thesis graduate sch manual

SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUD'ESKwame Nkrumah Un'vers'ty of Sc'ence and Techno'ogy

Manua' for thes's Presentat'on for

Masters and Doctora' Degrees

Apr'' 2010

SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES

KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE ANDTECHNOLOGY KUMASI GHANA

Dean: Prof. C. K. Kankam

Secretary: Mrs. C. R AmohTel: + 233 03220 62139, 62140

Fax: + 233 03220 60137

E-mail: graduatestudies(a>knust.edu.gh

MANUAL FOR THESIS PRESENTATION FOR MASTERS ANDDOCTORAL DEGREES AWARDED

BY

THE KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE ANDTECHNOLOGY

April,2010

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Foreword

The School of Graduate Studies is the main statutory body of theKwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) thatoversees graduate programmes of the Colleges, Faculties andDepartments ofthe University.

Since the beginning of graduate programmes in the University in1974, there has been no specific directive given for the presentationof theses that reflected the philosophy of the University or that of asingle statutory body such as the Graduate School Board.

It has become necessary, at this time, when several morepostgraduate programmes have come on board, to provide a manualfor the guidance of students and supervisors regarding an acceptableformat to ensure quality and uniformity of thesis. The Boardrecommends this manual as a guide for the preparation of thesis forMasters' and PhD degrees awarded in the University.

Dean, Graduate School Board.

'

i School of Grad< ' Studies

AcknowledgmentThe Board is grateful for the contribution of its entire membership;particularly all who gave approval to start the compilation of this

manual and to Departments who submitted the requested

information on the formats for their mode of preparation of theirthesis.

The contribution of the original 3-man committee: late Prof. K.E.N.Tsidzi, Prof

.

M.L.K Mensah and Dr. B.K. Dogbe, charged with the task

to prepare this manual, is gratefully acknowledged as is the 2-man

editorial team of Prof. M.L.K Mensah and Prof. M. Duwiejua both ofthe Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of

Health Sciences, KNUST.

School of Graduate Studies ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction Contents < l

A. Preliminary Section l

1. Title Page 1

Copyright 12

. Certification Page 23

. Abstract 2

4. Table of Contents 3

5. List of Tables

, List of Figures and List of Abbreviations 36

. Prefatory Material 3B

. Major Component ofthe Thesis 37

. Text 3

C. MinorComponentofthethesis (BackMatter) 3

8. Bibliography/References/Work or Literature Cited 3

9. Appendix (Appendices) 4

10. Summary 4Other Consideration 4

11. Mechanics 4

11.1 Paper and Production Processes 4

11.2. Type Size and Style 5

11.3 Spacing 5

11.4 Captions/Legends for Table and Figures 511.5 Pagination 5

Title page 5

Front Matter (Preliminary Pages] 6

Text (Main Body) and Back Matter 6Facing Pages 7

-- - School of Graduate Studies

11.6 Length of Thesis 711.7 Multi-Volume Theses 711.8 Binding of thesis for submission 8Paragraphing 8Spacing 8Margins 8Appendices 9Appendix 1 - Sample Title Page for Thesis 9Appendix 2 - Certification page 10Appendix 3 H3

.0 Elements of the Citations 11

Print cited publication 11Electronic cited material 11

Oral communication 12

3.1

. Documenting Sources in the Text 123

.2

. Documenting sources in the Bibliography/Reference Chapter 13

Documenting information from Electronic Sources 14Humanities Style 14Scientific Style 15Appendix 4 sample format of summary of some Contents of thesis 16

School of Graduate Studies iv

Introduction

The School of Graduate Studies is the main statutory body of theKwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) thatoversees graduate programmes of the Colleges, Faculties and

Departments of the University.

Contents

The contents of the Manual are divided into three (3) main sectionsnamely: Preliminary, Major (Text) and Minor (Back Matter). Anothersection, the Mechanics of the presentation, is included to ensure thata quality material is produced.

