Tips and Guidelines: Writing Your Thesis UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The Introduction should contain an organized review of the literature that introduces the reader to the field and leads to the hypotheses to be tested.  

• Typically, the review material is organized around one or more summary Tables or Figures. These help keep the information organized. 
• The Introduction usually takes the longest to write.
• Go over your proposed Introduction sections with your Supervisor before you write them.
• The Introduction will include your rationale, hypothesis, and objectives.
• It can be very helpful to have your objectives/research aims presented in graphic format.

• The Results section may consist of content from your previously or soon-to-be published manuscripts written in the usual format (Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion). 
• Collaborative papers must be edited to ensure they represent your own work.
• Even if using previously written material, editing your work into a single Results section is preferable to avoid repetition of introductory concepts and methods.
• Length will depend on style (compilation of papers vs. traditional single discussion style), but should be a maximum of 50 pages, written in concise, scientific writing, that provides adequate detail.

In the Discussion section, you should:

• Consider all the major lines of evidence in the Results section(s). 
• Clearly establish the novelty and importance of your contribution to knowledge.
• Examine alternate interpretations of the data.
• Suggest any necessary qualifications.
• Detail future directions for experimentation. 

• Collect your References at the end of the thesis in the format used for your preferred journal.
• Acknowledge any students who have helped in an important way. 
• Note that if you include work generated by others in your Results, you must be prepared to defend all aspects of this work.
• If you are not prepared to defend all aspects of this work, then just make a mention of it in the text, or discuss it in an Appendix instead.
• You can omit some of your work from the Results section in order to create a more coherent story. 
• With your Supervisory Committee’s approval, you can include work extraneous to the thesis topic in one or more Appendices. 

• It is helpful to use lots of headings and subheadings to organize and unify your thesis.
• Consider using a "4 deep" heading structure (e.g. 1.2.1.b). Refer to sample theses to see how this may be done.
• Remember that any text copied or paraphrased from other sources must be appropriately referenced. Click here to learn more about plagiarism and how to avoid it. 
• Check with your Supervisory Committee members regarding how to submit your thesis. Some faculty members prefer to receive it by email, while others prefer a bound, printed copy.