Tips for Writing an Excellent Thesis

A surprising number of highly intelligent people are afraid to go for a Master’s degree because of the task of writing a thesis. The truth is, if you know what goes into writing an excellent thesis, you’ll see that it is well within your ability. Here are some tips for writing an excellent thesis.

Know what a thesis is. A thesis is the narrative of original research that you perform, and it may be the largest piece of writing you’ll ever do. It should be something that could be published in a scholarly journal, even though you probably will not do this. A good thesis does not have to be a certain number of words or pages in length. A top quality thesis on mathematics may only be a few pages long if it is in the form of a mathematical proof. A thesis in the arts or humanities, however, may be 100 or so pages long (double spaced, with one-inch margins).

Once you know what your thesis topic is, your first major task is writing a title. It’s a good idea to read several theses on similar topics to help you come up with ideas for a title.

When you have a topic and a title, it’s time to plan out your arguments. A sentence outline is a good way to do this. Simply write out a sentence answering each of the following questions:

* What is your general area of study? This will evolve into an introduction.

* What problem does your thesis address, or what questions does it attempt to answer?

* What does the current literature say about the problem your thesis solves or questions it answers?

* How are you addressing the problem; what specific steps have you taken?

* What conclusions can you draw from your original research?

* What might be the wider ranging effects of your research?

Once your sentence outline is complete, you’ll have the basis for each chapter of your thesis: one chapter for each of the sentences in your sentence outline is a good place to start. Later you may have to combine two short chapters, or break apart a chapter that grows longer than you expected, but as a start, one chapter per sentence will work.

When writing up your research, know, and be able to clearly express what each chapter should say. Realize that you will change your mind about parts of your thesis along the way. This is perfectly normal, because your ideas will evolve as you write. Keep writing: you’ll do a thorough edit later.

Though each school has its own rules for how a thesis is formatted, generally the finished product will consist of the following:

* Title Page

* Abstract

* Table of Contents

* Acknowledgments

* Introduction

* Several chapters

* Conclusions

* Future Work

* References

* Appendices

It sounds like a big task, and it is, but if you break it down and approach it methodically, you can write a thesis that you will be proud to call your own, and that your professors will be proud of as well.