Thesis Format3

Formating MSc or PhD thesis at Sultan Qaboos University This document with the attached CD, is a system of templates and examples designed to help students format their thesis in a stan- dard, professional and uniform way. You will find on the CD: 1. A Microsoft Word tm template of the introductory pages of a generic thesis (ThesisIntro.docx) 2. A Microsoft Word tm template of the body of a generic thesis (ThesisBody.docx). 3. An electronic copy of the present document explaining the format expected for MSc and PhD thesis written in English at SQU. 4. A series of annotated Pdf documents illustrating and giving details on the format of the thesis (Folder Pdf) Introduction Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy Thesis at SQU are composed of several sections: some are mandatory, others are not. The thesis includes the following sections and pages: Section 1: Title pages 1. Cover page 2. Title page Section 2: Introductory pages 1. Thesis Committee 2. Thesis Examining Committee 1 3. Dedication page (optional) 4. Acknowledgement page (optional) 5. Abstract (in English) 6. Abstract (In Arabic) 7. Epigraph (optional) 8. List of Tables ( optional) 9. List of Figures (optional) 10. List of Symbols and Abbreviations (optional) 11. Glossary (optional) Section 3: Body of the thesis 1. Table of Contents 2. A series of Chapters (numbered), each with numerous pages Section 4: Appendices 1. A Series of Appendices (numbered and optional) As in most scientific documents, the format of the thesis is relative- ly strict. This is for two main reasons: (a) to give a similar appearance to all thesis produced within the graduate programs at Sultan Qaboos University and (b) to give the reader a sense of predictabil- ity of the locations of the various elements within the thesis through visual cues. This document and the attached templates describe in details the format suggested for the various sections of the thesis as specified by the Postgraduate Academic Regulations (2008) and the recommendations of the Postgraduate Board. 2 Introduction Scientific documents are always read or interpreted at two different levels: textual or semantic and visual or graphic. The first level, textual, corresponds to the informational content of the text of the document. It contains all the information the writer wants to convey to the reader in the language chosen for the communication. This implies that grammar, spelling, abbreviations, etc., must conform to the standards of the language at the time of writing. This level of communication is related to the part of the brain dealing directly with processing language(s). The second level of communication, visual or graphic communication, deals with a more intuitive, perhaps more primitive part of our brain. It allows the writer to complement the text with a visual structure, normally mimicking its linguistic structure and facilitating thus its reading and interpreta- tion. This is the level of communication that makes us automatically understand that larger text is probably more important that smaller text and that white space between parts of the document probably means some form of “separation” or change of context in the text. However, for the sake of homogeneity, and sometimes perhaps ar- bitrarily, Sultan Qaboos University Postgraduate Board has defined a set of rules that define the “correct” presentation of postgraduate thesis. This document defines and explains these rules. The templates attached to this document include a large number of Microsoft WordTM Styles that help to format the thesis according to these rules and also facilitate the creation of documents homogenous both internally (showing the same visual presentation for the same elements of text in the thesis) and externally (showing similar visual presentation between thesis). If the reader feels unfamiliar with the concept of Style within a word processor or a typesetting software, please refer to the appendix 2. 3 Sections 1 and 2 of the thesis includes a series of introductory pages, end- ing before the table of contents. The templates described here follow the same structure. A first document —ThesisIntro.docx— includes all the styles required for the introductory pages (Sections 1 and 2). A second document —ThesisBody.docx— includes all the styles used to format the thesis itself (Section 3) and includes also an automatic table of contents (TOC). Both templates use a “Pseudo-Latin” language as placeholder for most paragraphs to give the user a visual indication of the appearance of the document. Clearly these placeholders need to be filled by the actual text of the thesis. The body of the thesis must be divided into various chapters numbered se- quentially. Each chapter begins with two elements: the chapter number and the chapter title and begins on a new page (this is done automatically with the style used here: i.e. a page break is introduced automatically with the “Chap_nb” style. Each chapter also has a title (Chap_Title style) which is used to index the chapters automatically. The various levels of headings H1, H2, H3… correspond to additional levels of Table of Contents entries. Typically, the thesis is divided into Introduction, Literature review, Methodology (or Material and methods), Results, Discussion, Conclusions and Recommendations but other successions of chapters and chapters titles are acceptable depending on the type of thesis produced. Language The language of the thesis must be English. The student and the supervisor should agree and choose whether the “US English” or “UK English” conventions are chosen for abbreviations, spelling and punctuations. In this document well as in the attached templates, the “UK English” conventions were used (see also Appendix 3). General formatting guidelines Font and font size All the text of the thesis should be set in the same font. For the template, the font Helvetica, was chosen throughout, although it may be possible to choose a different font for the text (Times New Roman, Myriad Pro or Arno Pro for in- 4 stance) as long as the thesis remains homogenous typographically. Point size, leading (space between lines), space between paragraphs, etc., do vary and are used to visually structure the text. For body text paragraph, the leading was set to exactly 18 points which correspond to a 1.5 interline in typewriter language. Extra blank “paragraphs”, obtained by pressing the return key several times were avoided to guarantee as much as possible a “what you see is what you get: WYSIWIG” format. Make sure, that while working on the thesis, you select the “Show all non-Printing characters” option by either pressing the “show all characters” button or selecting the appropriate menu on your word processor. Special purpose paragraph styles can be added to accommodate specific requirements. Fixed space fonts such as courier for instance are often used to typeset software code or sequences of amino acids. Similarly, it is possible to differentiate two different translations of the same original using different fonts. These usages should remain exceptional and consistent within the thesis. Margins The margins of the body of the text (Section 3: the actual thesis text) is typeset with a 2.5 cm margin on the top and external side of the page, a 4 cm in- side margin (left side in English)—to accommodate binding— and a 3.75 cm margin at the bottom of the page. This seemingly large margin helps clearly identifying the page number at the bottom, center of each page. These margin sizes correspond to a thesis printed on only one side of the paper (appearing on the right when bound). Paragraph Styles The different paragraph styles used in the Microsoft Wordtm templates are described in details in Appendix 2 and in the .pdf illustrations on the attached CD. 5 Paper A white A4 paper of minimum 80g/m2 is suitable for the production of the final copies of the thesis. Avoid paper with frames, colored background, flowery margins or any other forms of ornaments. Pagination All pages should be numbered with the exception of the Cover and Title pages. Introductory pages are numbered with Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, ...) whereas the main body of the thesis (section 2) must be numbered consecutively by Arabic (English) numerals: 1, 2 , 3, 4, etc. The page number is placed at the center of the bottom margin. Appendices Appendices should be used for material inappropriate in the body of the thesis but nevertheless important. This may include for instance the code of a “statistical procedure” in a specific computer language, a complicated and lengthy mathematical proof, a long list of equipment or geographic locations... Appendices should only be added if they help the reader to understand, evaluate or repli- cate the study. Cover and binding The color of the binding for the library copy of the thesis should be dark brown for the doctorate and dark blue for the masters thesis. Photographs of acceptable bindings are shown on the CD (folder pdf). The lettering on the cover should be in gold and be identical to that of the title page minus the copyright sign at the bottom of the page. In addition, the student’s name, degree and year of 6 completion should also appear on the spine of the thesis in gold letter. The student is responsible to the final verifications of the format before printing and binding. Thesis declared unsuitable by the Deanship of Postgraduate studies because they do not meet all format requirements will be rejected. Formatting the thesis Cover and title pages The cover page and the title page should be identical to the template (pdf/ ThesisIntro.pdf). The title of the thesis should be in Helvetica or Arial font, bold face in 14 points size and all capitals.

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