Thesis Presentation Advice

Undergraduate Specific Information

The information below provides guidance and information for writing Undergraduate Research Theses and Extended Essays.

 

1. Devising the Topic

Coming up with a clear thesis topic is one of the most challenging parts of the thesis exercise, and often comes from careful consideration of both a potential question (or set of questions), and a body of sources.

You might already have a clear idea of what kinds of question you would like to answer - perhaps generated by your reading of the historiography around a particular topic - or you might have a body of sources you would like to probe for the information they can bring to light about a topic or idea.

In both cases, it is useful to start a dialogue between these two elements. Can your sources answer the questions you are asking of them? Do your questions lend themselves to a particular kind of question? You will likely find that, in the course of considering this, your sources and/or your questions change. It is therefore good to start thinking about your thesis topic early, so that you have enough time to think through possible ideas and are not stuck if you find that your initial ideas don't work out.

2. Refining the Topic

The topic you study will almost certainly end up being much narrower than your initial idea. Many students begin by proposing what is in effect a tutorial essay: but the broad questions asked in a tutorial essay are much too large to provide a viable research project. A thesis topic should be tightly focused on a discrete body of sources, and while it might touch on larger issues - such as the causes of the Reformation - it should aim to do so through smaller and more precisely defined sub-questions. 

Students are often concerned that their thesis is not sufficiently 'original'. Originality in historical writing is not a matter of coming up with a great theory which will change the world, but simply making progress on a historical question or possibly in finding new material. You may start with a well-worn question which can be reassessed, perhaps by looking at new sources, or by looking at sources already deployed in new ways. You might think that historians have not asked a particular question in a particular field: perhaps comparison with other historiographies or theories will have alerted you to the possibility of probing this issue. You may then examine well-thumbed sources to examine these new questions. So not everything about your research needs to be new: but the combination of your questions and the sources you use will generate a new piece of work which can be said to be original.

3. Refining the Sources

The sources you choose should also be manageable in terms of the time you have to read them. You will need to make sure that you have enough sources to answer the question you pose, and that the sources you have resonate with each other. On the other hand, choose too large an archive of sources and you will find yourself unable to analyse them properly - or, indeed, read them all in time.

You should also give some consideration to the kinds of sources that you would like to read. If you choose a topic that is not rooted in modern British history, do you have the language and palaeographic skills to access the documents you need? Are there sources available in translation or publication that you might be able to consult to help you? If you are conducting a more modern historical study, would it be valuable to conduct an oral history project - and if so, will you be able to conduct your interviews professionally and in good time? 

It can be impressive to investigate unpublished sources, especially if they are in difficult languages and inaccessible forms such as virtually illegible handwriting. It is not necessary, however, to use unpublished material. Your examiners are aware that not all students will be able to travel to far-off archives or read non-English sources, but, more importantly, it is primarily the use that is made of evidence in the light of the questions asked of it that will determine the quality of the thesis. There are many kinds of published materials available, including non-verbal sources, and translations of sources also help to open up access to cultures which might otherwise be inaccessible.

The librarians and curators of Oxford’s many specialist collections welcome well-organized undergraduate historians who seek to use their materials. Experience suggests that many thesis writers have found intellectual riches in libraries or collections they scarcely knew existed prior to the annual Thesis Fair. Students seeking to consult rare books and manuscripts in the Bodleian system may be required to download a permission form and obtain their tutor or advisor’s signature.

Once you have framed a viable research project, you may be able to sketch out how it might look as a structured thesis. The structure might be determined by a succession of questions you wish to ask, or by the examination of a succession of different sources. Your initial plan, however, is almost certain to change in the course of your detailed research. Even so, it is good to start with a hypothetical plan which can then evolve in the light of experience.

