Thesis UC3M: Writing your Thesis

The dedication and the acknowledgements are optional elements. If they are included in the thesis, the dedication will be on page III of the introductory pages and the acknowledgements will be on page IV, according to the template provided by the Doctoral School. This is an example:

The doctoral thesis template provided by the UC3M Doctoral School indicates among the introductory pages, after the cover page, the license, the dedication and the acknowledgements, the following:

PUBLISHED AND SUBMITTED CONTENT. This is a bibliography of articles and other publications that meet these three conditions:

• the PhD candidate is the author or the co-author
• the documents have been included as part of the thesis
• the documents have been published, submitted for publication, or submitted to obtain a degree or qualification

OTHER RESEARCH MERITS.. The PhD candidate can include research distinctions such as articles and contributions which are not listed in the previous section as part of the thesis.

Article 3 of the UC3M Doctoral School’s Code of Good Practice for Managing Plagiarism of Ph.D. Theses states that two summaries of the thesis must be presented in a separate document.

Article 3. Dissemination of doctoral research. To promote the dissemination of the research activity in UC3M PhD programs, a deposited thesis must be accompanied by two summaries: A non-technical summary of between 800 and 1000 words and a technical summary of between 2500 and 3000 words. Summaries will be delivered in a text file separate from the thesis. The word count will not include the title, the name of the doctoral student, or the bibliographic references. The inclusion of bibliographic references is optional. Avoiding their inclusion in the non-technical summary is recommended and, in any case, only those works explicitly referenced in the summary should be included. The summaries cannot include acknowledgments of any kind and will need to focus on the main novel contributions of the thesis.

​The list of abbreviations is an optional element. It contains the account of abbreviations, acronyms and initials used throughout the thesis and indicates how they are used.

There are generally accepted abbreviations, but abbreviations can also be created according to necessity when writing the thesis. Find here some help about abbreviations use in dissertations.

Abbreviations must be listed in alphabetical order. The list should be presented in the format of a table without edges. The abbreviation should appear in the first column and the full phrase it stands for should appear in the second.

There are some lists of abbreviations that can be used as a reference:

• Common abreviations in Oxford English Dictionary
• ​European Union main acronyms and initialisms
• Commonly Used Legal Abbreviations

This is an example of abbreviations list:

​The table of contents is an obligatory element in an academic work.

Get automatic tables of contents in Microsoft Word via the following options: table of contents (for the contents index) and table of illustrations (for the list of tables and illustrations)

1. Table of contents

The table of contents is a list of all the chapters, sections, sub-sections, bibliography and annexes produced in the work and includes the name of each section and the page number it starts on.

2. Table of illustrations

We must include a table of illustrations when we use tables, figures or other illustrations in our work.  You should obtain your indices of tables, figures and other kinds of illustrations separately. These lists should be placed after the table of contents and on separate pages.

Table and index examples taken from UC3M Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/10016/28161

IMPORTANT NOTE: Find here some recommendations about the generic structure of a scientific research paper. The PhD candidate should always follow their tutor’s instructions about the structure and contents of their own work. A thesis must be an original research project (Art. 13 Royal Decree 99/2011) and must contain personal contributions and ideas from the PhD candidate, in addition to data analysis and a presentation of results.

The body of the work is the main part of the thesis, and the longest part. It must be divided into chapters or sections, which should preferably be numbered. We use an Arabic numeral for the first page of the Introduction, which indicates that we are in the main part of the work. We recommend following the IMRAD format (Introduction, Materials/Methods, Results and Discussion/Conclusions), the de facto standard for scientific publications adopted, among others, by the APA and the Vancouver Style, and adopted as the standard by the American National Standards Institute as ANSI Z39.16-1979. According to the IMRAD format, the main body of the thesis will consist of:

1. INTRODUCTION. To answer the question “What is being studied, and why?” the introduction must briefly mention the following aspects of the work:

• Motivation or justification (why we chose this subject for the work; why this research is important)
• Specific goal of the study (precedents, current status, premise or hypothesis of the work)

2. MATERIALS/METHODS. To answer the question “How is this studied?” in this section, you must present the essential aspects to understand the results of the research. Also, you must explain the methodological framework and systems of analysis used to obtain data.

