Methodology tutorial - structure of a master thesis

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This is part of the methodology tutorial

Introduction

Learning goals

• Understand that a master thesis is an argument
• Learn how to sequence a thesis
• Understand that you may have to respect certain standards

Prerequisites

• Methodology tutorial - the research plan
• Most other tutorials

Moving on

• Do other research :)

Level and target population

• Beginners

Quality

• low, needs translation

A thesis is an “argument”

In other words: The organization of the written theses has nothing to do with the organization of the research plan or its little section on planning. In particular: A research design (i.e. the core of a research plan) is not a list of research phases nor a summary of the written thesis.

• A research plan (i.e. the research design) defines and organizes your work according to research logical critiera.
• The research planning (i.e. the little section at the end of your research plan) organizes your time according to workpackages and deliverables.
• Research is done and usually you don’t tell people your personal experience with this, i.e. the thesis is not story. It presents the results of your research (including a literature review and and methodolical explanation on how you did it)

The structure of your thesis if defined by two main elements

1. The research type/approach and related methodological criteria
2. Some idea of rhetorics

A reader must understand your objectives, the questions and your anwsers (results) and finally how you did it.

Presentation and typographic structure

Let's first a look at some superficial presentation issues.

The word processor

Start by admitting that you don't know how to use a word processor. Don't feel ashamed. Most people don't. E.g. I had to write a wiki entry about Microsoft Word before writing a larger text. I usually use FrameMaker which is very different because it was designed for people that write real text and I had to make a real effort to adapt to MS Word. - Daniel K. Schneider

Here is a list of "must know" things:

• Define styles (and make sure word doesn't modify them or adds new ones)
• Automatically create tables of contents and figures
• Create indexes
• Automaticall number titles
• Create stable numbered lists

Don't loose days with repetitive re-fomatting.

There exist two "formatting" strategies

• Either learn how to create a good list of styles (you may need between 15 and 30 for a master thesis depending on your research type
• Ignore my advice, but then only spend your last day with manual formatting.

Professionals do it this way

• Each type of paragraph has its own style
• Never use TABS or empty lines (e.g. paragraphs are separated by space, not an empty line, so add horizonal space to the paragraph style element definition).

Your list of styles

You need at least the following elements:

• Numbered Chapter, numbered section, numbered sub-section and unnumberd sub-section. If you use MS Word, just define styles for heading 1 to heading 4.
• List elements (bullet list items and enumerated items). You may, but usually don't have to define these at two levels
• Normal paragraphs
• Citation paragraphs (indented)
• A style for fixed formats if you plan to present code
• One ore more good table styles
• Figure captions

Titles et sections

Here is some advice about titles and sections

• The table of contents not only is a navigation tool but it indirectly defines your argumentation flow. This is why wording of titles and structure is important.

Do not use too many section levels (like 12.3.4.1.a). Your thesis is not a military or administrative operations manual, but a flow of connected ideas.

• Too many levels will make orientation difficult for the reader. He won't understand where he is.
• You may add unnumbered titles at the section or sub-section level or maybe use something like (a) .... (1) ....
• Each numbered sub-section represents an important topic
• Titles should summarize a topic (without being too long)

You have to find a compromise between:

• flow of argumentation (avoid sub-titles because the "cut" intro a text)
• structure (use sub-titles to separate topics)
• readability (use un-numbered sub-titles to structure contents that stretch over several pages)

Layout

There exist several schools of thought. Make sure to consult official guidelines too !

Page numbering

Either just number from 0 to n or the more sophisticate following scheme:

• Roman numbers for preface, table of contents etc.
• Normal (arabic) numbers for the main part
• Something like A-1, etc. for annexes.

Headers

• On top of left pages you should put the current chapter title
• On top of right pages you should put the current section title

Notice: In MS Word 2003 this is painstaking labour, so you may skip this. But any real word processor can do this really easily.

Line length

• Don't write long lines ! Readers will get lost
• Simply use decent margins and don't use small fonts (10pt is too small)
• You may indent titles to the left (certainly not to the right as some Word default styles will do)

Some "modern additions"

• Use boxes to present "special information" like case summaries or important conclusions.
• Use side headers (also very difficult to do in Word 2003).

Figures an tables

• Label and number each of these. If you work with a real word processor, let them float to the top or the bottom of the page. If you use Word, you can do this manually (but only the day before you turn it in).

The organization of a thesis

Here are the most important parts of an academic piece:

Elements	Importance	Main functions
Foreword	*	Personnal Context
Table of contents	**	Navigation
Abstract	*	Main objective, result and scope
Introduction	***	Objectives, global approach
Principal part	**	(depends on your research type)
Conclusion	***	Summary of results, further work and scope
List of sources	*	Data anchoring
Indexes	*	Navigation
Bibliography	**	Theorectical anchoring
Annexes	*	Presentation of detailed data, materials, etc.

Foreword

The foreword is not part of your thesis.

You may use it to:

• thank people
• explain why you have chosen this subject
• (maybe) excuse yourself for things to didn't do
• annonce some followup

Things that relate to your work belong to the introduction

Table of contents of tables and figures

Mandatory

• Position: At start and after the foreword
• Must match titles in the text (this should be obvious). Even Word can generate this easily.
• You also should add table for the figures and the tables. This will allow people finding synthetic information.

