Style and citation guide for your thesis
Please find the full guide below or download it here.
Introductory remarks
- Before you start writing, please give sufficient thought to your table of contents, as this is the basis for your thesis. Please do not use more than three levels of headings.
- Make sure you have enough diverse literature available on your research field.
- Please only include tables, figures, etc. into the text if you discuss them in detail. Please always include a heading and a reference.
- Please only use footnotes to provide additional information that is not relevant for the main message in the text.
- Some golden rules for a successful thesis are:
- Concise and purposeful introduction to the topic.
- Sufficient literature from various authors as a basis
- Clear congruent citation
- Clearly understandable (not too complex/ nested) sentences using scientific vocabulary.
Number of copies and submission
Please check with the examination office, how many copies are to be submitted. Please submit the data (e.g., Excel-data) and empirical analyses (e.g., interview transcripts) you did in electronic form with the thesis (e.g., on a CD-ROM).
Layout
Please write the thesis on DIN A4-pages. A Master thesis should contain between 55 - 70 pages and a Bachelor thesis 30 - 40 pages (excluding appendices, references and indices).
As the font shall be well readable, please us Arial, Calibri or Times New Roman with font size 11-12pt. If you like to use block set or not, please feel free to choose yourself.
The following additional dimensions apply to the layout:
- page margins:
- left: 2 cm
- right: 4 cm
- below and above: 2.5 cm
- Line spacing in the text: 1.3
- Paragraph spacing: 10
- Footnotes:
- line spacing: 1
- font size: 9-10pt (2pt smaller than in the main text)
- numbered chronologically
Structure of thesis
Please consider the following as an orientation that are usually parts of a thesis, (if applicable) in the following order:
- Title page
- List of contents
- List of annexes
- List of tables
- List of figures
- List of abbreviations
- List of symbols
- Main text (incl. different chapters)
- List of references
- Appendix
- List of interviews
- Declaration that this is your own work (if required by the examination office)
The title page contains the following information:
- Name of the university, faculty and professorship
- Name of 1st and 2nd supervisors
- Title of the topic
- Your name, address, matriculation number and e-mail address
- Submission date
References and How to cite
Any thought taken from others must be cited. Please cite with page number when it is a directly quoted citation.
In your work, please use the so-called American Psychological Association (APA) citation style.
You only need to include a page number if you are referring to specific passages (direct quotation). If the quoted passage (direct quotation) covers more than one page, the page number is preceded by “pp.” (for a page range).
Example:
Daraus entstand die Vision, mittels lokaler Resilienz Wirtschaftsentwicklung zu fördern. „Es ist ein gigantisches soziales Experiment. (...) Sie können sich Transition wie Open-Source-Software vorstellen. Jeder, der mitmacht, hat darauf Zugriff, wendet es bei sich vor Ort an und ist dadurch auch Teil der Weiterentwicklung“ (Hopkins, 2013, p. 60)
In the case there are more sources from one and the same author published in the same year, please put a small Latin letter behind the year. Example: Hopkins (2013a) and Hopkins (2013b).
In the bibliography, the full title of the book or work is listed in alphabetical order. Sources by one and the same author are ordered chronologically. If you quote a statement from a source that is based on another (original) source, it is strongly recommended that you also consider the original source and cite it accordingly.
Examples for the APA citation style in the text:
- One author: (Meadows, 2008)
- Two authors: (Meadows & Robinson, 1985, pp. 22-24)
- From three authors onwards: (Abson et al., 2017)
- Website: (CHA, 2022)
General
Apart from these instructions, please note and check and follow the requirements of the examination office (Studienbüro)!
Sincerely and all the best,
Prof Dr Jana-Michaela Timm