This is partly to ensure that your research remains focused. You will likely find that your sources are fascinating once you delve into them, and it is tempting to accumulate knowledge for its own sake. But as you accumulate material, you should think about its significance and the arguments it may be suggesting. You may have started with a clear hypothesis which you will need to keep testing and refining – or possibly rejecting – as you go along. Alternatively, your questions may acquire more definition in the light of the specific evidence.

Don’t leave it until you have finished your primary research to start thinking about what it all might mean. If you keep thinking all the way through, you will arrive at the end with a clearer sense of an argument already taking shape. You may be able, in a limited way, to take your later research in unanticipated directions: you may need to ask new questions of your original sources, or your revised hypotheses may point you to sources you hadn’t originally planned to consult. In this way your analysis will go further than it would if you turned off your thinking during research.

Your plan will therefore evolve with your argument. Undergraduate theses often have three substantive chapters, but both two and four are common. As with a tutorial essay, the structure must be dictated above all by the argument you wish to make.

1. Introduction

In the introduction to your thesis, you will need to make clear to the examiners what questions you are asking, and how these relate to the current or past historiography - or, perhaps, why no such literature yet exists. There may also be theoretical background to your thesis which you need to set out before moving on to your own analysis.

You should explain why you have chosen your specific set of sources, identify any particular features or problems with them, and set out what it is that you hope to derive from them. You need not state your argument at the beginning of your thesis, but you should be clear from the outset about the direction that your thesis is taking.

2. Substantive Chapters

Much as with the paragraphs of a tutorial essay, the chapters of your thesis should follow on from one another to form a logical argument which responds to the questions you are asking. While each chapter might contain a discrete set of information, or be focused around a particular theme, you should always keep in mind what arguments have preceded it, and what arguments will follow on in subsequent chapters. The points you make should be substantiated with the evidence you have collected in the course of your research, and the substance of your discussion should always encompasses both your argument and the detailed evidence which drives it.

Although you may bring in the work of other historians to support the arguments you are making, or to set your thesis in its historiographical context, you should remember that the thesis is your work of original research, and that your analysis of the sources should always be at the heart of the discussion. 

12,000 words will seem a daunting length at the outset: but most students ultimately find that they have written too much and need to make cuts in the later stages. Don’t, therefore, start off by over-writing in order to fill your wordage: try to be clear and concise from the start. It goes without saying that clarity is highly prized in historical writing. Elegance and verbal sophistication are certainly desirable qualities, but should never come at the expense of a clear and comprehensible argument.

3. Conclusion

A concise and pithy conclusion is always a satisfying way to finish a sustained piece of writing. However, you should not spend time replicating your argument in detail; it should anyway have emerged clearly in your substantive chapters. Instead, use the conclusion to draw together the threads of your argument, to highlight the broader points that they speak to, and to suggest any ambiguities that may still remain. A good thesis will always lead onto further questions to be asked and hypotheses to be tested, and it may be that you will want to do this yourself in master’s or even doctoral research.

The synopsis is intended to clarify for the Chair of Examiners the field of your dissertation, the questions it will address, and the methods and sources it will use to do this; it will also thereby help you crystallize your thoughts well in advance of Hilary Term. As the synopsis may not be longer than 250 words, it must be succinct, and focused on these essentials; and it must therefore have been properly thought-through, rather than offering general preliminary ideas as to a possible field of exploration.

  1. The synopsis should locate the area of study in which the thesis falls, in terms of both themes and location in time and space; e.g. ‘gender aspects of early modern witchcraft’ or ‘the role of technology in modern warfare’.
  2. It should then define precisely the problem or problems which the thesis will seek to address. This may arise from discussion of the sources, or of the historiography, or both; but whatever the case, the thesis must be directed towards discussion of a clearly-defined problem. It is not enough to indicate the general field in which exploration will take place.
  3. Often the problem will be defined by reference to existing historiography: either the issue will not have been addressed (or not adequately so) by current writing on the subject, in which case it should be made clear exactly what has and has not been done; or, the thesis will address an argument which has been put forward but which needs further testing or indeed challenging. Either way, the historiographical context needs to be spelt out clearly.
  4. The synopsis must then identify the sources which will be used to address the problem, and thus also the precise area of study in terms of time and place (which may have been explained under 2). The methods by which these sources will help address the problem should also be explained as precisely as possible.
  5. The title should describe the field of the thesis as precisely but also as succinctly as possible. It has not been customary for thesis titles to be framed as questions.

