Title
A Thesis/A Dissertation
By
Name
Department of <XXX>
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements
for the degree of
Master of Science, <XXX>
Doctor of Philosophy, <XXX>
Date
Accepted by the Graduate
School
___________,
_______________________
Date, Dean of
the Graduate School
The undersigned have examined the thesis entitled ‘Write Thesis Title’ presented by WRITE NAME HERE, a candidate for the degree of Master of Science (Write full degree here) and hereby certify that
it is worthy of acceptance.
 |
|
Date Advisors
name
 |
|
Date committee
member name
|
|||
|
|||
Date committee
member name
ABSTRACT
All the pages have been formatted in the accepted font
and margin alignment. This is a simple MS thesis template that can be used for
directly typing in your content. However, if you paste your text into the
document, do so with caution as pasting could produce varying results. When
directly typing into the title page and signature page, the appropriate
information should be filled in the required fonts. If one chooses to include a copyright notice,
it should appear before the signature page and after the title page (page ii).
This can be achieved by clicking Insert > break > page break >ok. Additionally, the page number should not
appear on the copyright notice page. This can be achieved by clicking Insert
> page numbers > format > start numbering at. I have used this thesis
template to answer typical questions that grad students need addressed before
they begin writing their theses. When writing an abstract, bare in mind an
abstract is a short descriptive summary of your thesis. The number of words accepted
might vary e.g. 200-250 words. An MS thesis abstract need not exceed two pages.
Abstracts are typically written last although they are the most important part
of the thesis. They should have a little bit of everything: the background, the
scope of your project, the purpose, findings and conclusions. An abstract is neither
paragraphed nor cited. It should not be written as a literature review or a
discussion of results. In a simplistic manner, your abstract, in a few words, should
answer the questions: why should we care about your research; how did you get
your results; what did you learn, find, create, invent; and finally what do
your results imply?
**--there is text and instructions throughout that need to be
deleted as you add your own text --**
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Gratitude is a great virtue Though
revenge is profitable
Its customary and good manners to say thank you
however, where do you draw the line? In some of the theses that I’ve read, and
I write this after having read thousands, literally, the following and more have
been acknowledged: God, one’s advisor, one’s better half, parents, children,
friends, classmates, lab-mates, lab technicians, lab assistants, pets, fav.
Prof, neighbors, physicians, exercise trainer(s), wiki, the maintenance guy,
landlord, the school hockey team, secretary, department head, driver, dentist,
chauffer, the police, fav. presidential candidate, one’s chef, Led Zeppelin,
the pastor, one’s biggest crash, the cable man, the mani/pedi girl, hair
stylist, the best/worst/fav bar tender(s), the janitor, one’s obs/gyn, one’s mentor,
and in a more recent thesis, Michael Phelps (8 gold medals at the 2008 Olympic
games in Beijing, China, way to go…)
Thank you to the Clarkson University Graduate Student
Association (GSA) for initiating the idea that a thesis template would be a
useful tool for graduate students and in particular to Sheila Kalenge, who in
August 2008 completed her MS degree in Environmental Science and Engineering,
and began the process of getting this template together.
Keep in mind that one has to use one’s own words when
writing an acknowledgement. Plagiarism is unauthorized.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
The table of contents is most easily
created automatically (!!) with REFERENCE tools within WORD. Click on the
following sequence: insert, reference, index and tables, table of contents,
okay. The chapter titles and section
headers should have been set to create a table of contents. It is important that the styles laid out in
this template are used to maximize the benefits of the template and MS WORD
options. The table of contents can be
updated as you revise your thesis by using right mouse button and clicking on
“update field.” With this approach,
there is no need to copy and paste or retype your chapter and section titles.
LIST OF TABLES
The list of tables is also easily
created automatically (!!) with REFERENCE tools within WORD. Click on the
following sequence: “insert, reference, index and tables, table of figures, (find
“caption label” box set as – tables), okay.” This can be updated as you revise your thesis
by using right mouse button and clicking on “update field.” With this approach, there is no need to copy
and paste or retype your chapter and section titles. You need to also use the
table captions within the body of your thesis (see examples below). The insertion of table captions in this manner
also helps because word automatically renumbers the tables within the text when
you insert another table in the middle.
There is no need for you to renumber the tables manually
Table Page
LIST OF FIGURES
The List of Figures is most easily
created automatically (!!) with REFERENCE tools within WORD. Click on the
following sequence: insert, reference, index and tables, table of figures,
(find “caption label” box set as – Figures),
okay. This can be updated as you revise
your thesis by using right mouse button and clicking on “update field.” With this approach, there is no need to copy
and paste or retype your chapter and section titles. You need to also use the figure
captions within the body of your thesis (see examples below). The insertion of figure captions in this manner also helps
because word automatically renumbers the tables within the text when you insert
another table in the middle. There is no
need for you to renumber the figures manually
Figure Page
CHAPTER I: Introduction
The main goal of your introduction is to identify a
problem that is worthy of investigation. It must also provide some idea of your
research goals and approach to research.
