Chapter 1.

Introduction
The main body of the dissertation starts with an introduction, which in turn starts with a brief
description of your project.
Depending on the scope of this chapter and the structure of the overall dissertation, the initial
section could be followed by a statement and explanation of the Aims and Objectives. In
many cases, however, this section comes after the section describing the Background

1.1 Background
This is the section in which you introduce the wider field in which your work is situated and a
comprehensive introduction and appraisal of relevant work accessible in the literature. In
most cases, this section contains your literature review.
Make sure that the literature review is not just a listing of articles with a sentence or
paragraph describing that article, but that you build up a picture of the state of the art of
current research or development which should then lead the reader in a logical way to your
project as a natural and necessary continuation of that work.
In the case of a literature-based dissertation, you would just provide the broad picture here,
as well as introduce and describe the problems. The detailed Literature Review (or whatever
title you give that chapter), in which you collate all the specific, relevant information for your
work will take the place of the Results chapters of other dissertations which are based on data
generated by the project themselves.
It is for that reason that the Aims and Objectives might be better placed after this section.
However, if this section is very substantial, it won't do any harm to introduce the aims and
objectives right at the beginning of the chapter, and then revisit them after this section

1.2 Aims and Objectives

Here you state and explain the aims and objectives

1.3 Outline
At the end of the introductory chapter you provide a description how the remainder of the
dissertation is structured. In a way, this will provide as map and signposts for the reader so
that they do no lose the overall argument when they are trying to follow some detailed
descriptions.
Chapter 1. Introduction 1.2

A typical basic structure of a Dissertation is

Front matter:
Title
Abstract (1 page maximum)
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Nomenclature (this could also come in the End matter, between the
Acknowledgements and the References)
Main body
1. Introduction
2. Apparatus and Methodology
In some cases, it might be better to split this into two chapters
3. Results
In some cases, it might be better to have several Results chapters
4. Discussion
Sometimes, authors try to combine Results and Discussions this is very dangerous
as it usually leads to a confusion of an interpretation of the results with their objective
description, or it might even lead to cases where there is no discussion worth
mentioning.
5. Conclusions (or Summary)
Sometimes, authors combine the Discussion and Conclusions. If it is a short
dissertation or article, then that might be justified but in a full Masters Dissertation you
should have enough material to provide both a substantial Discussion and some
meaningful conclusions.
Endmatter:

Acknowledgements

References
You MUST ensure that the references are complete, and that you refer to the
references listed here whenever you use them in the text.

Appendices
A.1 containing data tables, design drawings, computer program code, or other
supplementary material which could be useful for somebody to continue from
this project
A.2
A.3
etc.
Chapter 1. Introduction 1.3

In the case of a dissertation based on a Literature Review, a Policy Analysis, or similar, you
won't have 'Apparatus' nor will you generate your own data. Your own contribution will be
largely limited to the Discussion and the Conclusions. A typical structure of the dissertation
could be

Front matter:
Title
Abstract (1 page maximum)
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Nomenclature (this could also come in the End matter, between the
Acknowledgements and the References)
Main body
6. Introduction
7. Sources and Methodology
8. Literature Review
9. Discussion
Sometimes, authors try to combine Results and Discussions this is very dangerous
as it usually leads to a confusion of an interpretation of the results with their objective
description, or it might even lead to cases where there is no discussion worth
mentioning.
10. Conclusions (or Summary)
Sometimes, authors combine the Discussion and Conclusions. If it is a short
dissertation or article, then that might be justified but in a full Masters Dissertation you
should have enough material to provide both a substantial Discussion and some
meaningful conclusions.
Endmatter:

Acknowledgements

References
You MUST ensure that the references are complete, and that you refer to the
references listed here whenever you use them in the text.

Appendices
A.1 containing data tables, design drawings, computer program code, or other
supplementary material which could be useful for somebody to continue from
this project
A.2
etc.