In practice thesis-topics are refined in the process of research, as the sources themselves suggest new questions, and thinking about problems leads one to look at new sources. (And students commonly only fulfil a part of the agenda they had originally set themselves.) Note that the completed thesis is not judged against the submitted synopsis.

It is nevertheless important for the Examiners to have a clear idea of what you are planning at this stage, so that they can identify suitable examiners in advance of submission; changes of topic are rarely so radical as to require different examiners. Moreover, you need to start research with a topic which has been as clearly defined and thought-through as it can be, so as to be sure that your topic is viable and will not fall apart in Hilary Term once you begin to probe it properly.

Your thesis must be fully and accurately footnoted, and contain a bibliography of all the material used in its preparation. The Faculty’s guidelines on presentation and referencing can be found above.

Accuracy and consistency are crucial in the presentation of your thesis. Learning to write correct footnotes and bibliographies is one of the key aims of the thesis exercise, and there are mark-penalties that will be applied for inconsistencies and errors in presentation and footnoting. More information about this can be found under the Undergraduate Handbooks - General Appendixes.

While, therefore, your timetable is tight and you cannot afford to finish research and to start writing too early, you must also ensure that you leave enough time for the final stages of revising your argument, clarifying your prose, and getting the technicalities right – in addition to printing and binding. The submission-deadline is not flexible, and hasty final production can detract from a strong and interesting thesis.

Careful referencing will also ensure that you avoid opening yourself to accusations of plagiarism. While conducting your research, you should make careful note of the texts and pages in which you found particular pieces of information, however trivial they may seem at the time - you may find yourself needing to return to an argument in the course of your writing, and this will prevent you from wasting valuable time hunting for half-remembered details. When taking notes, you should also be careful to record where you have quoted an historian's own words directly, to avoid inadvertently plagiarising them down the line.

Specific Guidance on Presentation

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For the main text please use a clear, legible font, ideally in 12 point, double-spaced. For footnotes, use 10 point size, and single-spaced.

Pagination should run through consecutively from beginning to end and include any appendices, bibliography etc. Cross-references should include page numbers.

After the title-page should normally follow in sequence, all these elements up to and including the conclusion counting towards the word limit, except for a List of Illustrations:

  1. Table of Contents. This should show in sequence, with page numbers, the subdivisions of the thesis/essay. The titles of any chapters and appendices should be given. (Such a table may well be unnecessary in an extended essay.)
  2. List of abbreviations (if any: use only for frequently-cited sources) and/or List of illustrations. This should include the captions for any illustrations embedded in the text (see p 18 of the Guide to Referencing for form).
  3. Preface or Introduction. This should be used to call the examiners’ attention to the aims and broad argument(s) of the work, along with any relevant points about sources, historiographical context, and obligations to other historians’ work. This too may not be needed in an extended essay.
  4. Main body of the thesis or extended essay, divided into chapters, if applicable. Each chapter should have a clear descriptive title.
  5. Conclusion. A few hundred words summarising the conclusions and their implications.
  6. Bibliography. This is essential, and should be sensibly selective. It should include everything cited in the thesis or extended essay, and omit nothing which has been important in producing it. But it should not necessarily include everything which may have been read or consulted.

Quotations from verse, if of more than one line, should be indented and in single spacing.

Quotations from prose should run on in the text if they do not exceed two or three lines, otherwise they too should be indented and in single spacing.

Inverted commas are not necessary when the quotation is indented. Otherwise use single inverted commas, except for quotations within quotations, which are distinguished by double inverted commas.

