Writing & Submitting a Thesis: Thesis Presentation

There may be an order of material that is preferred by your School or Faculty, but a typical order is:

1. Title Page
   Note: The date which appears on the title page should be the year in which the completed thesis is submitted.
2. Abstract
3. Preface and Acknowledgements
4. Table of contents
5. Lists of tables, diagrams, maps, photographs, illustrations, abbreviations, etc.
6. Text of thesis
7. Bibliography (or 'References')
8. Appendices (if any)
9. Index (if required)

Each copy of the thesis must include an abstract. It is a summary of the thesis, should not exceed 500 words, and should be written in a form suitable for publication. A definition of an abstract is:

"An accurate and concise summary of the organization and content of the thesis ... "

"The scope of the work undertaken, the method of investigation, the main divisions of the thesis, and the conclusions reached should all be described. The contribution made by the thesis to knowledge of the subject treated should be clearly stated."

From: MHRA style guide: a handbook for authors, editors, and writers of theses. 2^nd ed. London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2008. p. 70.

The title page should be formatted to fill the entire page, the page should not be numbered.

Fulfilment / Partial Fulfilment

You should check with your School or Department whether 'partial fulfilment' applies.

Use the wording 'partial fulfilment of the requirements' for Masters degrees where the degree is a combination of a thesis and taught papers.

Use the wording 'fulfilment of the requirements for the degree' where the Masters degree requires a thesis only.

You should consider the following when preparing your document for submission:

• Heading Styles (numbered or not)
• Table of Contents
• Captions
• Lists of Figures and Tables
• Pagination (preliminary pages and chapter pages)
• Use of Page Breaks and Section Breaks
• Margins
• Line Spacing
• Font Type and Size

Your faculty/division may have further information regarding their requirements.

Alternatively, please contact your Academic Liaison Librarian for guidance, or view the resources from the "Word for long documents self-paced workshop" in the Library Research Workshops Moodle paper.

Occasionally a traditional print thesis could contain larger foldout pages to accommodate large maps, diagrams, charts or other. The PDF format for your electronic thesis should be able to scale larger pages to fit without issue. If you do encounter any issues with larger images (i.e. diagrams, maps, whakapapa charts),  you may be able to add these as supplementary files.

You should check with your School or Department whether 'partial fulfilment' applies.

Use the wording 'partial fulfilment of the requirements' for Masters degrees where the degree is a combination of a thesis and taught papers.

Use the wording 'fulfilment of the requirements for the degree' where the Masters degree requires a thesis only.

Teaching and Learning Librarians: 

Kate Reynolds, Krista Yuen, Dadon Rowell, Elsie Langdon, Matt Silvester, Ngāwaiata Henderson.