How to Write a Dissertation Abstract--Introduction--Literature Review--Methodology -- Results Discussion, Conclusions, Recommendations

http://www.dissertationadvisors.com/articles/how-to-write-a-dissertation.shtml

This link gives you brief guide on what to write from the Introduction to the Conclusion and Recommendation.

How to finish a Ph.D

http://www.schonlau.net/finishphd.html

How to draw conceptual model

http://devcompage.com/?p=1409&cpage=2#comment-9967

How to write the Theoretical Framework

http://devcompage.com/?p=1419

Introduction chapter

http://www.dissertationwriting.com/introduction-chapter-writing.shtml

Multiple Regression Analysis

http://www.swlearning.com/pdfs/chapter/0324289782_3.PDF

PhD Viva Questions

From: http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/chinneck/thesis.html

Dr. Andrew Broad
Computer Science
CS710
Nasty PhD Viva Questions (Extract)

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A PhD candidate needs to anticipate the questions that are likely to be asked in the viva - the "horrible ordeal where you have to defend your thesis in person before they rip you to shreds." Actually, it's not nearly as bad as it sounds, provided that you enter it having prepared to your utmost.
There are three reasons why PhD candidates have to have a viva: it is so the examiners can see:

• whether it is your own work;
• whether you understand what you did;
• whether it is worth a PhD (i.e. is a contribution to knowledge).

These are the points being examined (according to Alex Gray from the University of Cardiff):

• Understanding: that you're ready to become an independent researcher.
• Relationship to other work: that you have a command of your subject-area. Similarity to the work of others doesn't detract from novelty!
• Novelty - is your work publishable? If you have already published a couple of papers, that should be proof of sufficient originality. Don't panic about recent publications that are very similar to your work - the important thing is to be aware of them, and to know the differences between your work and theirs.
• What you have achieved, and that you are aware of its implications. What will it make a difference to?
• Demonstration of hypothesis (what you set out to achieve). How have you evaluated/tested your hypothesis? Always be prepared to reconsider your hypothesis if you end up demonstrating something else - it's vitally important that your results match your hypothesis, and that you have a convincing argument for this.
• Why did you do it the way you did? Not just your practical work, but everything. For example, your literature review should be focused towards your hypothesis.

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Preparing for the Viva: Before you submit

It's crucial to get the philosophy of your thesis (as set out in your Chapter 1) absolutely correct, and clear in your mind by the time of the viva, because if the examiners find holes, they'll run rings round you.
They could ask you to explain/justify any statement in the thesis, so beware of baring nasty branches for clarification at the viva! Identify the contentious statements in the thesis, which you anticipate having to defend in the viva. A good supervisor will point out the contentious statements and grill you over them. Start a file of anticipated viva questions.
The conclusion chapter is a major one to focus on in anticipating viva questions - especially where you criticise your work!
Obviously, it's essential to know your own thesis thoroughly. I think it's a great idea to compile a brief summary of each section before you submit - enough to remind you of what's in each section, paragraph by paragraph or similar (my thesis summary is very different to, and shorter than, my thesis plan, where I basically wrote down all the points I could think of, then when I wrote it up, I added and deleted points, and changed the structure). Compiling a thesis summary before you submit has the advantages that you may spot strategic-level flaws in time to fix them, and will enable you to revise for the viva from the thesis summary rather than from the thesis itself.
Don't try to get the thesis perfect and free of minor corrections at the expense of delaying submission. It's almost certain that the examiners will find something to correct, anyway.