Quotations should keep the spelling used in the original documents and not be modernized. When quotations include contracted forms, the contractions should normally be extended and the extension indicated by square brackets.

Normally, quotations from a foreign language source should be presented in the body of the text in the original. You may wish to provide translations in footnotes. When translations are given in addition to the quotation in the original language, the translations do not count towards the word limit. (You will have to deduct them manually.)

Underlining or italics should be used:

  1. For the titles of books, plays and periodicals.
  2. For technical terms or phrases in languages other than English (but not for quotations or complete sentences).
  3. For the following abbreviations and Latin phrases (if used; in many cases the English equivalent is preferable):
    Abbreviation Latin Translation Usage
    a. anno 'in the year of'

    Used to indicate a year in the Gregorian calendar.
    cap. capitulus 'chapter' Used before a chapter number when referring to laws of the UK
    c. circa 'approximately' Used with dates to indicate that the date is an approximation.
    e.g. exempli gratia 'for example' Used to introduce an example.
    ibid. ibidem 'in the same place' Used to cite the exact same source as previously used.
    id. idem 'the same' Used to refer to the immediately preceding cited authority.
    infra 'below' Used to refer to material cited in a subsequent footnote.
    passim 'throughout' Used to say that information can be found throughout a text.
    supra. 'above' Used to refer to material cited in an earlier footnote.
    vs. versus 'against' Used to indicate opposition in legal cases.
    v. vide 'refer to' Used to indicate that a reader should see a named source of authority.
    viz. videlicet 'namely' Used to indicate that what follows is a detailed description of a prior concept, or a complete list of group members.

     

Capitals should be used as sparingly as possible. They should be used for institutions and corporate bodies when the name is the official title or part of the official title; but for titles and dignities of individuals only when those are followed by the person’s name: thus ‘Duke William of Normandy’, but ‘William, duke of Normandy’, ‘the duke’.

Dates should be given in the form: 13 October 1966; and unless the contrary is indicated it is to be assumed that the date refers to the year beginning on 1 January.

Double dates in Old and New Style should be given in the form: 11/22 July 1705.

In footnotes, names of months may be abbreviated: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May., June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec., but they should not be abbreviated in the text itself.

The purpose of a reference is to enable the reader to turn up the evidence for any quotation or statement, and to identify which ideas and arguments in the thesis/essay are the student’s and which have been taken from other sources. But judgement must be used in deciding whether a reference needs to be given or not. A reference need not be given for a familiar quotation used for purely literary purposes, nor for a statement of fact which no reader would question. Any reference given must be precise.

Footnotes count towards the overall word-limit. The practice of putting into footnotes information which cannot be digested in the text should be avoided. Notes should be printed at the foot of the page in single spacing. Footnote numbers in the text should be superior and not bracketed.

Although the Faculty of History permits students to use a range of Humanities reference styles in their essays and submissions, this is not without limit. 

The following four referencing styles are permitted by the Faculty:

  • Oxford History Faculty Style (Author-Title style only)
  • Modern Language Association (MLA)
  • Modern Humanities Research Association (MRHA; Author-Title style only)
  • Chicago 16th Edition (Notes & Bibliography style only)

Details of these referencing styles can be found on the Writing Advice page.

Please Note: The above referencing styles are those permitted for submission of work within the Faculty of History. Joint Schools students may find that different faculties have different approved referencing styles for submitted work. If there is doubt about which styles are permitted, students should check with their departmental administrators.

The bibliography should be divided into:

  1. Manuscript Sources
  2. Printed Sources
  3. Any other sources (websites, interviews etc)

Printed sources should be subdivided into:

  1. Primary Sources
  2. Secondary Sources.

Manuscript sources should be listed according to the places in which they are found. Printed sources should be listed alphabetically, by surname of author. Anonymous printed sources should be listed alphabetically by the first word of the title (excluding the articles ‘The’, ‘A’, ‘An’ or their foreign equivalents).

