Research Thesis
Structure
The structure of a research thesis follows the structure common to a research paper:
- Introduction
- Related work
- Research design
- Data collection
- Research results
- Discussion
- Limitations
- Conclusions
Not every section is needed, some may have different names, and some may be merged.
As a Research Paper
In the default case, you’ll write your thesis as a linear text with the sections shown above (or similiar).
If you are interested in turning your final thesis into a (research) publication, you can prepare for this in your final thesis already (maybe you want to get a Ph.D. position). For this, split the presentation of your thesis into two parts:
- The first part, representing (nearly verbatim) the research paper; you should have a target publication outlet in mind and will want to watch their article length restrictions e.g. 10 pages.
- The second part, which is the appendix to the first part. It is an expansion of the first part in which you add all the information that is important but didn’t make the cut (for the research paper).
Please talk to your supervisor first about this option.
Examples
See the finished thesis category on our blog. (At present that’s all theses. Need to distinguish types there.)