1. Do not make use of informal
language. This is an academic work and needs to be written formally. What I
mean by this is do not use “we”, “I”, “they”. Write passively.
2. Experimental work and
conclusions are written in past tense. The rest in present
tense.
3. Refer to everything by name.
Do not make use of “it”, “this”, “these”, unless there is absolutely no
ambiguities (how ever you spell it).
4. Try not to write long
sentence. Writing should be like coding. One concept per
sentence.
5. Be
sure to write with flow. Each sentence/paragraph/section/chapter should follow
on the previous. The reader should at all times know what he/she is reading and
why.
6. If you have many mathematical
symbols and acronyms, define them in appendices. This will also help you to
make sure that you assign one meaning to a symbol. Do not overload the meaning
of symbols. It makes reading difficult. Do not use different symbols for the
same meaning.
7. Try not to use quotes and
footnotes. Footnotes break the flow. Quotes say what someone else think. The
purpose of the thesis is to show what you think.
8. Your background should be as
complete as possible. You need to have in the background all theory, previous
models, etc that have relevance to what you are doing. And remember,
do not assume that the reader has prior knowledge. You need to write to show
that you understand the field, that you can critically discuss and evaluate
existing literature. Do not assume that the reader will read between the lines.
9. The introduction chapter is
very important. It provides the vehicle through which you set the stage. It is
the overture of an opera. You need to position your work, and motivate why you
have done this work. The introduction states your objectives and how these
objectives will be addressed. You outline your contributions. Then you tell the
reader what to expect for the rest of the thesis by giving an outline of the
rest of the thesis. The reader should, after reading the introduction have a
precise idea of what you are doing, why, how and where.
10. The conclusions chapter is
just as important. Herein you state what the objectives were, how they have
been addressed and what were the main findings. Then
you give ideas of future research emanating from yours.
11. Each chapter should end in a
conclusions section, where you summarize the objectives of the chapter, how
these have been achieved and what the main findings were. Then you introduce
the next chapter and relates it to the current one —
to conserve flow.
12. Each chapter should start
with a short paragraph just to link it with the previous chapters and to state
the goals of the chapter. This comes before the Introduction section of the
chapter where you elaborate more.
13. I get many questions as to
the length of a thesis. This is difficult to say, because it depends on the
type of thesis. My believe is that you write what is
necessary, and that’s that. However, good guidelines are that a Masters thesis
is approximately 130-200 pages, and a PhD 200-300 pages. But
again, when you have written all than you can say in less (or more), then that
is your thesis.
14. Make sure that you have
up-to-date references. You need to make sure that you obtain and read the
recent literature. Also, all references must be cited in the thesis. References
must be complete, and in consistent format. Cite original references. For
example, if you make use of backpropagation, cite the
original work of Werbos.
15. Before you start writing,
plan the thesis. Set up a table of contents and plan what you expect to include
in each chapter and section. If you have a plan like this, send it to me for
comments. It will also be a good idea to look at other theses.
16. All figures and tables need
to be discussed and analyzed.
17. Use a spell-checker!