Illustrations may be gathered in an Appendix at the end of the thesis/essay, or, if you prefer, incorporated with the text.

The ‘List of Illustrations’ should include the same as the captions provided for any illustrations included. As relevant and/or known, these should include the following information, in the recommended order:

  1. Artist/architect
  2. Title of work/name of building
  3. Size
  4. Medium
  5. Date of production
  6. Present location
  7. Brief reference for the source of the illustration (e.g., your own photograph, a museum photograph, copied from a book or the internet).

You should illustrate your thesis carefully since good illustrations can be vital to supporting your arguments. You should use good quality photocopied or scanned illustrations of images, objects or buildings discussed at any length in the text.

Illustrations can be in black and white; colour illustrations are only necessary if used to support a specifically ‘colour-related’ point in your argument or discussion.

Illustrations should be numbered sequentially. Captions can be included below each illustration or they can simply be numbered Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc., since the examiners will be able to refer to the ‘List of Illustrations’ for the full caption. Make sure you refer to your illustrations at appropriate points in your text and argument, with the relevant figure number in brackets, thus: (Fig. 10).

Lists of Illustrations are considered bibliographical information and are excluded from the word count.

If you have supporting data that would be useful for your markers to know, you may ask permission to put it in an Appendix. This data may take the form of images, maps, tables, charts or graphs, but please note that it is not a mechanism for including text that you have no space for in the thesis. An Appendix should be brief.

To request permission to add an Appendix, write an email addressed to the Chair of the FHS Board of Examiners and state exactly what you propose to put in the Appendix and how long it is, then send the email to undergraduate.office@history.ox.ac.uk.

Appendices do not count towards your word count. Candidates who have conducted oral interviews may include an appendix containing the permission forms and/or transcripts without permission from the Chair. Candidates must be careful to redact their own names from permission forms

Avoiding plagiarism See your relevant course handbook for information about plagiarism. Make sure you read and understand the rules of plagiarism as they are taken extremely seriously by the examiners and the Proctors.
Overlap
  1. Your thesis must not be substantially based on the same sources as are set for your Further or Special Subject.
  2. In answering questions on other papers in Finals you should not make substantial use of the material submitted in your thesis, with the exception of Disciplines of History.
Length

The thesis must not be longer than 12,000 words, including footnotes, but excluding bibliography. There are three exceptions to this limit.

  • Translations: when passages are quoted in a language other than English and an English translation provided, only the original quotation and not the translation should be counted towards the word limit.
  • Appendices: where you want to include some of your research material (e.g. tables, or short texts that are fundamental to the argument) without it counting towards the word-limit, you need specific permission from the Chair of Examiners.
    Requests should be made in good time, addressed to the Chair of Examiners via the History Undergraduate Office (undergraduate.office@history.ox.ac.uk). Please include a brief
    description of the content of the proposed appendix together with rationale for its inclusion, and some indication of size in word length.
  • Editions: a thesis may take the form of a critical edition of a text, in which case the regulations on word length in the Regulations VI 10, sections iii and x, apply (see Appendix 1 of your course handbook).
Format

All theses must be uploaded as a single PDF file that includes title page, essays and bibliography. The main text should be double-spaced, footnotes and bibliography single spaced. Candidates should pay attention to the word-limit, as they will be penalized for exceeding it. Theses should have a title page, showing the title, candidate number, (but NOT name or college) the word-count of the thesis, and the referencing style used. The words in the title page and in the bibliography do not count towards the total word count, but everything else does, including footnotes.

Candidates must NOT write their name ANYWHERE on the thesis.

