Parts of a Thesis

Prelims

Main body of thesis

End matter

The diagram above shows the basic layout of a thesis.

The thesis is made up of three major elements:
Prelims: Everything that comes before the first page of the Introduction.

Main body of the thesis: Begins with the first page of the Introduction and continues to the last page of the Conclusions/Recommendations.

End matter: The reference list and the appendices.

(Note that these titles— Prelims, Main Body and End matter— are used here for convenience only. You are not to use them as labels for these parts of your thesis.)

You can see from the diagram that the parts get progressively bigger. The prelims are just a few pages. There is a lot of built-in repetition in the way a thesis or report is set out, particularly in the prelims. They provide an outline or road-map of the thesis, and explain to the reader how it is structured.

The Prelims include:
Title page
Abstract
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
Glossary (if needed)
List of Abbreviations (if needed)

The main body of the thesis is made up of the thesis chapters.

For theses based on primary research, the chapter titles are as follows:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Chapter 3: Methodology
Chapter 4: Results and Discussion
Chapter 5: Conclusions (and Recommendations if required)

Theses based on desk research will include:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Suitable title to reflect its contents
Chapter 3: Suitable title to reflect its contents
Chapter 4: Suitable title to reflect its contents
Additional chapters as required
Chapter ? Conclusions

The end matter of the thesis includes:
List of Works Cited
Appendices (if required)

Numbering the Pages

The title page gets no number.