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Preparing for the Viva: After you submit

The most important goal in preparing for the viva is to keep the subject alive in your head.
Try to anticipate the questions you'll be asked in your viva and keep working on a file of anticipated questions (both the generic questions listed on this web-page, and questions specific to particular sections of your thesis) and your answers. If you said anything without understanding it 100%, or anything you have doubts about having justified properly, add it to your viva file.
You can go into university after you've submitted your thesis and your registration has expired - doing some more practical work may (or may not) help to keep the subject alive in your head (you could do experiments and take printouts of the results to the viva).
However, the main preparation for the viva is reading. These are the things to prioritise:

1. Know your thesis inside-out. Compile a thesis summary (see above) if you didn't do so before you submitted - revising from that rather than from the thesis itself will help you focus on the strategic level (a half-line summary of each paragraph in the thesis should suffice to remind you of every important point in the thesis). You should read your thesis summary in a continuous cycle while you're waiting for the viva, and you should read the thesis itself at least once after you submit it and before the viva. Try to read it from the perspective of the examiners.
   • If your thesis contains mathematical formulae, check them carefully so that you're confident, by the time of the viva, that they're correct. If they're not correct, work it out in advance so that you're not flustered by mathematical mistakes at the viva.
2. Be familiar with the references cited in your thesis, because that's the literature your examiners are most likely to ask you about. Read anything you have cited without reading (not that you should cite things without reading in the first place!).
3. The examiners could also ask you about literature not in the thesis, to test whether you are widely-read in your area.
   • So make sure you're familiar with the literature - not everything you've read in the last three years, but the more important stuff.
   • Look for recent review/survey papers of related areas. You need to be able to discuss the state of the art in any area related to your thesis.
   • Recent publications tend to be particularly important (what are the recent developments in your field?), although they can't ask you about anything published after you submitted your thesis.
   • Read the examiners' publications to get a feel for where they're coming from, what things they consider important, and which topics they consider relevant.
   • Don't stop reading until after the viva.

It might be an idea to publish a paper or two between submitting your thesis and the viva - I wish I had done so. Try to write papers from different perspectives.
The time between submitting the thesis and the viva varies greatly. I submitted my thesis on 28th September 2001, and had my viva on 18th September 2002! My thesis was very long (390 pages including appendices), and there was a delay in finding a suitable external examiner, but above all you have to remember that your examiners will be busy with other things too!
The shortest time I've heard of between submission and viva is three weeks (different subject, different university).
They have to give you at least two weeks' notice before the viva. I got five weeks' notice. My internal examiner suggested a couple of dates, I chose 18th September and asked for 14:00 in IT406, and this was officially confirmed a few days later.

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The Viva itself

The PhD viva is an open-book exam: you can bring any materials you want. Here is what I think one should bring to the viva:

• a copy of your thesis, obviously - you can stick yellow `post-it' notes on it (e.g. anticipated questions and answers), although I personally abhorred the idea of preparing from my thesis itself;
• your list of anticipated viva questions and your answers;
• printouts of the results of any post-submission experiments;
• the chapter-summaries you made for revision;
• all the notebooks you should have been keeping since the start of your research (the notebooks need to be indexed so that you can look things up);
• any papers such that when you reviewed them in the thesis, you regurgitated something they said blindly without really understanding it (in my case, I identified two such papers, but I brought a dozen potentially contentious papers to the viva);
• printouts of any files or emails containing useful ideas which you haven't documented elsewhere;
• tissues, paracetemol, &c. in case of any unexpected bouts of sneezing, headaches, &c.

At my viva, I gave a presentation (using slides) about some experiments I did after I submitted my thesis. But it's unusual for the candidate to give a presentation, and your supervisor should advise you if it is appropriate to do this. If you do give a presentation, be prepared to be flexible - I was asked to speed up and just give the highlights.
It is not the norm, in this department (I do not speak for other departments/universities), to be expected to give a practical demonstration of your work at the viva, but you could always offer to do so if you think it will help your cause (unlikely).
Anyone can attend a PhD viva, but only the examiners and the candidate can participate. (This means it may be a good idea to attend someone else's viva before your own, though I've never had the balls to gate-crash a viva! :-o )
Your supervisor should definitely attend your viva, although (s)he is usually not allowed to participate unless invited to do so by the examiners. It might be an idea to keep an eye on the body-language of your supervisor to see if you're going wrong! ;-)
A viva typically lasts two hours (but as long as it takes - mine lasted 2h22m), and a common approach is for the examiners to go through the thesis sequentially, asking questions.
Just because they ask a lot of questions doesn't mean you're going to fail. They don't give away the result before or during the viva, but you may be asked to wait around for the result at the end (about half an hour), so that they can explain the result to you - particularly if you have to resubmit your thesis (failure without the option of resubmission is very rare, and is not going to happen if you submit anything resembling a sensible thesis).
Tips:

