Layout for Headings, Image Captions, etc. - Thesis

1.1. Purpose

A heading should always be followed by a gap. Set the line spacing options for the heading to 12 points after the heading. All paragraphs should be fully justified. Text should be in a font of 12 points and one and a half line spacing. Headings and sub-headings provided here are for demonstration purposes and may differ in your final thesis.

The text for each section should begin exactly under the section title. The text should wrap around at that same point as can be seen from this sample paragraph. A blank line should follow every paragraph.

This document is provided to demonstrate the layout for headings, image captions, etc. Where third level headings are required a further numbered list may be used providing that the items constitute more than one line per section.

Where one line of text is required a bulleted list should replace the heading. This is done to aid the legibility of the final document.

If only one sub-item is required neither a bulleted nor numbered list is required.

Continue with text as required.

This is where information on the research question might be presented. Remember that the headings presented here are exemplars only. Select the most appropriate heading for the given data being presented.

In some sections of the thesis an image may be required. Any image utilised must be referred to within the main body of text. In Figure 1 the LYIT logo can be seen with an appropriate caption.

In order to provide a caption for an image, table or equation the item should be selected. The Microsoft References ribbon should be selected. From there the Insert Caption button should be selected. The label should be set to the most appropriate one. In this example the Figure label was selected. New labels can be created as necessary. Remember not to simply copy and paste from above. Instead insert the image into the file and select it. Addthe caption as described.

 Where an image does not have a clearly defined border, one should be added. Care should

be taken to ensure that all details of images are clearly visible both when in print and when in electronic format. Careful selection of colours should be considered for this purpose. Images as shown in Figure 2 should always be referred to from the main text.

The chapters should all begin on a new page. Page numbers appear at the bottom right of each page. Page numbers appear from Chapter 1 and onwards. Appendices should be paginated using roman numerals (I, II, etc.).

• Bullets should be aligned with the text.
• Bulleted items should have one blank line above and below.
• If there are only 1 or 2 items a bulleted list is not required.

Any paragraph after the list, image or table should resume its normal position for the given header. When using any acronym such as Some Silly Acronym (SSA) it must be expanded on its first occurrence within the text. All acronyms should appear in an acronyms list preceding the main chapters.

The text of any given chapter may refer to an interesting idea presented in another book, paper, journal or whitepaper. On-line sources should not normally constitute more than 50%of your references. ALL of your references must be peer-reviewed or whitepapers. Furtherdetails on this will be given in the Research Workshop and may be obtained from your supervisor. This is supported by research (Bloggs, 2012) carried out how best to reference. The idea is succinctly expressed by Murphy:

“A reference in a thesis should be of the previously demonstrated Harvard Style.” (Murphy, 2011a)

Notice that the quote has indentations on both sides and is surrounded by quotes. If the quote abstracts only part of a sentence double dots should be placed before or after to show where there is missing text. Further, where additions for clarification are used in the text square brackets should be used. According to Murphy:

“A reference in a thesis should be of… Harvard Style.” (Murphy, 2011b) While the example above is provided for demonstration purposes it is obviously not a good idea to provide the same quote twice so for the purposes of this example we will assume this quote was taken from a different book by the same author. Further the general use of a single or a small number of sources multiple times is referred to as ‘over-reliance on a source’ and is deemed plagiarism.

1. Why have you chosen your particular topic?
2. What research methods do you propose to use in your research?
3. What ethical issues may arise during this research?

4. Do you have any experience relevant to your proposed research?
5. In thinking/reading about this research identify a primary source (e.g.: a peer reviewed paper and/or book)?
6. Provide a tentative plan for completion of the research (date/milestones etc), outlining the progress you would hope to make.
7. Please include a 500-word draft research proposal here. Indicate clearly what your practical artefact is going to be.
8. Outline your preliminary research question(s).
9. Do you have any publications so far? (If yes please indicate below.)