Thesis Structures and Styles
The teaching material sets an objective it never meets, and points at an archive that is not part of the supplied dataset. This page separates the small amount of structure that can actually be evidenced from the much larger amount that would have to be invented.
The objective the supplied source does not meet
The Week 2 material states three learning objectives: appreciate what research is all about, interpret the different philosophical and theoretical stances and terminology in research, and compare the different types of thesis structures and styles.
The first two are delivered in depth — definitions of research, the three forms of the research process, a terminology table, the five basic elements, an epistemological positions table, a methodologies table and the methodological pyramid. That is a substantial body of material against two objectives.
The third objective has no corresponding content. No section on thesis structures. No comparison of styles. No list of thesis types. No example structures, annotated or otherwise.
What a comparison of structures and styles would have to answer
Being specific about the size of the hole tells you what to go and find. A genuine comparison would have to settle at least the following, and the supplied source settles none of them.
QUESTIONS A COMPARISON WOULD ANSWER — AND WHERE THE SOURCE STANDS
| Question | What the supplied source provides |
|---|---|
| What types of thesis exist, and how do they differ? | Nothing. The word "types" appears in the objective and nowhere else. |
| How many chapters, and what does each contain? | Nothing. No chapter count, no chapter titles, no chapter functions. |
| What length is expected overall or by section? | Nothing. No word counts anywhere in the supplied material. |
| What front matter and back matter are required? | Nothing for a thesis. The exemplar volume's front matter is described, but that is a published book's apparatus. |
| What referencing and formatting style applies? | Nothing. No style is named or compared. |
| How does structure differ between a qualitative and a quantitative study? | Nothing directly, although the source does say every step should fit the purpose and focus of the research. |
| What must be written before what? | This one it does answer — see the write-up sequence below. |
"Nothing" here means nothing in the supplied dataset. It is not a claim about the wider unit or the wider literature.
The one row with content is not trivial. The source is explicit that you cannot write a report before you have collated your information, interpreted it and come to some rational conclusions — a sequencing rule, treated at length in Steps 9-10: Writing the Report and Storing the Data.
The one structure that is actually evidenced
The exemplar volume is a published collection of master's degree research projects in project management. The running order of its first chapter, as printed, is recorded in this library's source extract. It is the only concrete structure available.
- Problem statement
- What the literature contends
- Scope of the research
- Purpose of the paper
- How primary data will be sourced
- Stated contributions
- Background
Read as an argument rather than a table of contents, that order is instructive. It establishes a problem before it establishes a literature; it derives scope from the literature rather than asserting it; it states what data will be used before it states what the work contributes; and it puts background after all of that, not before.
The scope step is the one to take seriously. The abstract of that study says the literature review was used to narrow the scope into aims and objectives, and the printed chapter follows the same logic. That is the source's own account of what a review does, visible in a finished piece of work. See Step 3: Checking the Literature.
The volume's front matter, and what it is not
The exemplar volume's front matter is recorded: a List of Illustrations, a List of Tables, a Foreword, an Introduction, and an Abstracts section carrying one abstract per chapter.
What this evidences
- Illustrations and tables in a research collection are indexed separately from the text
- An abstract is expected for every self-contained research report in the collection
- An editorial introduction frames a collection of separate studies
- A foreword sits outside the research proper
What it does not evidence
- Any front matter requirement for a thesis — this is a book's apparatus, not a thesis's
- Any declaration, statement of originality or ethics approval statement, none of which are recorded
- Any acknowledgements, glossary or appendix convention
- Any ordering rule you could rely on for a submission
The distinction matters because the two documents have different jobs. A thesis is examined; a book is read. The apparatus that makes a book navigable is not the apparatus that satisfies an examiner.
Structure implied by the source's own process models
The source describes two research processes: a seven-stage model in Week 2 and a ten-step model in Week 3. Neither is presented as a document structure. But each stage produces something a reader will eventually need to be told, and that is as close to a defensible structural argument as this source supports.