Thesis documents should be named in accordance with these conventions: Candidate number.course.paper number, (course is either HIST, AMH, HECO, HENG, HML or HPOL; the paper number for the main school History thesis is A10771S1).
Deadline All candidates must submit the PDF of their thesis, via Inspera, in accordance with the instructions that will be provided, not later than noon on Friday of Eighth Week of the Hilary Term of their final year. If you have reason for breaching this deadline you should apply through your college Senior Tutor to the Proctors; they will decide on the length of any extension in consultation with the Chair of the Examiners.
Authorship

Each thesis must be accompanied by a certificate, submitted by the candidate, making the following declaration in exactly the form indicated. Forms for this purpose are available to download from Canvas:

https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/21314
Avoiding plagiarism See your relevant course handbook for information about plagiarism. Make sure you read and understand the rules of plagiarism as they are taken extremely seriously by the examiners and the Proctors.
Overlap  
Length  
Format  
Deadline  
Authorship  

The University is committed to ensuring that its research involving human participants is conducted in a way that respects the dignity, rights, and welfare of participants, and minimises risk to participants, researchers, third parties, and to the University itself. All such research needs to be subject to appropriate ethical review. More information can be found at the Research Ethics website and an online training course can be accessed on Canvas.

Information about travel grants available for supporting your research can be found here: Prizes and Travel Grants

Colleges vary in how early they encourage or require students to start thinking about a thesis-topic. But from the middle of Trinity Term of the second year the timetables converge, and the final Hilary Term is entirely devoted to the thesis for main-school History undergraduates. Joint-school students may need to follow a different timetable, for instance by dividing their research and writing between the final Michaelmas and Hilary Terms.

2nd year Hilary Term
  • Attend Faculty Lecture, Framing an Undergraduate Thesis.

(Colleges may have started the process of framing a topic.)
Trinity Term
  • 1st week: Attend the Undergraduate Thesis Fair in Examination Schools.
  • Early: by now College tutors will have asked you to identify the general field you want to research.
  • Refine the topic and identify possible sources so as to be able to:
    • Meet a specialist supervisor.
    • Identify historiography, both of the broad field and related to the specific issues you wish to research.
    • Identify and sample sources to identify precisely the questions they can answer, leading to more precise identification of the body of source-material.
    • Work out any training needs to enable you to conduct the research.
    • Work out a timetable and plan for the rest of the process.

You should have a viable project by the beginning of the long vacation; this means one that you know will work in terms of finding sources accessible to you which will answer the questions you put to them. Although the questions may evolve somewhat in the course of detailed research, you need to know that the sources will produce enough material for you to build arguments on.
Long Vacation You may need to conduct some or even all of the primary research, if your sources are abroad or otherwise far away; or you may wish to make progress either with the primary evidence, and/or with secondary reading. Perhaps sketch out an initial structure for the thesis in the light of these.
3rd year Michaelmas Term

Apart from the two moments below, you should not assume that you will be able to make any progress with your thesis between early October and mid- January, given the demands of the Special Subject, which counts for two out of seven of your Finals marks

  • Start: Meeting with supervisor to report progress.
  • Friday of 6th week: Submit proposed title and brief synopsis (not more than 250 words) for the approval of the Chair of the FHS Board of Examiners by Friday of week 6, using the thesis title submission form from Canvas here:  https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/21314

See the guidelines for writing this synopsis below, Appendix 4
Hilary Term

Note that some supervisors may ask for chapters to be rewritten and submitted successively through the term rather than all in one towards the end. This will partly depend on the nature of your sources, since in some cases you will not be able to start writing the main chapters until all the research is complete. What follows is a common but not universal pattern.

  • 1st-4th weeks: complete research and secondary reading.
  • Consultation meetings with supervisor as appropriate.
  • Friday 4th week: deadline for changes to the original title to be submitted for the approval of the Chair of the FHS Board of Examiners.
  • Mid-term: refine and finalise plan, with supervisor’s advice.
  • 5th & 6th weeks: write a draft (or redraft previous drafts if you have done some).
  • c.7th week: final meeting with supervisor to receive feedback on draft.
  • 7th-8th weeks: final draft taking account of feedback; finalise footnotes and bibliography, leading to hand-in.