3. RESULTS. To answer the question “What are your findings?” in this section, you must describe (not interpret or discuss) the results obtained from the research carried out, as outlined in the previous section. This is done with text and, where appropriate, tables and figures. We stress that the Code of Good Practice of the UC3M Doctoral School states in art. 3 that scientific integrity includes applying standards in the publication of results and considers unacceptable the practices of duplicate publication, the elimination of pertinent data and the inclusion of false data.

4. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS. To answer the question “What does this mean?” the final section of the main body of an academic work must contain the conclusions that respond to the questions posed in the introduction of the work--in particular, the objective, which with the conclusions must be consistent--on the basis of the analysis and interpretation of the data presented in the previous section. This last section must include a section for discussion, which will be a final observation based on the arguments set forth in the work. It will have a personal contribution from the author which will be free of subjectivity--ideological or moral, for example--and will evaluate the results obtained, recognize the limitations and difficulties encountered, and outline a proposal for hypothetical future research.

The bibliography or reference list must follow the main body of the work. In this section, the details about your previously cited sources of information, in both printed and electronic format, are compiled.

In accordance with Art 4.b of the UC3M Doctoral School’s Code of Good Practices: Bibliographic citations. In research, it is absolutely necessary to acknowledge contributions with precise citations that clearly identify what is one’s own work and what is someone else’s so that there are no doubts about the contribution of the research.

The order of the references will depend on the citation system used in the work:

• In author-date citation system the references are listed in alphabetical order.
• In numeric citation system the references are listed by order of appearance in the text.

References to Spanish and European legal contents (judicial rulings, laws and other regulations) must appear in a section called Legislation and Jurisprudence, which will be included after the bibliography or reference list. In this case, the order of the references will be chronological, with the oldest regulations cited first.

To get detailed information about making a bibliography, consult our Referencing Guide.

• Annexes or appendices are optional elements of a thesis, and consist of additional or complementary materials related to the thesis, relevant but too long to be included in the main body of the document.
• They can be images, graphics, tables, questionnaires, forms, interviews, etc.
• They will be identified with capital letters (Annex A, Annex B, etc.). Each annex will appear on a page of its own.
• The pages on which the annexes appear do not count in the total number of pages of the thesis, unless your tutor indicates otherwise.

• Don’t include irrelevant information.
• Include only one idea per paragraph.
• The information contained in one section of the doctoral thesis must not be repeated in others, except in the summary.
• Don’t repeat data in a table or a graph if it is already contained in the text.
• Avoid stating the patently obvious:

  Forests are very important ecosystems.

• Distinguish your own data and ideas from the data and ideas of other authors.
• Differentiate demonstrated facts from hypotheses or speculations.
• Differentiate affirmations from points of view.
• Defend conclusions with data and arguments.

• Be sure to use appropriate terminology for the subject that you are writing about.
• Avoid the use of jargon or highly complex language.
• To avoid ambiguity, when you write scientific or technical terms, it is better to use the same word to denominate the same concept, even if it is repeated, than to use synonyms.
• Define ambiguous or uncommon terms when you use them for the first time in the text.
• If you use acronyms or abbreviations that are not commonly known by non-specialists, explain them the first time that they appear and include them in a list of abbreviations.
• Use standard symbols to represent units of international systems (kg, m, l), chemical elements (Au, Pb), mathematical concepts (+, %), monetary units ($, €) and cardinal points (N, S, E, W).

• Verbatim citations, or quotes, reproduced within the text should placed between quotation marks without changing the font relative to the rest of the text, except if they are longer than three lines, in which case the quote should occupy a paragraph of its own.
• Avoid plagiarizing: do not copy ideas of other authors into your doctoral thesis without acknowledging them by citing the author’s name and the source of origin. The words of other authors must always be written between quotation marks.
• Use double quotation marks (“”) for textual citations and single quotation marks ('') to quote within a quote.
• Paraphrases (reformulating text from another author in your own words) are not placed between quotation marks, but the idea needs to be acknowledged by citing the author’s name and the source of origin.
• The number of quotes used must be proportional to the text written: do not convert your thesis into a succession of quotes.