PROCESS STAGE TO COMMUNICATION OBLIGATION — DERIVED, NOT PRESCRIBED
| Stage in the source's process | What the reader has to be told, and why |
|---|---|
| Identification of the research problem | What prompted the study and why it is worth asking. The source says most research begins with a general statement of the problem or the purpose for engaging in the study. |
| Literature review | The context and any flaws or gaps in previous research. The source states this is what provides the justification for the study, so it has to precede the question in the telling. |
| Purpose and conceptual framework | What the study is for, and the concepts it is built from. The source calls concepts the building blocks of theory. |
| Research questions or hypotheses | The question, in one sentence, as the source instructs. A reader who cannot find it in one sentence will not find it at all. |
| Data collection | What data was gathered, from whom, how, and under what approvals. Ethics clearance sits here in the ten-step model. |
| Analysing and interpreting the data | How the data was analysed, and what interpretation it supports, kept separate from what was found. |
| Reporting and evaluating | Where the data supports and where it contradicts the theory in the literature review. The source describes this as how the analysed data is theorised and knitted into the body of knowledge. |
The stages are the source's. The communication obligations are derived on this page from statements made elsewhere in the same source. No chapter titles are proposed, because the source proposes none.
Two warnings come with that table. The first is that the source explicitly says its stages should be viewed as an ever-changing process rather than a fixed set of steps — so a document that mirrors them exactly may misrepresent how the work actually went. The second is that the two models do not agree with each other; the mismatch is documented in The Research Process: The Ten-Step Thesis Model.
The theorising obligation in the final row is the one most often under-written. The source's account of drawing conclusions requires you to establish where and how your data supports and contradicts the theory in the literature — both directions, explicitly. That is developed in Steps 7-8: Conducting the Research and Theorising the Data.
The abstract: the one component evidenced seventeen times
The exemplar volume carries one abstract per chapter, and all seventeen were read for this library. That makes the abstract the single best-evidenced structural component available — not because the source describes what an abstract should contain, but because seventeen of them can be observed doing it.
What these seventeen abstracts consistently do
- Name the subject in the first move — the phenomenon, population or setting under study
- State what narrowed the scope, most often a literature review, and in several cases say the review produced the aims and objectives
- Name the primary data source: who was surveyed, who was interviewed, what was reviewed
- Name the collection methods explicitly, and sometimes the analysis methodology as well
- State the output where it is a thing rather than a finding — an assessment tool, a benchmark, a maturity baseline
- State a result where there is one, including at least one that reports the initiative studied was not implemented in time
What they largely do not do is state a philosophical position, a sample response rate, or a limitation. That is a characteristic of abstracts rather than a defect of these studies, but it is worth knowing before you model yours on them. The full set of designs is in Seventeen Worked Research Designs in Project Management.
Doing the comparison the objective asks for
The objective is not unreasonable — it is simply undelivered. Comparing thesis structures is useful, and you can run the comparison in an afternoon once you have access to a set of theses. The source does not describe this procedure; it is set out here so the objective can be met rather than abandoned.
A structured comparison you can run yourself
Get the rules before you get the examples
Your institution's thesis requirements are the only authoritative structure. Read them first, so that the examples you look at afterwards are read against a standard rather than instead of one.
Select five to eight completed theses in your discipline
Recent, passed, and as close to your degree type as you can find. Two or three should use a design similar to the one you intend.
Record the table of contents of each, verbatim
Chapter titles and second-level headings only. Do not summarise them — the wording is the data.
Record length by section where the pagination lets you
Pages per chapter is a crude proxy for emphasis and a good one, and tells you more about expectations than any general rule.
Mark where each of the source's process stages is discharged
Use the derived table above. You are looking for which chapter carries the problem, the justification, the question, the method, the analysis and the theorising.
Note what appears that you did not expect
Declarations, glossaries, statements about ethics approval, reflective sections, appendices carrying instruments. These are the items an invented structure always omits.
Compare across the set and write down the variation
The comparison is not looking for one right answer. It is looking for the range that passes, and where in that range your design should sit.
A CAPTURE FORMAT FOR THE COMPARISON
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Thesis reference | Enough to find it again; year of submission |
| Design type | Qualitative, quantitative or mixed, and the methodology named |
| Chapter list | Verbatim chapter titles, in order |
| Pages per chapter | Where pagination allows |
| Where the question appears | Chapter and heading; whether it is stated in one sentence |
| Where methodology is justified | Chapter and heading; whether philosophy is declared |
| Front and back matter present | Everything before chapter one and after the conclusion |
| Anything unexpected | One line |
A synthesis for this page. The supplied source specifies nothing about how to record such a comparison.
