Structure of Dissertation, Submission Guidelines and Format

Submission Guidelines

All tables must have a table number and a full descriptive title, all diagrams and photographs must have a figure number and a full descriptive title. All referencing will be undertaken to the harvard standard.

How check the final copy before you submit it. All errors reflect on you, not the typist, the binder, your supervisor, etc. See that: Corrections have been made; no pages are missing; no pages are upside down; pages are clean; university format is followed; binding is sound and so on. When the dissertation personifies perfection: Present it.

The student will submit two copies of the finished dissertation: The university will retain one of them; the other will be returned to the student following assessment. Both copies should be bound using the face boards provided by the faculty, with a spiral comb. No other binding method is allowed for assessment purposes.

The title page should incorporate the following information: Student's name; student number; institution name; faculty; award title; date of submission; number of words (includes chapters only) and the statement: "Presented in partial fulfilment of the assessment requirements for the above award".

The following two statements will be reproduced on the second page:

"This work or any part thereof has not previously been presented in any form to the university, or to any other institutional body whether for assessment or other purposes. Save for any express acknowledgements, references and / or bibliographies cited in the work, i confirm that the intellectual content of the work is a result of my own efforts and no other person".

"The work includes the following material that has been submitted for assessment / credit previously: (student to list material here). My dissertation supervisor has expressly agreed that it is appropriate to include the above listed material in the work."

"It is acknowledged that the author of any project work shall own the copyright. However, by submitting such copyright work for assessment, the author grants to the university a perpetual royalty-free licence to do all or any of those things referred to in section 16(i) of the copyright designs and patents act 1988. That is, to copy the work; to issue copies to the public; to perform or show or play the work in public; to broadcast the work or to make an adaptation of the work".

Give a brief abstract, succinctly summarising the dissertation (one page max.) should follow the above.

A typical dissertation structure will be based on the following three components:

Component one: The beginning

Preliminary material: Title page; abstract; copyright page; acknowledgements; preface; list of contents; list of tables; list of figures; list of appendices

First chapter: General introduction

Early chapter: Literature review, outline of relevant theory

Early chapter: Confirmation of objectives

Link with second component.

Component two: The middle

Research methodology used with other research information such as limitations, investigation parameters, experimentation design, the sample composition, experimental, materials, testing, modelling, data collection.

Data collection / processing and presentation of results / findings.

Link with third component.Component three: The end

Analysis and discussion of findings. This represents 40% of the mark and is your opportunity to demonstrate critical thinking and to synthesize your results with the established literature. Note this must include a short section, no longer than 800 words, which must consist of a commentary on the relevance of your chosen topic area (not necessarily your particular study) to sustainability and environmental issues in the context of civil engineering.

End chapter: Abstraction of firm conclusions.

Final chapter: Derivation of logical recommendations and future work.

References.

Appendices.

It must be reinforced that the above model is dynamic and prone to variation depending on for example, chosen dissertation subject and research method used. That is, certain chapters may be omitted whilst others may have to be incorporated to accurately reflect the research. Alternatively, several chapters may be merged into one.