how to write a thesis computer science

Writing Your Thesis

At this page, we provide some information necessary while writing a thesis. Basically, the same rules can be applied for any other scientific paperwork. We must admit that this information collected here is neither complete nor represents it a general rule set. Nevertheless, we try to keep it up-to-date and comprehensive. If you have comments or suggestions, please drop me a short note.

Presentation Templates

• The FAU provide templates for your presentations here

LaTeX Template

• We provide a template for your thesis: Download (new 27. July 2022) .
• Please try to stick with this layout.

General Rules and Hints

• How to write an abstract
• Motivation (Why do we care?)
• Problem statement (What problem are we trying to solve?)
• Approach (How did we go about it)
• Results (What’s the answer?)
• Conclusion (What are the implications of the answer?)
• Context: make sure to link where your work fits in
• Problem: gap in knowledge, too expensive, too slow, a deficiency, superseded technology
• Strategy: the way you will address the problem
• comment on employed hardware and software
• describe methods and techniques that build the basis of your work
• review related work(!)
• start with a theoretical approach
• describe the developed system/algorithm/method from a high-level point of view
• go ahead in presenting your developments in more detail
• whatever you have done, you must comment it, compare it to other systems, evaluate it
• usually, adequate graphs help to show the benefits of your approach
• caution: each result/graph must be discussed! what’s the reason for this peak or why have you ovserved this effect
• summarize again what your paper did, but now emphasize more the results, and comparisons
• write conclusions that can be drawn from the results found and the discussion presented in the paper
• future work (be very brief, explain what, but not much how)
• all papers and articles used in the thesis must be cited (and each reference must be used in the thesis!)
• a rough number is 20 references for a bachelor thesis and 30-40 for a master’s thesis
• avoid to cite web sites
• We highly recommend to use Endnote or BibTeX for creating the references and citings
• Further information: IEEE Rules , BibTeX
• Avoid passive voice, active voice is easier to read. There is nothing wrong saying I (or we) did it
• Avoid negative sentences: write in a positive (affirmative) voice, they are easier to understand.
• Always use vector graphics for figures (PDF, EPS, …)
• Did I spell out the main points of the interpretation of results?
• Are all equations, figures, tables numbered?
• Do all graphs, tables, diagrams have descriptive captions?
• Are all axes and scale carefully chosen to show the relevant effects?
• Are all axes labelled? Do the labals include the measurement units?
• Are citations in the caption (if a graph is borrowed)?

Further reading

• Some Advice on Writing a Technical Report
• Ein sehr schöner Überblicksartikel von Henning Schulzrinne zum Aufbau eines Papers.
• Advice on Research and Writing
• Computer Science Student Resource Site