How to Structure a Thesis, Report or Paper A Guide for
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use their own initiatives to learn the most. It makes writing a
thesis, report or paper more straightforward!
Robert P. Ormrod, Ph.D., is Associate Professor, Department
of Management, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus
University, Denmark. He has supervised hundreds of students
over the past 20 years. During this time, he developed a guide to
structuring theses, reports and papers. His students found it so
useful that they encouraged him to write a book about it.
How to Structure
a Thesis, Report
or Paper
A Guide for Students
Robert P. Ormrod
Cover image: 3pod / Getty Images
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Robert P. Ormrod
The right of Robert P. Ormrod to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-032-36948-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-36946-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-33463-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003334637
Typeset in Galliard
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Dedicated to my students – past, present and future
Contents
1 How to structure a thesis, report or paper 1
2 The introduction 14
3 Literature overview 28
4 Methodology and method 37
5 Quantitative investigations:
results and analysis 51
6 Qualitative investigations:
findings and discussion 60
7 Reflections: implications, limitations
and suggested future research directions 68
8 The conclusion – and the
introduction revisited 74
9 References and the bibliography 81
viii
Contents
10 Hygiene factors 88
11 Alternative thesis, report and paper
structures, and the oral defence 97
12 How to structure a thesis, report or paper 105
13 Finished! Sort of . . . 108
14 Epilogue 117
Index119
How to
CHAPTER
1 structure a
thesis, report
or paper
I have taught at universities for almost 20 years, and in that time
I have had the pleasure of supervising several hundred under-
and postgraduate students whilst they have written their bache-
lor’s and master’s theses, internship reports or semester papers.
One thing that has always struck me is how very few of them
had been taught how to structure a thesis, report or paper. I was
never taught myself, but as soon as I realised how a simple struc-
ture could help, writing a thesis, report or paper became much
more straightforward. Not easier, just more straightforward.
I started to think about how I could help my students develop
a structure for their work – not just when I was supervising them
but also afterwards in their careers after their time in higher edu-
cation. Initially, I discussed the elements of a thesis, report and
paper with my students. As time went on and I became more
experienced, I created a document that my students and I went
through at our first meeting. After I taught a seminar to under-
graduate students with the aim of helping them with the struc-
ture of their first piece of writing at my university, pretty much
all of them said that they had learned something that would
help them throughout their time in higher education, and prob-
ably beyond. When I told some of them that I was considering
DOI: 10.4324/9781003334637-1
2 How to structure a thesis, report or paper
writing a book on the subject, the response was clear: the sooner,
the better. And here is that book.
So why is it a good idea to have a structure for your work
before you start writing it, even before you develop the first
draft of a research question? First of all, it makes your life more
straightforward – not necessarily easier but more straightfor-
ward. By dividing your work into smaller, more manageable
sections, it is possible to focus on a specific topic, such as your
method or the results of your investigation. On balance, it is
easier to write a short section of a thesis, report or paper than
concentrating on the whole piece of work in one go, as you have
less to remember.
Imagine the writing process as driving on a motorway. You
start writing when you drive onto the motorway, and the finished
product is when you drive off the motorway at your destination.
Along the motorway, there are times when the motorway splits
to head towards different destinations, and here it is useful to
have a map – a clear structure – to help you work out which lane
of the motorway you are supposed to be in to get to your desti-
nation of choice. It’s not only you who gets the benefit of a clear
structure – your supervisor and the person grading your work
will also benefit from an easy-to-follow and logical structure.
Supervisors
Good supervisors recognise that each student is different.
If there are 20 students in your class or on your degree pro-
gramme, your supervisor has to balance 20 different pieces of
work written by 20 very different people, each with a different
background, different strengths and weaknesses, different ambi-
tions and different future career plans.
I regularly supervise 30 students during a semester who
write everything from short internship reports to master’s
1: How to structure a thesis, report or paper 3
theses, so you can see it takes a lot of time and energy to keep
on top of what all of my students are doing. It helps if they
state the topic of their work at the beginning of each email
they send to me, as this makes my life so much easier. This is
the first piece of advice in this book – you have just learned
something that you can do that will make your supervisor hap-
pier! This is a good thing.
