Templates & Guidelines
- TUM Thesis LaTeX Template
- TUM Thesis Guidelines
- For citations in your thesis follow the TUM Citation Guide and choose one of the TUM recommended citation styles, which you will also find in there.
- Approximate number of pages to be written (this is supposed to be a general orientation value and the number of pages may differ in your case):
- Exposé: 3-5 pages
- Guided Research: 8-12 pages
- Bachelor's Thesis: 40-60 pages
- Master's Thesis: 50-80 pages
- Your thesis should contain a maximum of two levels of subsections as in the example below. Restructure your thesis to avoid more than two levels.
1. Section
1.1 First Subsection Level
1.1.1 Second Subsection Level
- Use “we“ to refer to yourself or possible co-authors. Even in theses having only one author, “we“ is commonly used to draw the reader into the discussion at hand, as in “the author and the readers“. However, using the passive voice is also acceptable.
Thesis Example Structure
The following structure is intended for orientation purposes. Usually, the thesis is written in consultation with the supervisor, which may result in a different structure.
- Cover Page (Formatting according to the TUM Guidelines)
- Title Page (Formatting according to the TUM Guidelines)
- TUM Declaration & Handwritten Signature (Content and Formatting acccording to the TUM Guidelines)
- Acknowledgements (optional)
- Abstract
- Briefly state the problem and solution your thesis is about. Should not be more than half a page.
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- The Introduction should include the problem statement and motivation of your research, the objective and the research question(s) you will adress.
- At the end you can give a short overview of your research approach.
- Related Work
- This part should include relevant related research to your topic based on an in-depth literature review.
- Main Part
- The main part should be organized in several chapters in a way that reveals best the intention of the thesis.
- The core part should represent - in conjunction with the previous sections - a comprehensive exposition that does not require additional literature in order to be fully understood.
- Some section proposals you might want to include here:
- Methods - State your research design and used methods.
- Experiments - State your different conducted experiments.
- Results - Present the results of your experiments in a suitble way.
- Discussion
- Discuss your thesis results critically.
- Explain the advantages and disadvantages of your evaluation methods.
- State the limitations of your thesis results.
- Discuss possible impacts of your results on future research.
- Conclusion & Outlook
- Summarize the most vital parts of your thesis.
- Essential experiences may be decribed as well.
- At the end, you may describe your own view about future developments in the research field covered by your thesis.
- Appendix (if necessary)
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Glossary (optional)
- List of Symbols (optional)
- List of Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- A complete and consistent list of all references.
Exposé Example Structure
The following structure is intended for orientation purposes. Usually, the exposé is written in consultation with the supervisor, which may result in a different structure.
- Title Page (Formatting according to the TUM Guidelines)
- Table of Contents
- Introduction (approx. 1 page)
- The Introduction should include the problem statement and motivation of your research, the objective and the research question(s) you will adress.
- Literature Review and Theoretical Background (approx. 1 page)
- State the theoretical foundations and refer to 3-5 related works that you have already identified during a literature search.
- Research Design (approx. 1 page)
- State the research methods and experiments that you plan to conduct.
- Appendix
- Include a timetable for your research.
- Include a provisional table of contents for your thesis.
- Bibliography
- A complete and consistent list of all references you used for the exposé.