The count of chapters in thesis may vary with one to other project based on what project you are doing. The one which is not changed in any project is the guidelines, which is set for the master’s thesis proposal preparation. In that a series of headings and sections will be provided this suits most of the cases. Some of the common sections are listed below:
- A Short Title
The title should be presented in a separate page that is the Title Page. This will clearly describe what your thesis will cover.
- A Table of Contents
This section contains a table which has the page number every chapters, headings and main sub-headings included in your thesis.
- An Abstract
Abstract is nothing but a brief summary of your whole thesis which should be within 250 words. It has to be in a separate page and follow format such as double spacing and should be on centre of the page.
- Chapter 1: Overview
An overview is nothing but a roadmap which guides your reader through the process. This holds brief discussion about what does the thesis focus, the process involved in research and finally the result obtained from research. This should be written in a brief, up to 4 or 5 pages.
- Chapter 2: Background and goals of the Thesis
This chapter is further divided into two section, both of them will discuss about the significance of thesis such as the importance of study, analysing or conducting research based on the topic, issues, questions or problems.
The first that is the background section is generally 5 to 6 pages long. It discuss about the general information which makes the readers to clearly understand about the research problem addressed in your thesis. This section gives justification for your topic like how it is socially, theoretically, practically and historically important.
The next section of the chapter that is the general goals is generally 5 to 6 pages long. It discuss about the analysis or test conducted in the thesis. This should not include the hypothesis, it should explain about what is currently under study.
- Chapter 3: Literature Review
This is an important step in writing a thesis; it needs more effort for collecting content for this chapter, which starts from thesis proposal itself. This section is generally up to 10 pages long and it can vary depending on how much research work you have conducted in the topic. You have to be careful when using research findings and design from others project. The thesis you write should contain only the original content from your own. To produce a novel knowledge and to contribute new information to the field other than the already existing one, it is important for you to go deep into the existing knowledge of the field. You can do literature review in many ways but one proper method is to do a keyword search based on the topic and collect all the necessary information from different sources.
If you want to collect information from scientific articles then you can get that from the database of Mugar Library and Nexis can give you the information published in any newspaper or magazine. You can also take help from journals like Google Scholar to collect data from publications related to your topic. If you get the electronic sources in first step then you can collect data from it in the second step either in digital or physical form, if you want more of it you can check in bibliographies. When you complete your work you will become an expert in that particular topic because you would have gained all of the knowledge related to it.
- Chapter 4: Methods
Here you have to mention about the methods you used for collecting data which addresses the main objective of your research. All the procedures and rung used for collecting data should be highlighted in this chapter. When you finally come up with a conclusion the credibility of it is calculated through the methods you opted to collect them. Basically this chapter is 8 to 10 pages long, but the length may vary based on the sub-sections included in it. The sub-section has explanation about your study materials, design, measures, participants and the process involved in collecting data.
- Chapter 5: Findings (or Results)
In this chapter you have to present the overall findings came from your investigation. This has to more focus on the result that was discovered and not on the implications of it. If you are working on quantitative data you can present that using any appropriate presentation tools like charts or tables, or if you are working on qualitative data all the collected should be presented as a summary. The number of pages used for this chapter completely depends on the scope of your project, but usually it will go beyond 8 or 10 pages.
- Chapter 6: Conclusion
It is one of the important chapters; the length of it should be within 10 to 12 pages. In this chapter it will generally discuss about the research question or hypothesis and the goals of your research. Here you have to explain how the data collected by you, helped you to make changes in your research hypotheses or question or the research topic, which you framed in the beginning or you just satisfied with the initial one.
- Chapter 7: Discussion
This is the last chapter of your thesis and this section include the whole summary of your thesis also the steps to be done in future. This chapter could be of 8 to 10 pages long. The important headings it should include are:
Implications and Contribution: Implications explanation should cover both practical and theoretical way. You have to also discuss about the contribution you made to make advancement to the existing knowledge in that particular topic. Also describe whether it can produce a new theoretical framework for that topic or not.
Limitations: Explain about the limitations of your study regarding messages used, contexts considered, participants used for sample, if you have any.
Future scope of the Research: Following the contributions and limitations, you have to provide suggestions regarding the future scope of your research. How could be your conclusion extended and to overcome limitation. Suggest how to provide a solution for new populations, process or platforms with the help of the current trends and designs.
- Make References for thesis
The reference section should include the citation of sources which you used for collecting data and information. This section should follow some formatting requirements based on the guidelines provided by your supervisor. The commonly used style is APA citing style.
- Create Figures and Tables
When you are using any tables or figures in your thesis to represent any quantitative data then you should follow proper formatting for that also. Follow the requirements based on the provided guidelines.
- Write Appendices
Here you can add some extra details which could not be added to the main body, but which you want to convey to the readers. For example: The code book you used for collecting content and doing analysis can be attached in appendix. If you have made use of questionnaire items, that has to be attached in the appendix section of the thesis.