• Relax and enjoy it, if possible!
• Ideas should flow out from you without a lot of prompting.
• Listen carefully to the questions and take your time answering them.
• Answer your questions succinctly (a rough guideline is 2 to 3 minutes each - no 20-minute diatribes!). Avoid going off at a tangent.
• Try to make your answers initially inclusive (spot overlaps), analytical, and then if appropriate dismissive or point out the limitations - and the effects of these limits.
• Generic viva questions, such as the ones given in the section below, require imagination to answer well!
• Answers may utilise a wide variety of examples and domains. They are a test of your breadth of knowledge as well as depth of knowledge which is expected of a PhD student.
• Handling difficult questions:
  • If you don't understand the question, ask for clarification. Paraphrase the question in your own words and say, "is this what you mean?" State your assumptions.
  • Treat vague questions as invitations to tell the examiners that you know your area and how it fits into related areas. Try to link the question to the questions you have anticipated and their stock answers. After writing a thesis, you should have one big, connected network of discussion in your head, so you need to jump in at the appropriate place for a given question.
  • If they have a misconception about your work, try to pin it down and explain it.
  • If you think the question is irrelevant, explain why you think it is irrelevant (it may be that you need to be more broad-minded).
  • If you really can't answer a question:
    • Be honest.
    • If you have any idea at all, say it.
    • Say, "I can't answer this on the spot, but I should be able to work it out in my own time."
    • If it's about literature you haven't come across, thank the questionner and ask for a reference.

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Typical Viva Questions

Here are some generic viva-questions - you should instantiate each question for your particular thesis, and have a framework for answering it worked out before the viva.
I have tried to cluster related questions together here - they are not necessarily in order of importance, nor in the order that they are likely to be asked at the viva.

