. A thesis statement is a sentence in a paper or essay (in the opening paragraph) that introduces the main topic to the reader. As one of the first things your reader sees, your thesis statement is one of the most important sentences in your entire paper—but also one of the hardest to write!
Graduate School Thesis/Dissertation Guidelines Each graduate school has guidelines for formatting and submitting theses and dissertations. If your graduate school or program is not listed here, check with them to obtain specific information about your program's formatting requirements for theses and dissertations.
Thesis. Your thesis is the central claim in your essay—your main insight or idea about your source or topic. Your thesis should appear early in an academic essay, followed by a logically constructed argument that supports this central claim. A strong thesis is arguable, which means a thoughtful reader could disagree with it and therefore ...
It is a brief statement of your paper's main argument. Essentially, you are stating what you will be writing about. Organize your papers in one place. Try Paperpile. No credit card needed. Get 30 days free. You can see your thesis statement as an answer to a question. While it also contains the question, it should really give an answer to the ...
Revised on April 16, 2024. A thesis is a type of research paper based on your original research. It is usually submitted as the final step of a master's program or a capstone to a bachelor's degree. Writing a thesis can be a daunting experience. Other than a dissertation, it is one of the longest pieces of writing students typically complete.
What your thesis statement includes is determined by three things: 1. The subject and topic of the essay. 2. The purpose of the essay. 3. The length of the essay. Let's examine each of those in more detail to see how they can help us refine our thesis statement.
Writing the thesis; Both ORF 498 and ORF 499 will aim to support your organization and time management through precept-like 'Research Groups', where you and your peers will share progress, ideas, and challenges. Please do not underestimate how long it takes to write the thesis. Be sure to plan ahead! Senior Thesis Prospectus
Step #2: Is My Thesis Statement… SUP? When writing and developing your thesis statements, ask yourself — "is my thesis statement… SUP?" Sharp — each word in your thesis statement matters, don't ramble and unnecessarily aggrandise your sentences. Use your words wisely, and cut any that don't effectively get your argument across.
Overview of the structure. To help guide your reader, end your introduction with an outline of the structure of the thesis or dissertation to follow. Share a brief summary of each chapter, clearly showing how each contributes to your central aims. However, be careful to keep this overview concise: 1-2 sentences should be enough.
Step 2: Summarize and reflect on your research. Step 3: Make future recommendations. Step 4: Emphasize your contributions to your field. Step 5: Wrap up your thesis or dissertation. Full conclusion example. Conclusion checklist. Other interesting articles. Frequently asked questions about conclusion sections.