...
\documentclass[project,final]{ntnuthesis}
\documentclass[msc,final]{ntnuthesis}Preface
Recommended Proposed length: Half page
Preface is combination of formal and informal text, and summarizes your journey, personal and professional as well as contribution of others. Preface also describes how the chapters are organized, I mean flow of chapters. This will help reader on what to expect. Preface is in fact, blend among acknowledgment, abstract and conclusion. Preface is an optional hence, if you do not have any specific to write, you can skip this chapter.
Abstract
Recommended Proposed length: 1 page
The main purpose of an abstract is to contextualize and describe the work in a concise and easily understood manner. The abstract should not contain highly technical and scientific phrases. Potential reader from other engineering background can understand your work. Read through the entire thesis and distill main points or a short summary. Sentence connectivity and clarity in writing are extremely important in the abstract. Clarity is achieved by providing information in a predictable order (something like storyline).
Successful abstracts therefore are composed into following order.
- General and specific background (around 75 words). Introduce the area of science that you will be speaking about and the state of knowledge in that area. Start broad in the general background, then narrow down to the relevant topic. Do not add much jargon or description.
- Knowledge Gap (around1 75 words). Now that you’ve stated what is already known, state what is not known. What specific question or challenge is your work attempting to answer? The new knowledge in your work.
- Method (around 100 words). State your general experimental or numerical approach, methodology to answer the question which you just posed in the ``Knowledge Gap" section.
- Main results outcome (around 150 words). Provide a high-level description of your most important results, and discuss in 4-5 lines. This is important to show how credible work is and what are the results.
- Conclusion (around 100 words). Describe how your findings influence our understanding of the field and/or their implications for future studies. What new knowledge you are adding to the existing state-of-the-art.
Consolidate the above points into 2 -- 4 paragraphs. Remember that the sentences must be linked to each other, similar to a story line. The examiner will like to read the abstract and encouraged to read the thesis.
Acknowledgement
Consolidate the below points into 2 -- 4 paragraphs. Remember that the sentences must be linked to each other, similar to a story line. The examiner will like to read the abstract and encouraged to read the thesis.
| Round Rectangle | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||
|
Acknowledgement
Proposed Recommended length: 1 page
Acknowledgement section is placed after the abstract. In acknowledgement, you recognize and express gratitude to all those who contributed and supported you during your work. The acknowledgment is absolutely your choice and language. Please note that the acknowledgment is not part of evaluation.
First of all prepare a list of people to include in the acknowledgment. It is a good idea to thank the administrative staff, who helped you to sort out some problems during your study. Remember that the people, who do not know you personally, may read this part, so you should neither be too personal nor reveal your personal detail.
Recommendations
- If you are writing thesis in the Waterpower Laboratory, and use space, computers, etc., it is nice to acknowledge the laboratory. You can copy this phrase and put as part of the acknowledgement: Research work presented in here is conducted in the Waterpower Laboratory. The laboratory combines more than 100 years of experience in research and education in Norway. It has played leading roles for the development of global hydropower, including efficient designs and implementation of turbines.
- When you are conducting experiments in the laboratory and took the help from the technicians, include this phrase: I am thankful to the laboratory engineer and the technicians for help to prepare the test rig and completing the measurements. I acknowledge their contributions.
- When you are conducting numerical simulations using supercomputer, i.e., Idun, include this phrase: Numerical simulations presented here are conducted using IDUN computing cluster. The Idun cluster is a project between NTNU’s faculties and the IT division that aims at providing a high-availability and professionally administrated compute platform for NTNU researchers.
Disclaimer
This chapter is included in 2024 due to increased use AI and avoid any plagiarism related issues. Write Write your disclaimer, if any. This can be related to the project work data usage, use of chatGPT/AI or related to joint thesis work, limited resourced to complete the thesis work, or something you would like the examiners should know during the thesis evaluation. Example of the text is available in the template.the thesis work, or something you would like the examiners should know during the thesis evaluation. Example of the text is available in the template. You can also write limitations, if any, you have experienced during your work, which directly/indirectly impacted the quality of the work, or you could not complete some of the tasks.