Abstract

• This is often mandatory
• If it is not, you also may summarize your thesis as a paragraph in the introduction

Introduction

The introduction (as well as the conclusion) is the most important chapter of your thesis

• People will read this first and they should clearly understant what do did. Make sure that they

find your subject interesting...

A reader must understand:

Elements	Details
The big question	.... summarizes your subject, i.e. what you wanted to find out.
	.... implicitely or explicity defines a scope
The "language"	.... which major concepts you use, "important definitions
The general approach	.... research type, global approach, principal methods used
	.... the structure of your thesis

In general, the introduction includes:

A description of your research subject (including the big question).

A short discussion of the interest of your work and its scope (including what you will not do).

A synthetic list of research questions and/or working hypothesis (if your research is rather theory-finding). Alternatively, they may appear after the literature review part.

A list of some important definitions, e.g. an explanation of the words you use in the title of thesis or the big question. You also can do this in the literature review.

A presentation/discussion of the global approach, unless you dedicate a special section to this. In this case you should just brievely describe it in a single short paragraph.

A short guide for the reader. It will help the reader finding things and also show that you can provide a rationale for the adopted structure.

An introduction of the object(s) you study. E.g. if you do some policy implementation research, you may present the context and legal basis.

Notice: A working hypothesis is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested. It's just a more aggressively formulated general research question. "Real" hypothesis exist in theory-testing approaches. They are grounded in theory and can be properly tested with data. Hypothesis are always presented after the theory part and then even further operationalize after/in the methods chapter.

Principal chapters

It is difficult to give some useful advice about the principal chapters, since there exists a large variety.

Certain research types / aproaches have strong guidelines for content structuring. However, we can try formulate some general principles.

In all empirical studis, you should:

• present data and results
• discuss results
• link results with the questions and hypothèses
• confront results with existing knowledge

However, the order is not necessarily the same.

Writing Style

Avoid including lots of statistical indices in your sentences, rather use tables for this (except in experimental psychology, where text is supposed to be unreadable)

The literature review chapter

Usually, the review is done in chapter two. However, there may exist exceptions (e.g. in history)

But in any case this chapter should be used. Research questions are presented in detail after the review and they must be gounded in the literature review. Research results have to be confronted to the theory later on (e.g. after or during presentation and discussion of the results). This is an often observed problem in master thesis. This principle also works the other way round. If you don't use theory, do not present it.

Conclusion

Recall the principal results of your research

Discuss the scope of your results

• You may discuss the external validity (i.e. attempt some generalization)
• Discuss questions for which you don't have answers or things you didn't implement (and why)
• You could formulate a new theory that could be refined/tested in further work
• You can formulate new interesting research questions. Often the value of a master thesis is to generate new ideas for research that your adviser can pick up or that you could turn into a Ph.D. thesis :)
• You can globally compare your work to other empirical studies (if not already done so)
• You may discuss the practical usefulness of your work (in particular if your thesis does not have practical aim)
• If you produced an applied thesis, you may recall major recommandations (e.g. a set of design rules for practionners)

List of sources

If necessary, this chapter will include a list of all your primary sources, e.g.

• laws and other legal or paralegal documents
• historical sources

You also may include these in the bibliography.

Indexes

You may (but usually must no) produce and index of concepts and authors. It will help the quick reader to find interestings "spots" and also give an idea about the way you tackled your research.

Most word processors can do this fairly easily (even Word)

Annexes

Annexes are important and include everything that is not strictly necessary for the presentation and the discussion of empirical results.

Typically, it may include:

• all research artifacts (such experimental materials, survey questions, etc.)
• some raw data (e.g. stories told be individuals), most often just excerpts
• Intermediate analysis data like descriptive statistics, qualitative summary tables, etc.)

Bibliography

It must include each an every reference you directly or indirectly used.

You do not need to include any other references, i.e. texts you didn't use.

You must respect a certain standard (and be coherent)

Tip: Start doing the bibliography right from the start.

• As soon as you use a text, include it !
• You may learn how to use a reference manager, although for a typical master thesis you also can do it "by hand".

Citations

You will have to respect a given norm. In some institutions you can choose, in others you will have to comply. See the citation article for some links that might help you.

The presentation

Do not forget to prepare your presentation.

Time is usually very limited, so stick to the essential !

(1) Make sure to present the essential things only

• Your introduction should be as short as possible (no mumbling about how you found your subject and how your thesis changed your life and the one of your dog or cat). Just state the objective (main goal and big question) of your thesis
• Then present the research questions and the results. Make sure to arrange this part according to standards observed for your research type. E.g. in experimental psychology you'd present hypothesis, materials, results, discussion.
• Discuss some outlook
• End with a stunning conclusion, do not finish mumbling...

(2) Plan a test run with some friends

Ask them to tell you what wasn't clear

(3) Prepare the delivery

Once you feel that the contents are ok, you will have to deliver in time and with a minimum of style. The only way to get this right is to repeat the presentation using your voice at least 3 times (looking at the slides and mumbling will not do).

Here is a typical talk menu in french: