EGERTON UNIVERSITY

BOARD OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

Guidelines for Preparing Thesis/Research Project

1. General Thesis Layout/Format

i) Thesis is written in English (UK).

ii) All chapters should begin on a new page.
iii) Within a chapter, the presentation of sub-sections must be continuous.
iv) Partially filled textual pages are acceptable only if followed by non-textual pages such as
those presenting tables and illustrations.
v) Whenever the heading of a section or sub-section appears near the bottom of a page, it must
be followed by at least one complete line of text, or the heading should be forced to the top
of the next page.
vi) Detailed organization of the text varies among academic disciplines. However, the
formatting of the text must be consistent throughout.
a) Pagination: Bottom centred.
b) Margins: 1.00" (2.54 cm) right, left, top and bottom.
c) Minimum word count requirement of 20,000 and 50,000 words for master’s and PhD
theses respectively.
d) A snapshot of the abstract page of the candidate's publications, key data analysis
outputs and the research permit to appear as appendices.
e) Legends/Titles: Tables – top; Figures – bottom.
f) Chapter headings must be bold capitals (uppercase) and centred.
g) Sub-section headings must be bold title case.
h) All text must be in Times New Roman font size 12.
i) The line spacing should be 1.5 throughout the thesis including tables and figures.
j) The first line in a new paragraph must be indented 5 spaces.

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Research theses contain different features dictated by their mother disciplines. The differences give
them discipline peculiarities. However, there are common salient features across all academic
disciplines. These include: -
i) The preliminaries
ii) The main text
iii) The references
iv) Appendices
Each of these has its unique components viz.
I THE PRELIMINARIES
These preliminaries include:
a) The cover - black or grey in colour.
b) Spine - candidates surname and initials, the abbreviation for the degree. Writings from
top of spine to bottom.
c) The title page
d) Declaration and recommendation page.
e) Copy right – page
f) Dedication page (optional)
g) Acknowledgements
h) Abstract
i) Table of contents
j) Lists of figures, tables, plates, abbreviations and acronyms.

II THE MAIN TEXT:

A candidate will choose any of the following thesis structure from the two options.
A. Option 1- Monograph
The main text is composed of:
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
a) Background information
b) Statement of the problem
c) Objectives
d) Hypotheses/Research Questions
e) Justification/Significance of the Study
f) Scope/Limitations.

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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
a) Literature review
b) Theoretical framework
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY/MATERIALS AND METHODS
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS
Sometimes combined as Results and Discussion
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION
CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
REFERENCES
APPENDICES.
B. Option 2- Paper Format
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
General introduction same as option 1.
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
General literature review covering the entire thesis. It should be similar to that of research proposal.
CHAPTER THREE, FOUR, FIVE…
According to objectives/topics/experiments or papers. Each consisting of:
a) Abstract
b) Introduction
c) Materials and methods /Methodology
d) Results and Discussion (or separately)
e) Conclusion
f) References relevant to that chapter only.
Under this option repetitions of literature review must be avoided and if this is not possible,
the thesis must be written as under option 1. Similarly, references must not be repeated in the
list of references for individual chapters or else the list of references should be consolidated.
CHAPTER SIX: GENERAL DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
REFERENCES
Referencing format: Latest (7th) edition of the American Psychological Association (APA)
referencing style. References section consists only of references cited in the text.
APPENDICES
These consist of questionnaires, transcriptions, copy of research permit, key data analysis outputs,
relevant raw data, snapshot of the abstract page of candidate's relevant publications.

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 2. Suggested Thesis Outline
The outline should be adopted and if modified to suit individual academic disciplines
must be approved by the Board of Postgraduate Studies
General thesis outline consists of:
TITLE PAGE:
i) This should bear the title of the thesis in capital letters followed below by the full
names of the student in uppercase.
ii) The title should be short, precise, concise and clear. It should relate to the subject
matter of the thesis. It should also be captivating.
iii) This is followed by the following citation in title case: "A Thesis Submitted to the
Graduate School in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the ... (Name of
the degree) ... Degree in ... (Name of the Discipline)... of Egerton University" in
the middle of the cover page.
iv) Finally, Egerton University, the month and the year of presentation should be
included in capital letters at the bottom of the cover page.
DECLARATION AND RECOMMENDATION:
This page consists of declaration by the student and recommendation by the supervisor(s)
accompanied by original and appropriate signatures and dates.
Declaration
In which the author candidate/student swears that the proposal is original and has not been
presented before.
“This thesis is my original work and has not been presented in this university or any
other for the award of a degree”

Recommendation
This is where the supervisor(s) declare that the proposal has been presented with their
approval.
“This thesis has been submitted with our approval as University supervisors”
COPYRIGHT
This is a statement by the candidate that no part of the thesis may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, photocopying, scanning,
recording or otherwise, without the permission of the author or Egerton University.