General Questions

• What is the area in which you wish to be examined? (particularly difficult and important if your thesis fits into several areas, or has several aspects, or seems to fit into an area of its own as mine does).
• In one sentence, what is your thesis? (Resist the temptation to run from the room!)
• What have you done that merits a PhD?
• Summarise your key findings.
• What are you most proud of, and why? This may be asked (again) towards the end of the viva.
• What's original about your work? Where is the novelty? Don't leave it to the examiners to make up their own minds - they may get it wrong!
• What are the contributions (to knowledge) of your thesis?
• Which topics overlap with your area?
  For topic X:
  • How does your work relate to X?
  • What do you know about the history of X?
  • What is the current state of the art in X? (capabilities and limitations of existing systems)
    What techniques are commonly used?
    Where do current technologies fail such that you (could) make a contribution?
  • How does/could your work enhance the state of the art in X?
  • Who are the main `players' in X? (Hint: you should cluster together papers written by the same people)
    Who are your closest competitors?
  • What do you do better than them? What do you do worse?
  • Which are the three most important papers in X?
  • What are the recent major developments in X?
  • How do you expect X to progress over the next five years? How long-term is your contribution, given the anticipated future developments in X?
• What did you do for your MPhil, and how does your PhD extend it? Did you make any changes to the system you implemented for your MPhil?
• What are the strongest/weakest parts of your work?
• Where did you go wrong?
• Why have you done it this way? You need to justify your approach - don't assume the examiners share your views.
• What are the alternatives to your approach?
  What do you gain by your approach?
  What would you gain by approach X?
• Why didn't you do it this way (the way everyone else does it)? This requires having done extensive reading. Be honest if you never thought of the alternative they're suggesting, or if you just didn't get around to it. If you try to bluff your way out, they'll trap you in your own words.
• Looking back, what might you have done differently? This requires a thoughtful answer, whilst defending what you did at the time.
• How do scientists/philosophers carry out experiments?
• How have you evaluated your work?
  • intrinsic evaluation: how have you demonstrated that it works, and how well it performs?
  • extrinsic evaluation: how have you demonstrated its usefulness for a specific application context?
• What do your results mean?
• How would your system cope with bigger examples? Does it scale up? This is especially important if you have only run your system on `toy' examples, and they think it has `learned its test-data'.
• How do you know that your algorithm/rules are correct?
• How could you improve your work?
• What are the motivations for your research? Why is the problem you have tackled worth tackling?
• What is the relevance of your contributions?
  • to other researchers?
  • to industry?
• What is the implication of your work in your area? What does it change?
• How do/would you cope with known problems in your field? (e.g. combinatorial explosion)
• Have you solved the field's problem that you claim to have solved? For example, if something is too slow, and you can make it go faster - how much increase in speed is needed for the applications you claim to support?
• Is your field going in the right direction? For example, if everyone's been concentrating on speed, but the real issue is space (if the issue is time, you can just wait it out (unless it's combinatorially explosive), but if the issue is space, the system could fall over). This is kind of justifying why you have gone into the field you're working in.
• Who are your envisioned users? What use would your work be in situation X?
• How do your contributions generalise?
  To what extent would they generalise to systems other than the one you've worked on?
  Under what circumstances would your approach be useable? (Again, does it scale up?)
• Where will you publish your work? Think about which journals and conferences your research would best suit. Just as popular musicians promote their latest albums by releasing singles and going on tour, you should promote your thesis by publishing papers in journals and presenting them at conferences. This takes your work to a much wider audience; this is how academics establish themselves.
• Which aspects of your thesis could be published?
• What have you learned from the process of doing your PhD? Remember that the aim of the PhD process is to train you to be a fully professional researcher - passing your PhD means that you know the state of the art in your area and the directions in which it could be extended, and that you have proved you are capable of making such extensions.
• Where did your research-project come from? How did your research-questions emerge? You can't just say "my supervisor told me to do it" - if this is the case, you need to talk it over with your supervisor before the viva. Think out a succinct answer (2 to 5 minutes).
• Has your view of your research topic changed during the course of the research?
• You discuss future work in your conclusion chapter. How long would it take to implement X, and what are the likely problems you envisage? Do not underestimate the time and the difficulties - you might be talking about your own resubmission-order! ;-)

Particular Questions

Most of the viva will probably consist of questions about specific sections of your thesis, and the examiner should give a page-reference for each question. According to Alex Gray, these questions fall into six categories:

• Clarification. The examiners ask you to explain a particular statement in the thesis. In some cases, their lack of understanding may be due to a typo, e.g. "Why did you connect the client to the sewer?" Also, "not" is a small word which makes a big difference! ;-)
• Justification.
• Alternatives considered. Be honest if you didn't consider alternatives, otherwise you'll be digging a hole for yourself.
• Awareness of other work.
• Distinction from similar work. Especially recent publications where others are working in the same area - what are the similarities and differences between your work and theirs?
• Correction of errors (typos, technical errors, misleading statements, and so on).

Acknowledgements

Much of the material on this page comes from my supervisor Nick Filer, from CS700/CS710, from questions I've been asked at the end of various presentations I've given, and from my own viva (most of the questions there were thesis-specific). I added questions from the external websites given at the end of this document. I also updated this document in the light of Alex Gray's keynote speech, "Surviving the PhD Viva: An External Examiners Perspective" at the 2002 Research Students' Symposium.
If you can think of any viva-style questions that are not covered by the above, please do not hesitate to tell me, and I will consider them for inclusion on this page.
Finally, I found my own viva much less stressful than I thought it was going to be. The examiners know that it's an ordeal for anybody, so they should go out of their way to put you at your ease and make you feel comfortable. I was amazed how calm I was, even when I went back to hear the result. If you're worried about getting an `impossible' resubmission-order, remember it's not the examiners' job to set insurmountable hurdles - they want you to pass as soon as possible.

