ABSTRACT
This chapter provides examples of thesis and dissertation types and gives advice on the overall structure of the thesis or dissertation. Nearly all of the literature on thesis and dissertation writing consists of handbooks and guides with, apart from a few notable exceptions, very little analysis having been carried out of actual texts. Although theses and dissertations are similar in some ways to other pieces of research writing, such as research articles, they are also in many ways quite different. The form of the thesis or dissertation is also influenced by the values and expectations of the academic discipline in which it is produced and will be assessed. D. Bunton discusses further ways in which thesis and dissertation writers talk about the organisation of their texts. While there are general expectations of thesis and dissertation writing, there are also discipline-specific expectations for thesis and dissertation organisation.