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 DEDICATION
Candidates’ recognition of inspirational individuals to their achievement.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledgment of all those who participated in one way or another to enable the candidate
to complete the thesis successfully. Institutions should be acknowledged before individuals.

ABSTRACT
i) A single page
ii) A block paragraph and should comprise the following:
a) Background to the problem/motivation for the study
b) Objectives
c) Essential methods/materials and methods
d) Results (should be quantitative)
e) General conclusion and recommendation (take-home message)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
i) This is a synopsis of the structural pattern of the thesis
ii) It contains all major sections i.e. chapter level headings. If the report is long,
sub-headings may be included
iii) The headings as listed in the table must be worded exactly as they appear in
the body of the report
iv) The wording and presentation (i.e. capitalisation, use of special fonts and
characters) for all entries in the table of contents must match exactly with the text.
v) All entries must have a corresponding page number with leader dots or dashes
connecting the entry to the page number.

LIST OF FIGURES
i) If the thesis contains a lot of figures, a separate page should be devoted to the list of
figures specifying the title and the page where figures can be found in the thesis.
ii) Figures include graphs, photographic illustrations, maps, and drawings.
iii) The list of figure should be separate from the table of contents and should come
immediately after the table of contents

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 iv) All entries must contain a corresponding page number with lead dots or dashes
connecting the entry to the page number

LIST OF PLATES
In some disciplines this is separated from the list of figures and it is governed by the same
rules as the list of figures.

LIST OF TABLES
List of table is governed by the same rules as the list of figures

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS/ SYMBOLS

All abbreviations, acronyms and symbols in the thesis should be listed on this page and their
full interpretations, and the units where appropriate given.

Pagination of all the above should be in lower case Roman numerals.

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The introduction of the thesis should be brief and clear.
i) It should give the reader an insight into the whole work, thereby acting as a
summary of the same.
ii) It comes before the Literature Review and hence exposes views of other authorities
in the subject. In a nutshell, it portrays the relevant aspects of the thesis such as the
problem and significance of the study.
iii) It consists of :
1.1 Background to the study
i) This is what culminates into the scholar's curiosity to study the subject
ii) The section describes the nature of the problem and current state of knowledge in
the research area
iii) A well-laid down context of the background to the study brings up a sound
understanding of the research topic.

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1.2 Statement of the problem
i) This is the nerve-centre of any research work, which should be adequately
comprehended by the researcher at the onset.
ii) The problem must be clearly and conspicuously stated in just one paragraph.
iii) It should be clearly focused, without unnecessary preambles and ambiguity.
1.3 Objectives
This section should have clear stipulated general and specific objectives.
1.3.1 General/Broad Objective/Aim/purpose
i) This is the aim, goal or purpose of a given research.
ii) A generic statement describing what the study intended to achieve in broad terms.
iii) Should be closely related to the title of the research and statement of the problem.
iv) It provides the intellectual scope of research work.
1.3.2 Specific objectives
i) Specific objectives should be focused on the research problem in order to yield
relevant data.
ii) Should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic & Time-bound)
iii) They should be stated in measurable terms and in such a way that they align with
the hypotheses and/or research questions.
1.4 Research Questions/Hypotheses
A candidate chooses either research questions or hypotheses but not both.
i) Like specific objectives, properly structured and implemented research questions
yield useful and relevant data
ii) The questions should, therefore, be structured to bring out the clarity and the
relevance of what the researcher aims to achieve. Long and complicated questions
should be avoided.
iii) The questions should properly relate to the objectives of the study.
iv) A hypothesis is a guiding principle to an argument that culminates into valid and
reliable conclusion.
v) The number of hypotheses is determined by the number of specific objectives the
study investigated.
vi) In the pure or applied sciences, the hypothesis should be measurable and testable in
the final stages.