Nomenclatures
It is highly recommended to use nomenclatures presented in IEC standards and the relevant international standards. Please select appropriate Greek letters. Standardization of nomenclature is extremely valuable so the potential readers will understand the nomenclatures. The nomenclatures have to be in the following exact order (group): Abbreviation -> Latin symbols -> Dimensionless numbers -> Greek symbols -> Superscripts and subscripts. Arrange nomenclatures in alphabetical order in each group under the respective headings. Some nomenclatures are pre-defined in the template. Delete the additional nomenclatures, if those are not relevant.
Important guideline
- All abbreviations must be normal (non-italic) and the first character of the word should be capital-case, and the remaining should be small letter. Note that, whenever abbreviation contains proper noun (name), you must use capital-case letter, e.g., Navier-Stokes, Maxwell-Boltzmann, etc.
- All Latin and Greek symbols must be italic.
- All non-dimensional symbols, such as Reynolds number, Weber number, Strouhal number, Froude number, etc., must be normal (non-italic).
- All numerical numbers must be normal (non-italic).
- All superscripts and subscripts must follow the above four points.
- All units of the symbols must be normal (non-italic) and small letter. However, units based on proper noun (name) must be presented in capital letter, e.g., Newton (N), Joule (J), Hertz (Hz), Pascal (Pa), Watt (W), etc.
- If there is no unit associated with the variable, leave it blank, e.g., Coefficient of drag. Do not write dash, (-). Also include one character space between the unit characters, e.g., m(a space)s-1.
Above guideline must be followed everywhere in the thesis, e.g., chapters, paragraphs, equations, etc. The same rules applied where ever you use math and equations in the thesis. It is strongly recommended to use NIST guideline, Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI), for prescribing the symbols and the numbers. Checklist on page number five and six of NIST guide provides short detail to prescribe the units.
Chapter 1. Introduction
Proposed length: 2 - 3 pages or depending on need
Introduction is the first chapter generally students prefer to write very early. The introduction shapes reader-expectations of what they will find by reading the thesis. Include some nice figures/illustration in the introduction. This will help readers to understand the research field effortlessly. You can cite figures from the literature and internet. However, if you have own prepared illustration/figure, it gives positive impact to the reader and indicates your creativity. The initial paragraphs describe broad area of your discipline and the bigger challenge in the field. Then, narrow down the description towards your specific field of research, and present overall challenge in your field. Discuss concept and overall objective of the work, including importance of the work. At the end of this chapter, a potential reader receive more clarity about the research area, research gaps, and why this research is so important, what value does this work carry, etc. This will set tone for the upcoming chapter, i.e., Literature review, and maintain continuity.
| Round Rectangle | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||
Since almost all thesis/projects in the Waterpower laboratory belongs to hydropower and hydro turbine. The first and second paragraphs should talk about the Renewable energy and Sustainable energy broadly and the statistics. The third and fourth paragraphs should talk about the hydropower and hydroelectricity. Then, hydropower in Norway, if relevant. The subsequent paragraphs should talk about the hydraulic turbines towards your field of research. Then, you should write about the core discipline of your research work broadly. Remember that the language should never be highly technical in this chapter. Once you have introduced the research topic broadly in the previous paragraphs, you should now describe the core topic of research and the challenges in broad way. Discuss concept and overall objective of the work, including importance of the work. At the end of this chapter, a potential reader must be clear about the research area, research gaps, and why this research is so important, what value does this work carry, etc. This will set tone for the upcoming chapter, i.e., \Literature review, and maintain continuity. This chapter should provide a comprehensive detail about the research, which you are going to present. You can also divide this chapter into subsections depending on need. The last paragraph (100 words) should outline the thesis/project chapters as well as broad organization. |
Write goal and main objectives of your research work at the end of the chapter. You should consider bullet points to write the objectives.
