Skip to content

There is little to no formal requirements for how you should write your thesis. That said there are some common practices that you should follow. For example, since you are a computer science student we very much expect that you write your thesis in LaTex. A good starting template for your thesis is this DTU thesis template.

🏗️ Structure

Your thesis should follow common academic structure overall which includes but not limited to:

  • Introduction

  • Background

  • Methodology

  • Results

  • Discussion

  • Conclusion

That said, the most important thing is that you tell a good coherent story that is easy to read. Therefore, if this means that you need to deviate from the common structure, then do so. Here are links to projects I have supervised that follows the more common structure (available for download through DTU library, requires DTU account):

Here is an example of projects where the final thesis does not follow the common structure, because the reading flow is better this way:

📊 Figures

An image is worth a thousand words

This old saying is still very much true. Figures are a critical part of your thesis. They help the reader understand your work and can often convey information that is hard to put into words. Therefore, you should make sure that you have high-quality figures in your thesis.

Citations in figures

If you use figures from other sources (which is completely fine), you should make sure that you cite the source of the figure directly in the figure caption. This is important to make sure you are not plagiarizing!.

Save the figures as vector-graphics (pdf, svg, eps) if possible. This will make sure that the figures are of high quality and can be scaled to any size without loss of quality. In relation to this, if possible make sure that your figures are generated by code! Why is this? because you are most likely going to reproduce the figures multiple times. If you have a script that generates the figures, then you can easily reproduce the figures. Also, if the figure contains text, make sure that the text is approximately the same size as the main text.

Finally, remember to refer to the figures in the text and describe it at least short details. If you do not refer to a figure or do not use the figure in the text, it is a good indication that the figure is not needed and should be removed from your thesis.

📖 References

As part of your thesis you are required to include relevant references and citations. This is standard scientific practice. Importantly, anything can count as a reference. This includes but is not limited to:

  • Books
  • Papers
  • Blogs
  • Code repositories
  • Technical documentation
  • Websites
  • ...

However, it is highly recommended that you at least have a handful of scientific papers (peers reviewed) in your references. There is no strict requirement for how many references you should have, but a good rule of thumb is to have at least 30+ references. For keeping track of your references, you should use a reference manager. There are many reference managers out there, but I would recommend Mendeley since DTU students gets extended institutional edition for free.

🤖 Generative AI

DTU is embracing the use of AI in teaching

That is the overall statement regarding the use of AI at DTU. Therefore, you are in principal free to use generative AI in your thesis as much as possible. However, you should be transparent about it. This means that you should disclose in the thesis that you have used generative AI. DTU follows the Vancouver Convention for citing AI-generated text.

Vancouver Convention

At submission, the journal should require authors to disclose whether they used Artificial Intelligence (AI)– assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots, or image creators) in the production of submitted work. Authors who use such technology should describe, in both the cover letter and the submitted work in the appropriate section if applicable, how they used it. For example, if AI was used for writing assistance, describe this in the acknowledgment section (see Section II.A.3). If AI was used for data collection, analysis, or figure generation, authors should describe this use in the methods (see Section IV.A.3.d). Chatbots (such as ChatGPT) should not be listed as authors because they cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work, and these responsibilities are required for authorship (see Section II.A.1). Therefore, humans are responsible for any submitted material that included the use of AI-assisted technologies. Authors should carefully review and edit the result because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. Authors should be able to assert that there is no plagiarism in their paper, including in text and images produced by the AI. Humans must ensure there is appropriate attribution of all quoted material, including full citations.

From the ICMJE guidelines

Thus, in the appendix of your thesis you should add a section where you describe how you have used generative AI in your thesis. The most up-to-date guidelines regarding DTU rules regarding the use of generative AI can be found here

🧩 Miscellaneous

  • You should in the introduction have one or more research questions that you try to answer in your thesis. It is important that you therefore in the conclusion answer these research questions clearly. It will tie the whole thesis together. If you have multiple research questions, consider numbering them, e.g. RQ1, RQ2, etc. for easy reference.

  • When referring to a figure, table, appendix, section, etc. always capitalize the first letter and preferably use the abbreviation. For example, "Figure 1" instead of "figure 1" or "Fig. 1". This is a common practice in academic writing. More examples:

    See figure 1 -> Figure 1 or Fig. 1
See table 1 -> Table 1 or Tab. 1
See appendix A -> Appendix A or App. A
See section 1 -> Section 1 or Sec. 1
See equation 1 -> Equation 1 or Eq. 1
See algorithm 1 -> Algorithm 1 or Alg. 1

  • When citing multiple references in latex instead of doing

    As shown in \cite{ref1}\cite{ref2}\cite{ref3}
# Renders as: As shown in [1][2][3]

    do

    As shown in \cite{ref1, ref2, ref3}
# Renders as: As shown in [1, 2, 3]

    Preferably, make sure the references are sorted in the list by number.

  • When creating table with multiple columns indicating some kind of performance, always be clear about the direction of the performance. For example, accuracy is better when it is higher, while mean squared error (MSE) is better when it is lower. If you have a mix of performance metrics, consider adding ↑ and ↓ to the column names to indicate the direction of the performance. For example:

    \begin{table}[ht]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|l|c|c|}
\hline
\textbf{Model} & \textbf{Accuracy (\uparrow)} & \textbf{MSE (\downarrow)} \\
\hline
Model A & 0.95 & 0.01 \\
Model B & 0.90 & 0.02 \\
Model C & 0.85 & 0.03 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{Performance of different models}
\label{tab:model_performance}
\end{table}

🔍 Supervisor Review

If you want feedback on your thesis, ask your supervisor if they are willing to do it. There are no formal rules on how much/little your supervisor may help with your thesis, but ask them in good time, and they will most likely be happy to help you.