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 1.5 Justification of the study
i) Research being expensive in both in terms of money and time, it is imperative that
its relevance is established at the onset in order to save the researcher unnecessary
expenses.
ii) One should prove that the research findings would be beneficial to the targeted
consumers besides making a contribution to the existing knowledge.
1.6 Assumptions/ Scope and Limitations (optional)
In social sciences, hypotheses are difficult to measure; hence principle of assumption subject
to confirmation through research becomes crucial.
i) This is a review of the extent the research has taken. It is pegged on the
geographical and intellectual area of study, the time taken, the resources used and
the research design.
ii) It justifies what, when and why the work was done as expressed.
iii) It portrays the established results under the given circumstances.

1.7 Definition of Terms

Terms which are used in the text and are not obvious should be defined.

CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
i) This is a selective and critical survey of the written works of the subject area. It
includes personal communication, articles, books, published and unpublished papers
(thesis only), literature from newspapers and unpublished works should be limited.
ii) It is a critical analysis of the selected works that reveal what has already been
researched on exhaustively and the missing links that need to be filled through further
research.
iii) It provides background information, which jump-starts the research exercise.
iv) The literature review should clearly show gaps and/or directions for further research.
v) Above all, it buttresses the researcher's statement of the problem by revealing that the
area of study is untouched / identifies the gaps
vi) Literature review should demonstrate logical flow of argument – tell a story.
vii) References cited here must contain the name of the author(s) and year of publication
viii) In-text citation should follow the latest (7th) edition of the Publication Manual

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 of the American Psychological Association (APA).
ix) Narrative citation: Nyalala (2021) observed that……According to Kitaka and
Nyalala (2021) …… The results concur with Kitaka et al. (2021)
x) Parenthetical citation: single author (Nyalala, 2021); two authors (Nyalala & Kitaka,
2021); many authors (Nyalala et al., 2021).
xi) Multiple references in parenthetical citations should be arranged alphabetically and
separated by semi-colons.
xii) Literature review is also useful in providing the theoretical framework(s) that
subsequently conceptualizes the fieldwork results.
Literature review is a must, and should be exhaustive, thorough, critical,
informative and current. Plagiarism MUST be avoided when reviewing literature.

Theoretical Framework/Conceptual Framework (Optional for some disciplines)

i) This contains theories that exist on tackling a given research problem.
ii) In establishing a suitable theoretical framework, the researcher should consider both
out-dated and modern theories, reveal the merits, demerits and limitations of each.
iii) The researcher should then choose either one whole already established framework,
or a modification of one or several frameworks for solving the research problem at
hand.
iv) The choice of the framework should be convincingly justified. A clear plan or
contemplation on how to steer the work should be shown here.
v) This section is important because it relates and co-ordinates the literature review,
the problem, the significance of the study and the objectives to the applied
methodology.

CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY/MATERIALS AND METHODS
i) This is the procedure used in eliciting data from the field of study.
ii) The section should provide detailed information necessary to repeat the research and
verify the results.
iii) It needs to describe accurately, chronologically, clearly and logically how the research
was designed, conducted and analysed.

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 iv) Methodology/materials and methods section includes: description of study location,
research design, sample population, research instruments, data collection and analysis.
v) This section should be well written in order to justify the validity and reliability of the
study.

All materials, which do not easily fit into the mainstream of the thesis write-up but are
relevant to the work, should be retained as appendices after the references.

CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS
Results are presented in this chapter as texts and tables or charts. The results are reported in
texts and readers referred to respective tables or figures presenting the statistical data. Tables
or figures should be inserted immediately they are mentioned in the text. Sometimes the
results are combined with discussion. In this case, the results presented in a paragraph are
discussed before proceeding to the next paragraph.
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the results are interpreted and compared with previous studies. Discussion of
the results must therefore be supported with current literature.

CHAPTER SIX
CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Conclusions must be precise, numbered and linked to the specific objectives without
dragging in results and discussion. Recommendations must be based on the results and
objectives of the study.
REFERENCES

i) This contains the list of all references cited in the text.

ii) Listed alphabetically in terms of the author(s) using hanging format without space
between references.
iii) Egerton University uses the latest (7th) edition of APA Referencing Style.
Special attention should be paid to the use of ampersand (&) and referencing of
periodicals, book chapters, books, theses/dissertations, conference papers and
electronic resources.

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