Chapter 2. Literature review
Proposed length: 2 - 4 pages or depending on need
In Chapter 1, you have already discussed the overall field of research as well as broad challenge. Now, this chapter is more scientific and specific to your work. In this chapter, you should ONLY talk about the literature, which is directly relevant to the project tasks, results and work you are presenting in the thesis. Selection of appropriate article indirectly indicates expertise and depth of knowledge you are presenting in the thesis.
Present state-of-the-art in the scientific field, i.e., what has been done during previous years, which methods have been applied, what are the main conclusions, how those conclusions are relevant to your work, etc. You can also discuss if you disagree with the method or conclusion from the literature. Literature review is aimed to indicate that you are not conducting the work/research, which is already conducted in previous years. It is important that you describe what has been done so far, what is missing and what are you continuing as part of your work. This will help reader on what new knowledge is coming up through your work. You have to be critical when reading the previous work. If you are disagreeing with the previous literature, there is no problem. You can also mention why disagreement. This is called critical reflection, which indicates you have good knowledge of research in the field.
You should organize your literature (paragraphs) in one of the following orders depending on your choice,
- according to the year (chronological) of research.
- according to flow phenomenon.
- according to research method.
Finally, write summary of the literature on the topic (100 words) that will justify that your current research is new. The paragraph will create foundation for your work and the given tasks.
Selection of appropriate article indirectly indicates expertise and depth of knowledge you are presenting in the thesis. Use relevant keywords to search relevant journal articles. Use google scholar for global literature. Use ntnu open to find NTNU thesis.
What is a literature review?
A literature review is a critical analysis of published sources, or literature, on a particular topic. It is an assessment of the literature and provides a summary, classification, comparison and evaluation. The literature review is generally in the format of a standard essay made up of three components: an introduction, a body and a conclusion. It is not a list like an annotated bibliography in which a summary of each source is listed one by one. Present state-of-the-art in the scientific field, i.e., what has been done during previous years, which methods have been applied, what are the main conclusions, how those conclusions are relevant to your work, etc. You can also discuss if you disagree with the method or conclusion from the literature. Literature review is aimed to indicate that you are not conducting the work/research, which is already conducted in previous years. It is highly important that you describe what has been done so far, what is missing and what are you continuing as part of your work. This will help reader on what new knowledge is coming up through your work. You have to be critical when reading the previous work. If you are disagree with the previous literature, there is no problem. You can also mention why disagreement. This is called critical reflection, which indicates you have good knowledge of research in the field.
Why do we write literature reviews?
You show your understanding by analysing and then synthesising the information to:
- Determine what has already been written on a topic
- Provide an overview of key concepts
- Identify major relationships or patterns
- Identify any gaps in the research
- Identify any conflicting evidence
- Provide a solid background to your work
How to write a literature review
Determine purpose: Work out what you need to address in the literature review. What are you being asked to do in your literature review? What are you searching the literature to discover? Check your assignment question, tasks, expected results and your criteria sheet to know what to focus on. You can organize paragraphs either according to phenomenon or according to the method or how research progressed over the years. Select appropriate source material: Use a variety of academic or scholarly sources that are relevant, current and authoritative. An extensive review of relevant material will include — books, journal articles, reports, government documents, conference proceedings and web resources. The number of sources that you will be required to review will depend on what the literature review is for and how advanced you are in your studies. Your supervisor will advise you on these details.
- Critically read each source, look for the arguments presented rather than for facts.
- Take notes as you read and start to organise your review around themes and ideas.
- Consider using a table, matrix or concept map to identify how the different sources relate to each other.
In order for your writing to reflect strong critical analysis, you need to evaluate the sources. For each source you are reviewing ask yourself these questions:
- What are the key terms and concepts?
- How relevant is this article to my specific topic?
- What are the major relationships, trends and patterns?
- How has the author structured the arguments?
- How authoritative and credible is this source?
- What are the differences and similarities between the sources?
- Are there any gaps in the literature that require further study?