From: http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/chinneck/thesis.html

How to Organize your Thesis

Prof. John W. Chinneck
Dept. of Systems and Computer Engineering
Carleton University
Ottawa, Canada

email: chinneck at sce dot carleton dot ca

Latest Revision: September 29, 1999
(original document dates to 1988, and undergoes periodic minor revisions)

Home for this document is: http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/chinneck/thesis.html

Translations into other languages are available.

Introduction

This note describes how to organize the written thesis which is the central element of your graduate degree. To know how to organize the thesis document, you first have to understand what graduate-level research is all about, so that is covered too. In other words, this note should be helpful when you are just getting started in your graduate program, as well as later when you start to write your thesis.

What Graduate Research is All About

The distinguishing mark of graduate research is an original contribution to knowledge. The thesis is a formal document whose sole purpose is to prove that you have made an original contribution to knowledge. Failure to prove that you have made such a contribution generally leads to failure.

To this end, your thesis must show two important things:

• you have identified a worthwhile problem or question which has not been previously answered,
• you have solved the problem or answered the question.

Your contribution to knowledge generally lies in your solution or answer.

What the Graduate Thesis is All About

Because the purpose of the graduate thesis is to prove that you have made an original and useful contribution to knowledge, the examiners read your thesis to find the answers to the following questions:

• what is this student's research question?
• is it a good question? (has it been answered before? is it a useful question to work on?)
• did the student convince me that the question was adequately answered?
• has the student made an adequate contribution to knowledge?

A very clear statement of the question is essential to proving that you have made an original and worthwhile contribution to knowledge. To prove the originality and value of your contribution, you must present a thoroughreview of the existing literature on the subject, and on closely related subjects. Then, by making direct reference to your literature review, you must demonstrate that your question (a) has not been previously answered, and (b) is worth answering. Describing how you answered the question is usually easier to write about, since you have been intimately involved in the details over the course of your graduate work.

If your thesis does not provide adequate answers to the few questions listed above, you will likely be faced with a requirement for major revisions or you may fail your thesis defence outright. For this reason, the generic thesis skeleton given below is designed to highlight the answers to those questions with appropriate thesis organization and section titles. The generic thesis skeleton can be used for any thesis. While some professors may prefer a different organization, the essential elements in any thesis will be the same. Some further notes follow the skeleton.

Always remember that a thesis is a formal document: every item must be in the appropriate place, and repetition of material in different places should be eliminated.

A Generic Thesis Skeleton

1. Introduction

This is a general introduction to what the thesis is all about -- it is not just a description of the contents of each section. Briefly summarize the question (you will be stating the question in detail later), some of the reasons why it is a worthwhile question, and perhaps give an overview of your main results. This is a birds-eye view of the answers to the main questions answered in the thesis (see above).

2. Background Information (optional)

A brief section giving background information may be necessary, especially if your work spans two or more traditional fields. That means that your readers may not have any experience with some of the material needed to follow your thesis, so you need to give it to them. A different title than that given above is usually better; e.g., "A Brief Review of Frammis Algebra."

3. Review of the State of the Art

Here you review the state of the art relevant to your thesis. Again, a different title is probably appropriate; e.g., "State of the Art in Zylon Algorithms." The idea is to present (critical analysis comes a little bit later) the major ideas in the state of the art right up to, but not including, your own personal brilliant ideas.

