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Helge Pfeiffer

Assistant Professor - IT University of Copenhagen

Things to consider when writing a thesis

Before starting a project

Before starting a research or thesis project at ITU, you should consult ITU’s thesis project goals Read the bullet points under the menu item “The overall goals of a bachelor project and thesis”. Whenever you consider a potential project, you should ask yourself questions that correspond to these bullet points. For example, what is the problem, how will I evaluate a solution, etc. If you cannot find a convincing answer to such questions, then your project idea is likely not suitable for a thesis project.

Write a Four Sentence Abstract “Kent Beck” Style

In 1993, Kent Beck suggested how to get a paper accepted at the OOPSLA conference. In essence, he suggested to write a four sentence abstract:

The first states the problem. The second states why the problem is a problem. The third is my startling sentence. The fourth states the implication of my startling sentence.

Try to use this as a tool, when starting your writing process or when elaborating potential different “stories” of your thesis. It will improve your entire document since it forces you to be clear in thoughts.

Template

I suggest that you write your thesis using a template of a relevant conference or journal. Also, I suggest that you follow their recommendations of number of pages. However, for your theses, the number of pages is only a guideline. If you really need more space, use more pages.

For theses that I supervise, relevant conferences could be:

Guides to Conduct Software Engineering Experiments

Examples of Previous Theses

BSc SWU

MSc KCS

MSc KSD

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