Lesson 1: Structure your thesis

Writing a thesis requires that you follow certain academic conventions.
There is no clear definition of exactly what constitutes a thesis and how the elements are structured. Different fields follow different conventions and traditions as do individual supervisors. However, there is a certain agreement that a thesis contains distinct sections, each serving separate functions. The most common sections and their sequence are outlined below:

• Title page
• Abstract
• Foreword
• Abbreviations
• Table of contents
• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions
• Perspectives
• References
• Appendices

Learn more about each section in the following.