You organize this section by idea, and not by author or by publication. For example if there have been three important main approaches to Zylon Algorithms to date, you might organize subsections around these three approaches, if necessary:

3.1 Iterative Approximation of Zylons
3.2 Statistical Weighting of Zylons
3.3 Graph-Theoretic Approaches to Zylon Manipulation

4. Research Question or Problem Statement

Engineering theses tend to refer to a "problem" to be solved where other disciplines talk in terms of a "question" to be answered. In either case, this section has three main parts:

1. a concise statement of the question that your thesis tackles
2. justification, by direct reference to section 3, that your question is previously unanswered
3. discussion of why it is worthwhile to answer this question.

Item 2 above is where you analyze the information which you presented in Section 3. For example, maybe your problem is to "develop a Zylon algorithm capable of handling very large scale problems in reasonable time" (you would further describe what you mean by "large scale" and "reasonable time" in the problem statement). Now in your analysis of the state of the art you would show how each class of current approaches fails (i.e. can handle only small problems, or takes too much time). In the last part of this section you would explain why having a large-scale fast Zylon algorithm is useful; e.g., by describing applications where it can be used.

Since this is one of the sections that the readers are definitely looking for, highlight it by using the word "problem" or "question" in the title: e.g. "Research Question" or "Problem Statement", or maybe something more specific such as "The Large-Scale Zylon Algorithm Problem."

5. Describing How You Solved the Problem or Answered the Question

This part of the thesis is much more free-form. It may have one or several sections and subsections. But it all has only one purpose: to convince the examiners that you answered the question or solved the problem that you set for yourself in Section 4. So show what you did that is relevant to answering the question or solving the problem: if there were blind alleys and dead ends, do not include these, unless specifically relevant to the demonstration that you answered the thesis question.

6. Conclusions

You generally cover three things in the Conclusions section, and each of these usually merits a separate subsection:

1. Conclusions
2. Summary of Contributions
3. Future Research

Conclusions are not a rambling summary of the thesis: they are short, concise statements of the inferences that you have made because of your work. It helps to organize these as short numbered paragraphs, ordered from most to least important. All conclusions should be directly related to the research question stated in Section 4. Examples:

1. The problem stated in Section 4 has been solved: as shown in Sections ? to ??, an algorithm capable of handling large-scale Zylon problems in reasonable time has been developed.

2. The principal mechanism needed in the improved Zylon algorithm is the Grooty mechanism.

3. Etc.

The Summary of Contributions will be much sought and carefully read by the examiners. Here you list the contributions of new knowledge that your thesis makes. Of course, the thesis itself must substantiate any claims made here. There is often some overlap with the Conclusions, but that's okay. Concise numbered paragraphs are again best. Organize from most to least important. Examples:

1. Developed a much quicker algorithm for large-scale Zylon problems.

2. Demonstrated the first use of the Grooty mechanism for Zylon calculations.

3. Etc.

The Future Research subsection is included so that researchers picking up this work in future have the benefit of the ideas that you generated while you were working on the project. Again, concise numbered paragraphs are usually best.

7. References

The list of references is closely tied to the review of the state of the art given in section 3. Most examiners scan your list of references looking for the important works in the field, so make sure they are listed and referred to in section 3. Truth be known, most examiners also look for their own publications if they are in the topic area of the thesis, so list these too. Besides, reading your examiner's papers usually gives you a clue as to the type of questions they are likely to ask.

All references given must be referred to in the main body of the thesis. Note the difference from a Bibliography, which may include works that are not directly referenced in the thesis. Organize the list of re

From: http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/c.clack/phd.html

PhD Thesis Structure and Content

A [perfect] PhD Thesis for London University / Computer Science UCL.

These notes of preparing the [perfect] PhD thesis structure and content stem from an ISRG lunch-time meeting at UCL CS. Chris Clack initiated the meeting, with contributions from the floor - staff OR students. Made available for information only, with no London University sanction.

