12. Other components of the thesis

References and quotations

  • The thesis should have at least 30 peer-reviewed references from academic journals, conference proceedings or monographs. 

  • You are to clearly indicate when you are representing your own thoughts and conclusions and when you are taking information from another source. Always include references to information from sources or the literature, summaries and quotations. The information in references is to make it possible for the reader to find what you have quoted or summarised and check that you have done so correctly. Books and journals published digitally and in printed form are basically referenced in the same way.

  • References are placed after the statement you are supporting, normally at the end of the sentence (but before the period, i.e. within the sentence). Make a habit of inserting all references from the beginning while you are writing. Doing so at the end of the writing process is very laborious.

  • Quotations are to be used sparingly. For example, you cannot base a research overview on long quotations from other researchers' texts. It is primarily in the empirical presentation that quotations from the source material like interviews are appropriate. Avoid quotations without comment and indicate in the reference where the quotation comes from. Short quotations are written straight in the text body and marked with double quotation marks. Quotations of three lines or more should be separated from the text and written as block quotes (use the thesis template's “Block quote” formatting).

    • If there are quotation marks within a quotation, then write these as single quotation marks.

    • Do not write quotations in italics (unless italics is used in the quotation's text from the start).

    • Quotations should always be written exactly as in the original text, even if there are language errors or typos. To indicate that the quotation is correctly cited with the error, add [sic] immediately after the error.

    • If you remove individual words in a quotation to make it fit better with the surrounding text or because the information is judged unimportant, indicate this by replacing the removed words with […]. If you begin or end a quotation in the middle of a sentence, you usually begin or end the quotation with [...]. If you remove a longer section in the middle of a quotation, it is common to write [---]. You may not, however, remove anything that would change the meaning of the quotation. Quotations from different parts of a text should not be written together. Instead, write them as two separate quotations

    • Note that these rules need to be fully followed and immaculately applied before the thesis is published, so set aside some time to check each this.

Footnotes and endnotes

  • Please avoid using footnotes or endnotes as far as possible. Instead use the main text to discuss or refer to the specific points often addressed in footnotes or endnotes.

Appendices

  • Material that does not work well in the main text but is still important for understanding the thesis, such as questionnaires or interviews, can be included in appendices. Place the appendices after the list of references. These should be numbered, have headings and be included in the table of contents.

Lists of abbreviations, images, and figures

  • If you use many subject-related abbreviations that are not generally recognised by readers, you should define them in an abbreviations list. Commonly accepted abbreviations used in normal written texts should not be included in the abbreviation list.
  • If you have used many images, you should also have a list of these that refers to their page numbers. Tables, diagrams, and other figures can be presented in a list if they are numerous. The abbreviation list and lists of images and figures are placed at the beginning of the thesis after the table of contents.

Table of contents and section headings

  • The table of contents is created with help of the word processor and placed at the beginning of the thesis (see help on creating TOC). A table of contents makes it easier for readers to gain an overview of the thesis’s contents and structure. The section headings should therefore indicate the content.

Title page

  • The title is to be informative. Other researchers doing literature searchers will use the title to judge what the thesis is about. The main title can be creative to capture attention, but then use a subtitle to provide clearer information about the contents.

Abstract and keywords

  • At the designated place in the template, provide a structured abstract of 150-200 words, structured into: Introduction; Methods; Analysis; Results and Conclusions. Abstracts are an important means of ensuring that your thesis is found by online searchers. It is also a useful means of encouraging searchers to follow-up and read your thesis. While authors may be referred to in an abstract, do not include citations. Please find an example of a good abstract below:

Introduction. We report an investigation designed to identify the role of uncertainty in the information search process. Uncertainty has been proposed as a key factor in driving the search for information and this study sought to operationalise the concept and relate it to the problem solving process of academic researchers.
Method. Pre-search, post-search and follow-up interviews were conducted with researchers at the Universities of Sheffield and North Texas. The actual search process, involving an intermediary, was also tape recorded. Transcripts of the interviews and of the search process formed the data for analysis.
Analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out on the data, which related to 111 individual researchers. Quantitative analysis employed the statistical package SPSS, while the qualitative analysis was carried out with the Atlas.ti program.
Results. It proved possible to operationalise the uncertainty concept and to demonstrate that uncertainty declined through the problem solving process. Results are also presented on the relations between uncertainty and the models of information seeking proposed by Ellis, Kuhlthau and Wilson.
Conclusion. Uncertainty appears to have two dimensions: the 'objective', cognitive uncertainty resulting from a perceived lack of knowledge in a field and the 'affective' uncertainty - the feeling of unease or anxiety caused by the cognitive lack.

  • As to keywords, write 4-6 keywords. These are best taken from Library of Congress Subject Headings; choose the most specific ones you can find there. The subject headings are written with lowercase letters unless personal names etc. which are always capitalized.