My own style of supervision
Supervision sessions vary according to the requirements of your
institution and supervisor preferences. Some supervisors prefer
to hold group discussions, where students comment on each
other’s work and gain inspiration from the interaction. I usu-
ally supervise individual papers, primarily because of the con-
fidentiality issues associated with the information provided by
the commercial organisations that my students often work with.
The following details how I supervise my students; your super-
visor may be very different, but this is a result of their experience
as to what works well for them. Remember, there are two peo-
ple who have to be comfortable for a successful supervision to
occur, both you and your supervisor. In the following I’ll give
you an idea about how I prefer to organise (or structure, if you
will) the supervision process.
I usually start with two in-person meetings that occur a
week apart. In the first meeting, I discuss the structure of the
paper with my student, what needs to be covered in the Intro-
duction (Chapter 2 in this book), any ideas my student has
about which literature is relevant (Chapter 3 in this book),
the appropriate methodology and method (Chapter 4 in this
book) and their thoughts on alternative research questions.
I also take this opportunity to make sure that my student is
relaxed about working with me, so that their focus is on what
they themselves think and they don’t try to second-guess what
I want to hear.
4
How to structure a thesis, report or paper
At the end of the first meeting, I ask my student to do three
things ahead of the second meeting: 1) write a first draft of the
Introduction; 2) write their thoughts about the relevant litera-
ture, methodology and method down in bullet points; and 3)
propose three or four alternative research questions. The second
meeting then consists of discussing the Introduction, merging
the suggested research questions into one research question,
and looking for literature in my institution’s online article data-
base. This is all carried out on the student’s computer, so there
is less to be remembered and more to be learned. Basically, the
second meeting focuses on ‘fleshing out’ the structure and mak-
ing it clear to my student exactly what they should do, so they
can have a running start on writing their thesis, report or paper.
The remainder of the meetings are divided up into those
meetings that I consider to be compulsory, and those meet-
ings that the student asks for. Whereas I prefer to hold both
of the first two meetings in person, subsequent meetings can
be held online, and sometimes even a quick question by e-mail
is enough to help my student move on with their work. After
the two introductory meetings, I like to meet with my student
when they are in the process of writing their Literature Over-
view section, just before they start on their investigation, and
when they are ready to start working with the outcome of their
investigation.
My student can also ask for a meeting whenever they feel
the need for supervision, although I will say no and explain
why if I think that they are asking for too much help. The
reason for this is that I cannot remember every thesis, report
and paper that I am supervising (and this goes for your own
supervisor too). My student knows where they are in the pro-
cess, but I can only give a response to the specific question that
my student asks. In other words, I don’t have all of the infor-
mation, so my answer may be right for the question but wrong
for the entire thesis, report or paper. Of course, if my student
1: How to structure a thesis, report or paper 5
really needs help then they will get it, but it’s always better to
try yourself first!
I also almost never read and comment on large sections of text
that my students have written. Instead of preventing my student
from being independent, I ask my student to write down their
questions and uncertainties, and we have a supervision meeting
where the student asks me these questions. Of course, me being
me, I never give them any answers! I simply ask them what they
think the answer is. Whilst this may seem strange, there is a good
reason for this.
Think about it this way: you are the one who has done
all of the work, and when you explain your problem to your
supervisor, you have to say the problem aloud. At this point,
I usually ask my student what they think the answer is. My
student then tells me what they think. Again, by vocalising
the problem and a possible solution, nine times out of ten the
answer becomes clear without any input from me. This gives
my student more confidence in their own abilities and a real
ownership of their thesis, report or paper; after all, they are
the expert on that very specific topic. Of course, if my student
is going down the wrong path, I will make sure that they are
brought back on track.
What this book is not
This book is called ‘How to Structure a Thesis, Report or
Paper’, not ‘How to Write a Thesis, Report or Paper’ or ‘What
to Write in a Thesis, Report or Paper’. Don’t expect this book to
help you with the content of the work, your analytical skills or as
a general magic wand to help you get a good grade. This book
will help you with the foundation of all of that: it will give you
the structure on which you can build a thesis, report or paper
that shows your abilities off the best. Writing something under
6
How to structure a thesis, report or paper
each of the sections will go a long way towards helping you pass,
but the actual grade you get is your responsibility.
It depends . . .