Specific objectives can be introduced in the introduction chapter or they
can be saved for later after you’ve provided additional background on the topic
and state of the current research and its gaps.
The Introductory chapter often concludes with a summary of the
organization of the thesis, including identification of the general content of
specific chapters and appendices.
Ideally, chapter one defines the overall importance of
the problem areas and provides an introduction into what you did, chapter two
is why you did it in the context of what was previously known, three is how you
did it, four is what you found and five is what it all means – putting the
pieces together, (what’s your contribution to the research field).
It should be noted that the objectives of your
research define the OUTCOME, i.e. what will be learned. They are not a statement of the approach or
tasks that are required to meet these objectives. Some examples of reasonable research
objectives:
·
Determine the effect of Marangoni convection on
mixing of molten glasses
·
Predict the extent of mechanical degradation of
polymers
These both define the resulting outcome (prediction,
effect on…) so they are objectives. The related tasks or research approach
could be:
·
Solve a set of coupled non-linear PDEs…
·
Perform experiments on…
These define the required steps; they do not define
the outcome so they are NOT objectives.
Some theses and dissertations can have some chapters written
as manuscripts that can be submitted to peer-reviewed scientific research
journals. In that scenario, the grad student should be the principal author of
the pending articles. The thesis or dissertation that includes manuscripts as
chapters are not exempt from writing an introduction, background/ literature
review and overall conclusions and recommendations.
This template uses the MS WORD STYLES extensively to help keep your work
in the proper format. These paragraphs
use the “thesis-body text” style that is set for Times New Roman, 12 point font
with double spaced lines and extra spacing between paragraphs (no need for hard
carriage returns). There are also styles
for headers, equations, captions and bulleted lists that you can choose to
use. See examples throughout this
template.
Begin typing or pasting the rest of your chapter 1 text here.
(and then deleting above text)
CHAPTER II: Background and Literature Review
The background and literature review section needs to
provide sufficient fundamental background information about the subject to
support your objectives, hypothesis (or research questions) and methods, and
review the pertinent literature related to the specific problem / hypothesis
you are addressing. In Johnson (1991), some
of the questions that he listed that the literature review should be to answer
include:
·
what are the fundamental science, math,
engineering concepts related to your research (scope),
·
what part of your research work has ever been
investigated before and what has not, (some of this may have been included in
the introduction)
·
how does your research work relate to that done
by others,
·
how have others defined/measured/identified the
key concepts of your research,
·
what data sources have you used or have other
researchers used in developing general
explanations for observed variations in a behavior or phenomenon in a concept
in your thesis etc.
The lit review (~20 pages or more) should not be limited to the above
questions only. Ingeniousness and creativity is expected of a grad student.
Bullets can be single spaced. The
above bullets are in the style “thesis-bullets.” When you type bulleted text, highlight the
bulleted text and then select “thesis-bullets” from under the format, style
menu to automatically change their formatting as above.
Section header
Given the length of each chapter, it is required to use headers and sub
headers (possibly sub-sub headers).
These can be numbered or one can just rely on different formats. The section headers in this document are
labeled “heading 2” (“heading 1” was used for chapter titles). The heading styles formats should be
consistent throughout the document as it helps significantly in creating the
automatic table of contents.
Sub heading (heading 3)
The subheadings here have a different format (“heading 3”) than the section
headers.
You can even get to another level of headers, defined here as “heading
4.” The table of contents, however, is
currently set up to just include three levels of headers.
Equations
Equations can be created in MS WORD equation editor or they can be
created with other software. Equations
should be numbered. They can be numbered
within each chapter (e.g., 2.1, 2.2) or they can be numbered sequentially
throughout the entire thesis. Equations
should be indented or centered with the equation number to the right. The example below and associated “thesis-eqn”
style can be used for all your equations.
[1]
This equation was written with the equation editor. Found through
“insert, object, equation editor 3.0. The equation editor can also be found
through “tools, customize, commands”, and in categories, look for insert and in
the commands section, look for equation editor, drag and drop the icon onto the
toolbar. This editor is fine for relatively simple equations, other options are
available for more complex equations.
Tables
Tables should have meaningful information with descriptive headers. You can use the “thesis-table caption” style
to define your captions and refer to the table in the text with a “cross
reference” (Table 1). MS Word
re-numbers table captions automatically when new tables inserted. But you need to right click on any cross
references and “update field” if there are changes.
Table 1: Steps in creating a table
|
Step #
|
Instruction
|
|
Create table caption
|
Insert, reference, caption, table
|
|
Format the caption
|
Format, style, “thesis-table-caption”
|
|
Create table
|
Table, insert…
|
|
Format the table
|
The formatting of the table can vary, including use of
single space as appropriate. Most journals require that tables are formatted
using table style “Table Simple 1” format.
|
|
Reference the table from the text
|
With the cursor at the location you want to cite the
table: insert, reference, cross reference, table, label and number only.
|
Figures
Figures and illustrations are a necessary means of
communicating technical information.