What this page has deliberately not told you
A short list, because the omissions are the point.
- How many chapters a thesis has. The supplied source gives no number and none is inferable.
- What those chapters are called. Only one printed heading is recorded anywhere in the source material, and it is "Background", in a published book chapter.
- How long a thesis or any of its sections should be. No word count appears anywhere in the supplied material.
- What types of thesis exist. The objective uses the word "types"; nothing in the source names any.
- Which referencing or formatting style applies. None is named or compared.
- What your institution requires. That is not knowable from this material and is the only structure that binds you.
That list is the value of the page. A reader who leaves knowing which questions are still open, and where to take them, is better placed than one who leaves with a confident structure that came from nowhere.
What to carry forward
- "Compare the different types of thesis structures and styles" is a stated objective with no supporting material in the supplied source. Treat it as an instruction to go and look, not as content you have missed.
- The only concrete structure evidenced is the running order of one chapter in the exemplar volume, and it is a published book chapter rather than a thesis.
- That order still teaches something: problem before literature, scope derived from literature, data source before contribution, background last.
- The volume's front matter is a book's apparatus. It tells you nothing about what a thesis submission requires.
- The source's process models imply what a reader must be told, but not what the chapters are called. Do not confuse the two.
- The abstract is the best-evidenced component available — seventeen observable examples, consistently naming subject, scope-narrowing step, data source, methods and output.
- Your institution's published requirements override everything here. Get them before you get examples.
Frequently asked questions
Why does this page not just tell me the standard thesis structure?
Because the supplied source does not contain one, and a structure invented here would look identical to a real requirement while binding no one. Thesis structure varies by institution, discipline and degree type. The authoritative source is your institution's published rules, read in their current version, and your supervisor.
What can I actually take from the exemplar volume?
One running order, observed in its first chapter: problem statement, what the literature contends, scope narrowed by the literature review into aims and objectives, purpose, how primary data will be sourced, contributions, then a background section. Take it as a demonstration of how an argument can be sequenced, not as a template — it is a published chapter, edited to a book's house style.
Does the source say anything at all about writing up?
Yes, about sequence rather than structure. You cannot write a report before you have collated your information, interpreted it and reached rational conclusions; then you summarise the project and communicate the results to your specific audience. It also tells you to allocate half your time to writing and rewriting, and to write daily and back up your drafts in a separate location.
Is a book chapter the same as a thesis chapter?
No, and the difference matters structurally. A chapter in an edited collection has a length budget and a house style imposed by a publisher, and has passed through an editor. Compression usually falls hardest on the method and findings sections — exactly the sections an examiner reads most closely.
How many theses should I compare?
The supplied source sets no number, and this page will not invent one — it does not even supply the archive it tells you to search. What you are looking for is the variation that passes, not a single correct answer, so read until the structures stop differing in ways that matter to you, and make sure some of what you read used a design similar to yours.
What should I do first if I am worried about structure?
Get your institution's current thesis requirements and read them before you look at any examples. Then agree a chapter list with your supervisor. In the meantime, keep one running document organised by research process stage rather than by chapter, so that a change of format costs you a re-cut rather than a rewrite.
References and source attribution
- The supplied teaching source: week 1 and week 2 teaching notes and slide material, which state the learning objectives and deliver material against two of the three week 2 objectives.
- An edited volume of master's degree research projects in project management, 2018, academic publisher, 378 pp. — the exemplar volume; the observed chapter running order and front matter description are drawn from the printed volume, and the seventeen abstracts were read in full.
- Naoum, S. G. 2013, Dissertation Research & Writing for Construction Students, 3rd ed., Routledge — a dissertation writing text listed in the supplied source's reading, cited here as an example of where the missing material would be found.
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- What does the supplied source actually say about how a research report should be structured?
- Turn the seven process stages into a list of things my write-up has to tell the reader.
- Help me build a comparison table for the theses I am about to read.
- What should my abstract contain, based on the seventeen in the exemplar volume?
- I have my institution's thesis rules — help me map my research process stages onto its required chapters.