Honours Thesis Writing for Engineering and Science Students

Here you will find online thesis writing support and advice for honours students in the faculties of engineering and science including advice (from supervisors), examples (from past honours theses) and exercises to help you improve your thesis writing skills.

You won't find here anything to do with the content of your thesis. The content is between you, your research group and your supervisor.

    Thesis structure

    These page outline the structure and various stages of an honours thesis and provides links to other pages that will give you more information and some examples from past theses.

    Writing tools

    These pages on writing tools provide assistance with different types of linking ideas and commons writing problems.

    FAQs

    These pages provide answers to frequently asked questions by students, common problems with honours theses and advice on the expectations of examiners and supervisors.

    Acknowledgements

    We express our gratitude to the many students and staff who provided experience, ideas, examples, interest and support prior to and during the development of the site.

    • This resource was developed as a project by The Learning Centre at UNSW.  The aim is to provide online support for students who are writing an extended piece of research at undergraduate or Honours level, especially in the fields of Science and Engineering.
    • The site was designed to respond to the key writing needs that were identified in a survey of supervisors and Honours students, which asked them what their main priorities were for writing a thesis. This project is funded by the UNSW Learning and Teaching Fund.
    • This site was written by Rosalie Goldsmith with extensive input from Pam Mort.
    • The website was built by Tracey-Lee Downey.

    References

    • Beanland, C, Scneider, Z, LoBiondo-Wood, G & Haber, J 1999 Nursing Research, Mosby, Sydney.
    • Burns, R 2000, Introduction to Research Methods, Pearson Education, Frenchs Forest.
    • Craswell, G 2005, Writing for Academic Success, SAGE Publications, London.
    • Eggins, S 1994, An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics, Pinter Publishers, London.
    • Evans, D & Gruba, P 2002, How to Write a Better Thesis, Melbourne University Press, Carlton Vic.
    • Kamler, B & Thomson P 2006, Helping Doctoral Students Write, Routledge, Abingdon Oxon.
    • Silyn-Roberts, H 2000, Writing for Science and Engineering, Butterworth, Heinemann Oxford.
    • Weissberg, R & Buker, S 1990, Writing up Research, Prentice Hall Regents, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
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