Practical Thesis Writing ApproachProfessor Dr. Abdullah Gani, SMIEEE, FASc

2.30 pm, DK2, FSKTM, UM. 10 April 2017,

Outline of Presentation• Milestone in Phd• Requirements in thesis writing• Structure of Thesis• Unit of Writing • Conclusion

Preambles

• Fundamentally thesis is a kind of report that is required in phdstudy. It reports the undertaken research work in a mannerwhich acceptable in the academic community.

• There is no common structure that can be applied in anydomains. Therefore, it can be written in different structures anddue to different structures, phd candidates always got confused.

• This slide presents a common structure of Phd thesis, whichbeneficial to many phd candidates who got confused and finddifficulty in organising and preparing the final draft of the thesis.

• This talk does not advocate the uniformity of standard inreporting the phd work. Different supervisors maypropose different structure and this had caused a lot ofconfusion amongst students.

• This slide briefly explains the structure and completelyserves as a guideline and it is NOT a standard. It startswith the unit of writing and its components. It thenproceed with chapter structure and its components.

Introduction• Phd work is ultimately considered completed with the production of a thesis.

• It is a tangible output of the candidate that reports on what have been done and achieved in the study in a clear, concise and logical manner to enable examiners conducting evaluation smoothly.

• Writing Skill is extremely important and can bemastered with a good comprehension of thefundamental concepts of writing mechanisms.

Four milestones to be achieved :•Problem Establishment•Modelling the Solution•Evaluating the Solution•Writing a Thesis Report

Problem Establishment

• Find and establish a problem

• Inability to identify one specific problem may lead to no phdbeing awarded

• Establishing refers to providing empirical evidences for confirming the problem is a research problem.

Modelling the solution

• Once a problem has been established, then the study goes on methods that ever used for the problem identified.

• This could be done through literature review. followed by proposing a solution towards the identified problem.

• The idea of the solution is modelled so that it could be well represented and understood.

Evaluating the solution

• The solution which is modelled needs to be evaluated (tested).

• The main purpose of evaluation is to find the effectiveness of the solution in solving the problem.

• It requires a ’testbed’ for how the solution was tested.

Writing a thesis report

• This is the last milestone in a journey of phd.

• In a simple word, no thesis no phd.

Chap Title What is it? Justifications1 Introduction To introduce readers about the research Attracting readers to keep on

reading the whole thesis

2 Lit Review To identify POTENTIAL problems by reviewing the past works and to UNDERSTAND the domain

Avoiding duplication of problem addressed

3 Problem Analysis To establish THE research problem Phd Requirement

4 Modelling To propose the solution for the problem Highlighting the ideas to solve problem

5 Evaluation To evaluate the effectiveness of the solution

Validating the idea effectiveness

6 Results and Discussion

To analyze and verify the results Putting defense or arguments to support the claim made

7 Conclusion To evaluate the achievement of objectives

Revisit the research objective’s achievement

Chap Layout Layout 1 Layout 2 Layout 3 Layout 4(Education)

1 Introduction Introduction Introduction Intro Intro

2 Lit Review Literature Review

Literature Review

Literature Review

Lit Review

3 Problem Analysis

Research Methodology

Research Methodology

Experiment 1 Research Methodology

4 Modelling Evaluation System Development

Experiment 2 Findings

5 Evaluation Results and Discussion

Evaluation Experiment 3 Discussion and Conclusion

6 Results and Discussion

Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion

7 Conclusion

What is a thesis?

Hype+

ThesisSynAnti

(A proven statement of fact)

A REPORT of undertaken academic research work

Characteristics of a Good Thesis

Characteristics RequirementsEasy to read and understand 3 Cs (Clear, Concise, Coherent)Well structured with clear flow 3 Cs (Clear, Concise, Coherent)Interesting A story-likeContains substance of knowledge Own insight, thinking, Logic

Structure of ThesisThe following equation represents the essence of thestructure:

• Structurally, thesis is composed of several chapters. Inthis regard, we suggest seven chapters to becontemplated the best number to report the wholeprocesses of the research study

Diagrammatically it be depicted as follow

Chapter

Abstract

Conclusion

Chapters contain three components :

Abstract• Summary of the chapter contents. It includes a statement of

objective of the chapter. It helps the readers (examiners) tounderstand the flow of the sections in the Body.

Body• Refers to the materials of the chapter. This can be sections and

sub-sections. Body explains the points for achieving theobjectives.