Details of pagination are set out, below is Section 12.5. Paginationwould be both Roman and Arabic numerals as appropriate

A. Preliminary Section

The Preliminary comprising the following items are to be arranged inthe order listed below:

1. Title Page

This comprises the title of the thesis, by (full name of the author andprevious qualification), Department in KNUST to which it issubmitted, in partial fulfilment of requirement for what degree andin which Faculty and month and Year of presentation (centered). Aspecimen is presented in Appendix 1.

CopyrightIn view of the need to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) ofauthor(s) or sponsors in case of any economic benefits accruingthereby; it may be necessary to insert a mark indicating copyright

ownership pertaining notice © * must appear on the title page to theparticular work. If required, the universal copyright of the thesis. Thecopyright date is the year the thesis is accepted for public display.

1 School of Graduate Studies

*mark is followed by the year and name of Department e.g. © 2003,Department of Pharmaceutics.

2. Certification Page

A thesis must be authenticated by a declaration as being thepreviously unpublished work of the author. In this regard, students

are to ensure that there are no indications of plagiarism in the thesis

as it would lead to disqualification and rejection of the thesis

(plagiarism is the art of taking somebody's work and passing it off asone

'

s own).

The declaration should have the rendition shown in Appendix 2.It consists of the Student's declaration and certified by the supervisorand the Head of Department who append their signatures and Headof Department who append their signatures and by so doing affirmthat in their opinion the thesis:i

. is an independent, original contribution to the knowledge of thesubject concerned ofwhichii. Literary presentation is satisfactory

3. Abstract

This is a brief summary of the thesis and most likely to be widelypublished and read. It should have concise description of the Problem(s) addressed, the Methods for the solution, the Results andConclusions. The whole abstract should be composed as oneparagraph. A maximum limit it set for 2 pages or 500 words.

School of Graduate Studies 2

4. Table of Contents

This highlights the chapters and subchapters and the contents of thematerial within the covers of the thesis including the pages wherethey are located.

5. List of Tables, List of Figures and List of Abbreviations

These should be on separate pages and included only as appropriate.

6. Prefatory Material

Where appropriate, material pertaining to Preface, Foreword andAcknowledgment etc. could be presented on separate pages.

However, the Acknowledgment page is mandatory.

B. Major Component Of The Thesis

7. Text

This comprises the main Chapters (a limit of 4-6 is allowed for Masterand PhD. thesis). Subchapters (Divisions and sub-divisions) and theirthemes namely: Introduction, Literature Review (may includeTheory), Materials and Methods (may include more than onechapter), Results, Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations. In

the Humanities and Arts the Text may include Footnotes andEndnotes

C. Minor Component Of The Thesis (back Matter)

This is constituted by the following listed section:

8. Bibliography/References/Work or Literature Cited

This comprises a list of major documented works: Publications andauthorities consulted in the writing of the thesis. There are currentlya large number of documents particularly in the electronic media.

This coupled with the different styles available in the compilation ofthe bibliographical chapter, necessitates the publication of a separatesection to consider various ways of achieving consistency anduniformity. The content ofthis section is detailed below under


Elements of Citation (Appendix 3J. However the Board recommendsthe (Chicago) Harvard system of citation for the Bibliography/

References (see Appendix 3).

9. Appendix (Appendices)The Appendix comprises material considered necessary for thecomprehension of the text but which would otherwise disturb the

flow of the text such as some tables, maps, questionnaires, computerprogrammes, pictures etc. and may be included in the thesis as

appropriate.

10. SummaryA summary presentation of contents of the thesis is presented inAppendix 4.

Other Consideration11. Mechanics

11.1 Paper and Production ProcessesThe paper type and format to be used for the thesis should beInternational standard paper size A4, dimensions (297x210mm).The number of pages should be as regulated (See recommendationon Length of Thesis-12.6 below). The Final thesis materials must

meet high standards of permanence, legibility, uniformity andreproducibility.