Often times, figures included in the background/lit review section are
copied from existing copyrighted information.
In all cases, this is technically inappropriate without also receiving
permission from the copyright owner.
Citing the source of the figure is not sufficient. This rule is enforced
for PhD dissertations because they are submitted to ProQuest for electronic
access by others. The enforcement of
this rule for MS theses is dependent on the specific committee members.
Resolution of figures is often a problem in
theses. Resolution should be >300
dpi, preferably 600dpi (Figure
1). You should
note that saving images as jpeg files is a sure way to lower the resolution to
an unacceptable extent. From experience,
a good way is to copy your graphic (for example from PowerPoint or excel) and
when pasting it into word, use the “paste special” “as an “enhanced metafile” (Figure 2). This also
substantially reduces the resulting file size in comparison with pasting graphs
in as excel graphics.
Figure 1: Example photo with high resolution. Caption created with “insert, reference,
caption, figure” and the style changed to “thesis-figure caption.”
Figure 2: Example of high resolution graphic
inserted with “paste special, as enhanced metafile”
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY
In addition to the detailed methods you need to
describe in this section, you need to provide specific objectives and an
overview of your approach if they have not already been presented in the
introductory chapters. The best place to
put those items can vary among theses.
Sometimes the background and lit review is really necessary to justify
and substantiate the specific objectives and approach and, therefore, it is
best to save those details for the beginning of this chapter.
These paragraphs are in “thesis-body text.” Other styles including captions, headers etc.
can be used as presented in the previous chapter. Table 2
summarizes all of the styles that can be used with this template.
Table 2: Styles used in this template
|
Style name
|
When used
|
|
Heading 1
|
Chapter titles
|
|
Heading 2
|
Primary headers
|
|
Heading 3
|
Sub headers
|
|
Heading4
|
Sub-sub headers
|
|
Thesis-body text
|
All paragraphs
|
|
Thesis-bullets
|
Bullets
|
|
Thesis Figure caption
|
All figure captions.
|
|
Thesis table caption
|
All table captions
|
|
Thesis-eqn
|
equations
|
|
Thesis-reference
|
Reference list at end of thesis
|
CHAPTER IV: RESULTS
Results, findings, discussion of results OR
manuscripts. It is best to also
reiterate information in your literature review to help substantiate the
findings of your research.
This template is best used for directly typing in your
content.
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION
This chapter could also be called “Conclusions and
Recommendations” or “Conclusions and Implications.” In general, there should be
no new information presented here. It
should be a synthesis of information that you’ve already discussed.
REFERENCES
Includes all references: articles, media facts, books,
reports, regulations, internet articles, papers that you referenced from the
text. In the text, citations can be
(Smith and Jones, 2007) or Smith et al., 2007) (if more than two authors) if
you wish to present your references alphabetically. Alternatively, you can include the citations
in the text as a number [1] or 1 if you wish to present your
references numerically. The computer
software “End Notes” (Clarkson has a site license) or the MS WORD tools –
“insert, reference, footnote, endnote” (or “cross reference” if you refer to
the same reference more than once) should be used to help you organize and
manage your references.
References can be written in single space with extra
space between references as in the format below. There are many different ways to arrange the
information and punctuation in a reference listing. The most important thing is to make sure all
references are complete and that the format of your references is consistent
throughout. See additional suggestions and possible formatting options at the
Clarkson Library web site: http://www.clarkson.edu/library/research/cite.html
Example, S.Z. (2008). How to cite a complete journal
reference. J. Complete Thesis. 1(2):
47-52.
Example, S.Z., Second, W.S. (2007). How to cite a
complete conference proceedings paper. In: Proceedings,
2nd International meeting of Masters Students, Paper # XW15 (Potsdam
NY, November, 2007).
If you use the “thesis” reference” style you will get
the proper line spacing and indent style without further changes. Above are
examples to show complete citation, other formats also acceptable.
Appendix A
Type or paste your appendices here. Appendices are a
place to organize and include all of the “extra” material that is important to
your research work but that is too detailed for the main text. Examples can include: specific analytical
methods, computer code, spreadsheets of data, details of statistical analyses,
etc. But, these materials do not speak
for themselves. There should be a
reference to these materials from the main chapters (complete details included
in Appendix A) and there should be some text at the beginning of each appendix
to briefly explain what the information is and means that is included in that
appendix.
BIBLIOGRAPHY[1]
Thesis: TYPE FULL TITLE HERE IN ALL CAPS
Major Field:
Type Field Here
Biographical:
Personal Data:
Education: (prior degrees)
Fill in your own words though, Completed the
requirements for the Master of Science in Environmental Chemistry at Clarkson University ,
Potsdam , New
York
ADVISER’S
APPROVAL: Type Adviser’s Name Here
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