How-to-Write-a-Better-Thesis

Dotting the ‘i’s and Crossing the ‘t’s
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Whichever system you use, you should include a full list of sources such as papers
in journals or chapters of books that have been cited. The list should be in alphabetical
order of authors’ surnames, and should contain sufficient detail to enable the
reader to find the material in a library. You should check your list for three things:
• Is your reference list in alphabetical order?
• Do the entries conform to an established style? 3
• Do all the references cited in the text appear in the list?
You should head this list simply as ‘References’ in the style of a chapter heading. 4
This list is often placed after the chapters but before any appendices, presumably on
the grounds that the appendices really are something tacked on to the end. As the
appendices themselves may have references, there is a case for reversing this order.
If you leave the references in the customary place, you should devise some logical
method for overcoming this problem, perhaps by having a short list of relevant
references at the end of each appendix. Check to see that you have dealt with this
problem adequately.
Appendices
You may have ended up with a rather mixed bag of appendices after completing
your first draft. Some of them will have been written for very good and valid reasons
to support material in the text. Others may be leftovers from earlier thinking,
and because you were rather attached to them you were loath to throw them out.
• Check your appendices against these rules, and throw out any that are no longer
justifiable.
• Check the presentation of each appendix that you decide to keep, as follows: (a)
Does it start on a new page? (b) Does it have a title that indicates what it is all
about? (Just calling it ‘Appendix 3’ is not good enough). (c) Is the style used for
the title the same as that used for chapter headings?
• Is there a preamble that explains briefly what its function is and what it is all
about?
• Does the preamble refer to part of the main text? If it doesn’t, find the part of the
text that it supports and make reference to it. If you can’t find it, or if the connection
is very weak, throw out the appendix altogether.
3
The order in which the various components are given, and the styles used to distinguish book
titles, journal names, and so on, varies from discipline to discipline. You should find the method
used in your discipline and stick to it; be very consistent. Departments will often have a preferred
method.
4
Some people prefer to call it Bibliography. A list of references contains only material that is specifically
referred to in your thesis, whereas a bibliography may contain other material of interest,
but not specifically referred to. For a thesis, References is preferable.