The first-deposit copies will not be subject to paper or printspecifications, but must be legible and follow all formatting

guidelines prescribed by the Board. Three (3) copies of thesesdeposits are to be comb/spiral-bound, with type on one side of thepage only.

School of Graduate Studies 4 -

11.2. Type Size and StyleThe same 12-point typeface (Time New Roman font) is to be used forall preliminary pages, tables and figure captions, text, appendices,

references and page numbers except for Footnotes/Endnotes whenother distinguishing font types may be used.

11.3 SpacingText of the thesis must be double-spaced. The same should apply inbetween paragraphs. However, for the Table of Contents, Footnotesand Quotes in the text, single-spaced formatting may be used.

11.4 Captions/Legends for Table and FiguresCaption for tables should be numbered and reflect the content of thetable and set above the table

.

In the case of figures, the captions should be related to the contentsand set below the figure.

Numbering for the Tables and Figures should be linked to thechapters i.e. numbers for the Tables and Figures should begin withthe number of the chapter where it is sited.

11.5 Paginationa. All pages must be numbered consecutively. Each Chapter/Sectionshould begin on a separate page. The Graduate School requires thatpage numbers be centered two lines below the bottom margin.

Title pageb

. On the title page, the page number is omitted, though it is

considered as page "

i"

.


Front Matter (Preliminary Pages)c

. Preliminary pages are numbered with lower case Roman numerals,beginning with (ii) following the title page centred at the bottom. Onthe title page, the number is omitted, though it is considered aspages (i)

Text (Main Body) and Back Matterd

. Arabic numerals are used for all pages in the main text and backmatter.

e. The main body of the thesis begins with Arabic numeral "I", centredatthe bottom ofthe page.

f. The Arabic numeral on a new pages that starts a chapter/section is

placed in the centre at the bottom. This includes the first page of eachback matter chapter/section, (i.e., appendices, endnotes etc.).

Reference and other Matter

g. Pagination for the References and other material is by Arabicnumerals.

Facing Pagesh

. For a one sided thesis, facing pages may be used to place illustrativematerial as follows:

i. Facing pages must be numbered as any other page, so that all pages

are numbered consecutively.j. Page numbers should be placed following conventions used for themain text.

k. If photographic paper is used for illustrative material, numbers

may be placed on the reverse side if necessary.


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L11.6 Length of ThesisThe Board of the Graduate School has set a thesis words limit

. It is

recommended that text number no more than 70 pages or 150,000

words for a Master's thesis and range up to 200 pages for a PhD acrossthe various study programmes. Where these limits are exceeded, it

may be necessary to obtain permission to have a two-volume reportwith volume indicated below the title and the theses separatelybound and presented (see next section for multiple volume theses).

11.7 Multi-Volume Theses

In exceptional cases where a project is submitted as a two-volumethesis. The following conditions mustbe met:i

. The title, certification and abstract pages must be in the firstvolume.

ii. Volume 1 must have a table of contents and list of tables and a

list figures, etc., for the entire thesis.iii. Each additional volume must contain a duplicate of the title

page ofthe first volume (with the volume number indicatedon each title page).

iv. The second volume must contain a table of contents, a list oftables and a list of figures, etc., to cover the portion of workfound in that particular volume.

v. The page numbering of the body of the thesis must flowconsecutively from one volume to the next.

11.8 Binding of thesis for submissionThesis ready for submission should be spirally bound andsubmitted according to the following scheme:For Masters degree theses, 3 copies should be submittedFor Doctoral degree theses, 5 copies should be submitted

School of Graduate Studies

_ _

ParagraphingFirst line of paragraphs must be indicated by indentation.Paragraphs should have at least three sentences. Each paragraphshould develop one main idea and should have a topic sentencewhich expresses this idea. Paragraphs should be right

"justified".

SpacingDocuments should be double-spaced throughout, with the exceptionof the table of contents, bibliography, and quotations of more thanfour lines or two or more sentences.