A Thesis is:

A thesis is the acquisition and dissemination of new knowledge.
In order to demonstrate this the author must demonstrate that they understand what the relevant state of the art is and what the strengths and weaknesses of the SoA are. For someone's work to be knowledge there must be a demonstration that suitable and systematic methods were used to evaluate the chosen hypothesis.
It is important that "new" is not just new to the researcher, but also new to the community - PhDs were sometimes in the past failed because a paper was published by another researcher a few weeks previously dealing with the same work. I don't believe this is as common today, but novelty/originality/new understanding/marshalling existing ideas in ways that provide new insights is what it is all about.

A PhD Thesis Must Contain:

Knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the field

This will show motivation, relevance to X, Y, & X, who is doing what, &c.

Critical analysis of related work.

Person X is doing Y, this is important because ..., this doesn't address these points ... Link the failings of related work to your own work.

Importance (relevance) of own work.

State contributions, is this an incremental improvement on the state of the art, an evolution on existing work, &c. Beware of appearing to be too original, don't appear to have missed or ignored existing work.

A PhD Thesis is Not:

Not "a diary of work done".

In order to be awarded a PhD you must be able to present your work so that it is accessible to others and so that it demonstrates your mastery of a given subject. Although PhD theses may differ widely, you certainly won't be awarded a PhD just for doing three year's work and you won't be awarded a PhD for "a diary of work done".A common attitude is "well, I've done my PhD, now all I've got to do is write it up". Beware! The thesis IS the PhD - it doesn't really matter how great your research has been during the three years - all that really matters is the thesis.

Not "a collection of papers".

At UCL this is not an acceptable PhD thesis (some other universities allow this as a PhD route, e.g. for staff, but the required standard is very high). At UCL your thesis must have a THEME. It is similar to writing a book. You can however take a collection of papers and turn it into the core of a PhD.

Not "a big 3rd year project".

Though some 3rdyr projects are excellent, most do not contain sufficient critical analysis or scientific method.

Not "a lone journey".

It is important to have other people involved, if for nothing else then for proof-reading. You need to have an experienced supervisor who can tell you when to stop! (this is often the biggest problem faced by students). As the person doing the PhD, you are too involved and therefore you have the worst judgement on what is good or bad - you must get external advice. Also remember that a thesis should be designed for the benefit of the reader, not the writer! So get lots of people to read your thesis and tell you what parts they could not understand.

Typical PhD Thesis Layout

Note: Should have an odd number of chapters, between 5 and 9.

Abstract

1. Introduction

Set the scene and problem statement. Introduce structure of thesis, state contributions (3-5).

2. Background

Demonstrate wider appreciation (context). Provide motivation. The problem statement and the motivation state how you want the PhD to be judged - as engineering, scientific method, theory, philosophy, &c.

3. Related Work

Survey and critical assessment. Relation to own work.

4-6. Analysis, design, implementation and interpretation of results

7. Critical assessment of own work

State hypothesis, and demonstrate precision, thoroughness, contribution, and comparison with closest rival.

8. Further Work

9. Summary Conclusions

Restate contribution

Appendix

Bibliography

Notes

A PhD made up on only critical assessment may be possible (for UCL) but is extremely difficult.Average, good, size for a thesis is 150 pages all in. Perhaps up to 50 extra pages for a big appendix and bibliography. Beware of the trend to write long and boring doctorates (papers, &c), improve your communications skills.
Another important datapoint: 2-3 conference, or 1-2 journal papers in respectable (ACM, IEEE, IOP like) places are good enough for chapters 4,5,6, and therefore the core of a PhD - testing by publication is a VERY good defense (or defence). Also note that the feedback from reviewers is extremely helpful, so all PhD students should be trying to publish their work (the feedback is even more useful when your submissions don't get published!).
Always think - Presentation. Be precise in all things, esp: the statement of the problem, the solution, methods and frameworks. Thoroughness == scientific method. You must show proof that your contributions are valid.
Chapter headings - use 7 or 9! An odd number of (total) chapters gives a balanced appearance to the work (CC has a reference to back this up).