Conclusion• Evaluation on the chapter’s objective achievement and is NOT

a summary as it has always been misunderstood.

Unit of Writing• Unit of Writing refers to a piece of writing. It can be thethesis, chapters, sections, sub-sections, paragraphs,and sentences.

• Tables and figures are included in the list too. Unit ofwriting can stand on its own and have different sizes.For example, a sentence is a small unit of writing. It candeliver the message on its own without necessarilyrequires other unit of writing.

Thesis is the largest unit of writing can be represented inthe following model.

• In other words, thesis can be viewed as a set of sub-sets.

Chapters• Chapter is the second largest unit of writing afterthesis. It is virtually a division of main ideas of thethesis and represents phases in researchactivities.

• It comprises of several sections and figure ortable or diagrams. As a unit of writing, chapter 2-6 have three main components - abstract, bodyand conclusion, whereas chapter 1 and 7 do nothave conclusion that can be simplified as below :

Chapter - continue• Each chapter is written with certain objectives. Theseobjectives have double-fold functions.1. First, it serves as a guidance in writing the body of

chapters2. Second, it is also used by the examiners to

evaluate the chapter• Therefore, it is highly recommended to writestatement of objective for the chapter in the abstract.Objective must clearly written and followed bydescription of how the objectives were achieved

Sections• Section is a relatively distinct part of chapter.Technically, it has to be more than one section in achapter. Otherwise it is just a short chapter.

• In other words, chapter fundamentally containsseveral sections and section is a sub-system of achapter.

• It can be simplified as below :

Sections - continue

A section comprises three main components introduction (abstract),body and conclusion. First paragraph of the section introduces thereaders (examiners) with work presented in a section. It elaboratesthe objective and the significance of a section.

The example of introduction to section is as follows:“This section presents the methodology of data collection. Weused two methods to collect data from experiments – method1 and method 2. We provide the description of each methodand illustration of data collection process flow in this section.We also present ...”

Body contains the actual contents of the section.Body starts from second paragraph of the section. It has tables, figuresand their narrations in the form of sub-sections and paragraphs.

Last paragraph of the section concludes the section. Conclusion providesinsight and presents the findings of section. Following is the example ofconclusion of the section:

“We presented the data collection methodology in this section.These methods are widespread to collect consistent data due totheir robustness in our field of research. Therefore ...”

Sub Sections - Continue• This unit of writing refers to division of section. In other words, it

is a sub-section of a set section.• Again from systemic perspective, sub-section is a sub-system

of a section system.• Sub-sections have the same structure as a section. However

the parts in a sub-section are smaller than in a section.• Subsection starts with the introduction to sub-section.

Introduction comprises one or two sentences of the firstparagraph in a sub-section.

• Following is the example for introduction to the sub-section:“We present the process flow of method1 in this section.”

Sub Sections - Continue

• First paragraph, after introduction, continues with the body.As a body, sub-sections provide definition and explanation oftargeted entities/concepts.“Method 1 starts with activity 1 and continues to performactivity 2.”

• Last sentences in last paragraph of the sub-section are theconclusion of the subsection as shown in following example:“Method 1 is a significant technique used to solveproblem 1 due to its efficient procedure 1 and procedure2.”

Paragraph• Sub-section contains more than one paragraph. Paragraph isa division of sub-section and normally it describes a mainpoint. It contains paragraph title and description of the title. Itis a good practice to write only one main point in a paragraph.This can avoid confusion over several points in a paragraphand to achieve clear flow of the points.

• Paragraph is a set of sentences and starts with title sentence.The title sentence presents the concept or entity emphasizedin a paragraph. Title sentence is followed by few sentences toexplain the title of the paragraph. In the end, paragraph musthave evaluation of the explanation.

Paragraph - continueThe example of each part is provided as follows:

Title:“Method1 has three drawbacks- drawback1, drawback2 anddrawback3.”Explanation:“Method1 adopts procedure1 to improve the performance ofparameter1. However procedure1 incurs cost1 and results indrawback1 ...”Evaluation:“Therefore, method1 is not suitable with scenario1 and requiresscenario2 for its effectiveness”

Conclusion

• A good thesis is beautifully structured and able to helpthe examiners to follow and understand the flow.

• Appearance of the thesis can influence the examiner’sperception on the quality of the work and generouslyaward the marks.

THANK YOU