MarginsMargins should have the following minimum settings:Top - .2.5 cm; Bottom - 2.5cm; Left - 4.0 cm; Right - 2.5 cmExceptions: A larger top margin may be used on pages with mainheadings, a larger bottom margin on pages that otherwise wouldhave just a heading at the bottom of the page, larger margins aroundtables and figures, and smaller margins on appendix pages.


APPENDICES

Appendix 1 - Sample Title Page for Thesis

THE ANTIMICROBIAL CONSTITUENTS OF CASSIA ALATA

By

John Allotey B.Pharm (Hons.)

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Microbiology,Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

in partial fulfiment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE

Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences,College of Health Sciences

February 2003


Appendix 2

I hereby declare that this submission is my own work towards the MSc/PhDand that, to the best of my knowledge, it contains no material previouslypublished by another person nor material which has been accepted for theaward of any other degree of the University, except where dueacknowledgment has been made in the text.

Student Name & ID Signature Date

Certified by:

Supervisor(s) Name Signature Date

Certified by:

Head of Dept. Name Signature Date


Appendix 3

3.0 Elements of the Citations

The essence of citation is to acknowledge authors of referencematerial consulted in the preparation of the thesis and to enable thereferenced material to become easily available to other researchers.

There are usually two places where citations are made: in the textand secondly at the end of the text and secondly at the end of thetextual material. Different titles are used by various authorities todescribe the citations. For example, the Modern LanguageAssociation (MLA) uses "Works cited," the American PsychologyAssociation (APA)-"Reference list," Chicago/Turabian-"

Bibliography".

There are different style implications for the various systems. Themajor styles that may be used are those from the publications of theMLA and APA (for Humanities styles), Chicago/Turabian) andCouncil for Biology Editors CBE (for Scientific styles) manuals.

There are two major sources for accessing information: print andelectronic. On these, there is good agreement as to the style to beadopted by most authorities.

For most purposes the elements or contents of the citations in printcited publication are:

a. The name ofthe author

b. The date of publication

c. The title ofthe work

d. The place of publication

e. Location or page number


See Section 3.2, Appendix 3 for examples

Similarly, in electronic cited material such as the Internet, theelements are:

a. The name ofthe authorb

. The date of publication or updatec. The documenttitle of descriptiond

. An address (in internet terms, a uniform resource locator orURL)

e. Date of retrieval

See Section 3.2, Appendix 3 for examples

Oral Communication

A minor source of information is that of oral or personalcommunication. In the compilation of references, this may be citedin-text only indicating the author, topic and date of thecommunication.

3.1

. Documenting Sources in the TextThere are two main formats for citing in-text references:

i. An alphabetical or Harvard system in which the author(s) are

cited with the date of publication and aii. Numeric system where an Arabic numeral as a superscript is

used to indicate a reference.

In-text references in print publications usually include the author'

s

last name and the page number of the reference (humanities styles)or the author

's last name, and the date of publication (scientificstyles). However, if there are more than two authors only the firstauthor"s surname is cited followed by etal.

In citations of print sources, subsequent references to the same workneed not repeat the date of publication, instead an indication of aprevious citation viz: op cit, would be considered adequate. Where anauthor has more than one publication in the same year, these would


be distinguished by using alphabetical list in lower case as "a", "b", "c"etc. -e.g. (Allotey, 2004a, Allotey 2004b):

References to electronic sources normally relate to the World WideWeb (www) or Internet and non-print source materials. Usuallycitations include only an author

's last name or, if no author's name is

available, the file name and for scientific styles, the date ofpublication or the date of access if no publication date (n.d) isavailable.

For files with no designation, of author or other responsible personor organization, the file name include in parentheses (i.e., cgos.html)serves as the author. For scientific styles with no designation ofpublication date or date of last revision or modification, the date ofaccess instead, in day-month-year format is included (i.e., 16February 2004)

3.2

. Documenting sources in the Bibliography/ReferenceChapterPrint sourced matter

The citations listed at the end of a piece of written work (thebibliography) should include all the literature, whether in print or inelectronic form, used in the preparation of the piece of work. Theinformation given should make it possible to find each work citedeasily.