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8/1/1997, JF. Keywords: PhD, outline, structure

People's comments

(These will be summarised as soon as I have time)

Chris Clack

There is a book that I found useful in that it analyses different 
styles of rhetoric and presentation:

Designs In Prose
Walter Nash
Published by Longman, 1980
ISBN 0-582-29101-1

When he wrote this book, Walter Nash was a senior lecturer in English
at the University of Nottingham.  He explores both the patterns of
prose, from the large-scale design of completed text to the specific
structures of component phrases and sentences, and the psychological
and technical problems the writer encounters in prose composition.

I found it an entertaining book.

Jon Crowcroft

some stuff on 
i) progress
ii) content
would be neat....

e.g.

progress
year 1 should finish with 1, 2 and 3 (of your contents) pretty much
done and the headings for the rest filled in
year 2 consists of 4 and half of 5+6
year 2.5 is finishing this and year 2.5-end is 7,8,9


content.
computer science is not a "Natural Science"
we construct systems, which we then examine by some means.....
so it is a "Virtual Science"

the number of possible worlds we can build in computing makes
this feasible. this also makes PhDs somewhat odd compared with Natural
Science or Engineering....where research tends to explore natural
systems' behviour (or even artificial systems, but relatively simple
ones made out of natural components)

we tend to use abstract tools, usually - analysis, simulation,
etc....although sometimes we "do classical research" through
measurements.....but first, we build our virtual system, and then have
to build a virtual  measurement toolkit, and then use it.....

we also use autmoatic systems to allow us to analyze the results
sometimes, so we can cope with exploring the large design space of a
virtual system in a phd lifetime - physcists, chemists and engineers 
(e.g. cosmologists, genetics, aerospace are learning the value of our approach)
 
there is a downside, in that often, a PhD takes a year to get to 
see what is worth building - this is why it is often wirth doing a PhD
in a larger research project context (just as physicists go and use
the accelerator at CERN.....:-)

 >It would be nice if we could turn these rough notes into
 >a good collection of advice, so if you've got any contributions
 >(questions students would like answered or advice from staff
 >who have examined PhDs) then please email me and I'll add them to
 >the Web page.
 
a PhD is "training" for research - i.e. you have to say to the
examiner
1/ here is some valid research
AS WELL AS
2/ here is the fact that i have learned how to do some research
to a large extent, chapters 1,2,3, and 7 do this....

Steve Wilbur

I have read the material you put on the Web - although its possible it has 
changed since I printed it out.  I agree with most of it, but I have a few 
suggestions which I think are important or might help.

(1. and 2. incorporated above)

3. A thesis must contain material on where the work needs to go from here.  
This is partly a critical assessment of how confident you are of the 
validity of the results, eg. typically a PhD does small-scale evaluation and 
a larger-scale one will be needed.  In some cases further ideas in related 
areas have come out of the work and should be flagged.  (For new PhD 
students browsing the further work sections of recent theses can be very 
useful in identifying interesting areas of study.)

4. In many cases experimental design is tricky and should be explicitly 
covered because it involves trade-offs and judgements by the researcher.

5. I do not think number of chapters is important.  I care much more about 
the content and structure (story).  However, I do feel strongly about the 
length.  Over about 100 pages of the body of the thesis I seem to note the 
strength of the work is inversely proportional to the length.  (Pascal: "I 
would have written a shorter letter but I didn't have the time".)  The 
important point is what you are saying, not putting a very large number of 
words on paper.  I find 120 pages at usual university layout standards about 
the limit for good to best theses.

6. I often find that the first 20-30 pages are a strong indicator of the 
strength of the candidate.  If they understand the context and they analyse 
the SoA well, the following work will usually be strongly focussed and well 
executed.  (However, a few people are very good analysts but not so good at 
developing their own ideas and evaluating them.)

Finally, Jorge says we should check out the following Web page for Advice on Reseach and Writing.