A thesis or dissertation[1] is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research

and findings.[2] In some contexts, the word thesis or a cognate is used for part of a bachelor's or master's course, while dissertation is normall! applied to a doctorate, while in others, the re"erse is true.[#] $issertations and theses ma! be considered as gre! literature.

%he word dissertation can at times be used to describe a treatise without relation to obtaining an academic degree. %he term thesis is also used to refer to the general claim of an essa! or similar wor&. 'tructure

A thesis (or dissertation) ma! be arranged as a thesis b! publication or a monograph, with or without appended papers respecti"el!. An ordinar! monograph has a title page, an abstract, a table of contents, comprising the "arious chapters (introduction, literature re"iew, findings, etc.), and a bibliograph! or (more usuall!) a references section. %he! differ in their structure in accordance with the man! different areas of stud! (arts, humanities, social sciences, technolog!, sciences, etc.) and the minimal differences between them. In a thesis b! publication, the chapters constitute an introductor! and comprehensi"e gist of the appended published and unpublished article documents.

$issertations normall! report on a research pro*ect or stud!, or an extended anal!sis of a topic. %he structure of the thesis or dissertation explains the purpose, the pre"ious research literature which impinges on the topic of the stud!, the methods used and the findings of the pro*ect. +ost world uni"ersities use a multiple chapter format , a) an introduction, which introduces the research topic, the methodolog!, as well as its scope and significance- b) a literature re"iew, re"iewing rele"ant literature and showing how this has informed the research issue- c) a methodolog! chapter, explaining how the research has been designed and wh! the research methods.population.data collection and anal!sis being used ha"e been chosen- d) a findings chapter, outlining the findings of the research itself- e) an anal!sis and discussion chapter, anal!sing the findings and discussing them in the context of the literature re"iew (this chapter is often di"ided into two/anal!sis and discussion)- f) a conclusion.[0][1] 't!le

$egree2awarding institutions often define their own house st!le that candidates ha"e to follow when preparing a thesis document. In addition to institution2specific house st!les, there exist a number of field2specific, national, and international standards and recommendations for the presentation of theses, for instance I'3 4100.[2] 3ther applicable international standards include I'3 2101 on section numbers, I'3 567 on bibliographic references, and I'3 #1 on quantities or units.

'ome older house st!les specif! that front matter (title page, abstract, table of content, etc.) uses a separate page2number sequence from the main text, using 8oman numerals. %he rele"ant international standard[2] and man! newer st!le guides recogni9e that this boo& design practice can cause confusion where electronic document "iewers number all pages of a document continuousl! from the first page, independent of an! printed page numbers. %he! therefore a"oid the traditional separate number sequence for front matter and require a single sequence of Arabic numerals starting with 1 for the first printed page (the recto of the title page).

:resentation requirements, including pagination, la!out, t!pe and color of paper, use of acid2free paper (where a cop! of the dissertation will become a permanent part of the librar! collection), paper si9e, order of components, and citation st!le, will be chec&ed page b! page b! the accepting officer before the thesis is accepted and a receipt is issued.

;owe"er, strict standards are not alwa!s required. +ost Italian uni"ersities, for example, ha"e onl! general requirements on the character si9e and the page formatting, and lea"e much freedom on the actual t!pographic details.[