Compilation ofthe BibliographyThe in-text citations are arranged in the Bibliography/Reference listalphabetically by author interfiling books, articles, etc.As in the in-text citations there are 2 systems of linking references tothe citations: the Humanities and the Scientific styles show clearly inthe arrangement of details offered. For example, if reference is to acontribution from a bookthe following is acceptable:


Surname, initials (author], Title of book, Publisher,s name and city,Publication date, Pages (number)

For a periodical, the following details are expected:Surname, initials (author), Title of article, Periodical Title Volumeand issue numbers

, Starting page-End page.

Examples of citations of print sourced matter1

. Turabian, K.L.A. (1996). Manual for Term Papers, Theses, andDissertation, 6th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

2. Nathwani, D. and Malek, M. (1999). Cost considerations in the

evaluation of new therapies for gram-positive bacteria. Int JAntimicorb Agents; 13:71-78

Documenting Information from Electronic SourcesFor electronic sources, however, some elements may be missing ormust be translated into modern elements that are understood in this

era. For example, in place of an author's name, authors may only uselogin names, a file name instead of a title. The place of publication andthe name of the publisher are replaced online by the protocol andaddress, and rather than a date of publication, the date you access thesites may by the only means of designating the specific "edition" of an

online work. On the WWW, there is always one page, regardless of itslength.

The citation should consist of the author and title of the text, plus the

URL and the latest date given in the cited work. If there is a printedversion, the citation should be given in the usual form

, and the URLadded to it. The date the source was accessed online should be giveni n sq uare brackets at the end of the reference.

Humanities StyleAuthor's Last Name

, First Name "Title of Document". Title ofComplete Work (if applicable). Version or File Number (if applicable).Document date or date of last revision (if applicable).

Document date


or date of last revision (if different from access date). Protocol and

address, access path or directories (date of access enclosed in

parentheses)

Scientific StyleAuthor's Last Name, Initial(s). (if multiple authors these should belisted one after the other) Date of document (if different from dateaccessed). Title of complete work (if applicable) (Edition or revision)(if applicable). Protocol and address, access path, or directories thedate accessed, enclosed in parentheses).

Examples:1

. Law, P. (1992) "Relationships between Labour & AfricanNationalist Liberation Movements in Southern African,

"

fht.t.p: / Zneal.ctstates.edu /history /world history/archivers/limb l.html], (accessed 2005 January 18).

2. The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. Medical

guidelines for the management of diabetes mellitus (2002

update). The AACEC system of intensive diabetes self-

management. Endocr Pract; 8(suppl 1): 40-84.

www.aace.com/clin/guidelines/diabetes 2002.pdf (accessed

2003 July 6).


Appendix 4

TABLE 1 SAMPLE FORMAT OF SUMMARY OF SOME CONTENTSOF THESIS

Title Page Required

Certification Page Required

Abstract Required

Copyright Page Optional

Table of Contents Required

List of Tables Required

List of Figures Required

Acknowledgment Required

Introduction Required

Literature Review (Theory) Required (optional)

Experimental[Materials and Methods

Required

Results* Required

Discussion* RequiredConclusions and

RecommendationsRequired

References/LiteratureCited/Bibliographv**

Required

Appendix(ces) As Required

* Results and Discussions may be combined in some Department** These are elaborated on above in Appendix 3


r

SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIESKwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

Manual for thesis Presentation for

Masters and Doctoral Degrees

Design PrGSS, College ofArt&Social Sciences. KNUSTÿ We Print in Style. Tel 05162181.024 4 461598

thesis graduate sch manual

Documents

graduate school board

school of graduate studies11

university in1974

thesis presentation

binding of thesis

length of thesis

uniformity of thesis

certification page