Ask my students what my favourite two words are, and those
who have been awake in class will reply ‘it depends’ (and proba-
bly laugh!). It may seem a little strange that the answer to every
academic question can be ‘it depends’, but these two little words
will help you to remember, in a class discussion or under pres-
sure in an exam, that there are two (or more) sides to every ques-
tion. By realising this and including more than one perspective
in your answers to your theses, reports and papers – in fact, all
exam questions – you will demonstrate to your supervisor and
the person grading your work that you understand the world is
not simple and clear-cut. It will also help you to realise that the
basic structure that this book presents is just that, a basic struc-
ture; you will have to adapt the structure presented in this book
to suit the type of thesis, report or paper that you are writing.
How ‘balance’ affects your thesis, report
or paper
My students often ask me how many pages each section ought
to contain. Apart from driving them crazy by saying ‘Well, it
depends . . .’ for the 100th time, I tell them about the ‘balance’
of their paper. Balance is not something that can be taught,
as balance depends on what type of paper you are writing, for
whom you are writing the paper, any restrictions on length
or content, and in which subject. Balance can only be learned
through personal experience, by being aware that it exists and
by using your common sense. There are, fortunately, two ques-
tions that you can ask yourself that can help you to balance the
1: How to structure a thesis, report or paper 7
number of pages you allow for each of the sections in your the-
sis, report or paper.
The first question is, ‘What is the purpose of the thesis, report
or paper?’ For example, if you are writing a semester paper as
part of a methods course, then it is probably a good idea to place
more emphasis on the Methodology and Method section of the
paper (Chapter 4 in this book), providing lots of detail on your
thoughts and considerations about your chosen methodology
and method. If, on the other hand, your semester paper is sup-
posed to be practitioner-oriented, then it is probably a good idea
to write more in the Reflections section of your paper (Chap-
ter 7 in this book), or maybe even write a completely separate
section entitled ‘implications for practitioners’. Of course, this
means that you will adapt the structure of a semester paper pre-
sented in this book to suit your semester paper, but this is not a
problem. I’ll discuss alternative paper structures more in Chap-
ter 11 of this book.
The second question that you can ask yourself is, ‘Where
do I show what I can do?’ Said in another way, which parts of
your thesis, report or paper demonstrate the skills that you have
learned throughout the wider degree programme that you are
on? This question is more relevant to your final thesis, but it’s
a good idea to bear it in mind even if you are writing a short
semester paper as this will show a breadth of knowledge about
the subject of your degree programme. Make sure you answer
the questions first, but if you can slip in another concept and
justify why it is relevant, don’t stop yourself. If you are not sure
whether this is a good idea, ask your supervisor.
Follow your intuition
Sometimes, when all else fails, you just have to ask yourself,
‘Does this seem right?’ and then go with what you think is right.
This is part of being critical that is essential to writing an aca-
demic piece of work – just applied to the actual structure of your
8
How to structure a thesis, report or paper
thesis, report or paper. You have got this far as a student, so you
already have many of the skills that you need to take you further.
It’s not necessarily a problem if you get the balance of the thesis,
report or paper wrong, just as long as you learn why you got it
wrong, and that you don’t make the same mistake again. Never
forget that it is up to you to reflect on what went right and what
went wrong; this is also valid for the structure of your thesis,
report or paper.
Learning aids
Throughout this book, I have included examples of text that
will illustrate the points that I am making, and at the end of
each chapter, I have included a checklist of the things that you
need to consider in order to get the maximum benefit out of
this book. The checklist section consists of a number of ques-
tions to ask your own supervisor – some ‘do’s and don’ts’ that
will all help to improve the structure of your thesis, report or
paper and a list of common mistakes that I have seen over and
over again during my career as a supervisor. You will find that
there are links between the contents of the checklist section in
one chapter and the checklist section of another chapter. The
implication of this is that when you are reading a chapter in this
book, it is a good idea to check back on the checklist sections
from the other chapters just to make sure that the links are also
clear in your paper.
Text examples
It’s one thing to read about how to structure a thesis, report or
paper, but a completely different thing to actually see it in prac-
tice. Throughout this book, there are examples of text that aim
to make the explanation in the book a little bit clearer. These
range from a complete example of an Introduction in Chapter 2,