Please do not give your supervisor a draft of the thesis in week 8 and expect a 24 hour turnaround.

The thesis requires commitment, and a very high level of personal motivation and organization. The burden of time-management and effective working falls on you. The eight weeks of Hilary Term are not a long time for this exercise, which is why it is essential to have identified a viable topic and sources in the second year and to make a plan for the remaining time then. Moreover, in that final term you need to use your time very efficiently. The student who has not thought through the initial practicalities of the thesis subject before the beginning of term, or who spends four weeks pursuing unrealistic research goals, or above all the students who fritters away half or more of the term not getting down to serious work, will have insurmountable problems in pulling together an adequate thesis. It is important to be aware that the Examiners will judge a thesis against the amount of work that a diligent undergraduate could be expected to have done over a full academic term. A submission based on obviously limited reading and amounting to little more than a longer version of a tutorial essay will be heavily penalized. It is possible to gain exceptionally high marks for a thesis, and some students who do not excel in closed examination papers demonstrate spectacular prowess in such work submitted in their own time. But it is also possible to gain far worse marks for a bad thesis than for a moderately poor performance in a three-hour paper.

The exercise is challenging, and intentionally so. The final advice must therefore be: start thinking about your thesis early; make good use of the summer vacation; and leave plenty of time for editing once you have completed the first draft.

Detailed guidance on the presentation of graduate theses may be found in the drop-down below:

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Style is a personal matter, while the precise structure of an essay, dissertation, or thesis (henceforth referred to collectively as ‘thesis’) will depend on your subject and the kinds of material you use. So any rules given here can only be of the most general kind. You should of course work closely with your supervisor when writing up your thesis, and take his or her advice to arrive at a satisfactory structure for your thesis and to improve style and clarity of expression. These matters are important. Just because you are writing in the first instance only for two examiners, who will have to read through your work at any cost, does not mean that their needs as readers can be ignored. On the contrary, examiners will not be able to evaluate your ideas properly unless they are clearly and logically expressed. Style is as important to a good thesis as it is to a well written book.

In general, you should aim for a plain and succinct style that expresses your ideas clearly and economically. Develop your ideas in a logical sequence – in the thesis as a whole, in individual chapters, and within the sections and paragraphs of each chapter. The introduction is very important, as the starting point from which your argument develops. The precise form of the introduction will vary from thesis to thesis, but almost certainly it and/or the immediately succeeding chapter will discuss problems and sources and relate your work to the existing literature in the field. Thereafter you should make sure you signpost the various parts of your argument clearly, when necessary referring forward and back to later and earlier parts of the thesis. Avoid laboured and pedantic expression, and do not overload your text with redundant detail or excessive qualification. Use your judgement in developing arguments and deploying evidence. A novel assertion or new line of argument will need to be well supported; a truism or accepted conclusion will not. Do not be too defensive. Candidates should assume that examiners will be critical, but they will not be hypercritical or purely destructive.

Format is obviously a less central problem but is nonetheless important in presenting your work ‘in a lucid and scholarly manner’. Tidy and rational presentation makes for easy reading, while references that are incorrectly or unsystematically cited can be very irritating if not actually misleading. Even if your thesis is excellent in every other respect, the examiners may require you to correct imperfections in the presentation before they recommend that you be awarded your degree. You should therefore take great care over format and presentation, and allow yourself sufficient time to proof-read your work carefully before submission. The following suggestions are what the Faculty Board recommends as clear and acceptable referencing.

Candidates should consult the current Examination Regulations for the regulations on presentation and submission of theses.

Three books are invaluable for the authors of scholarly works, including theses. They are New Hart's Rules. The Handbook of Style for Writers and Editors (Oxford, 2005), New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors. The Essential A-Z Guide to the Written Word (Oxford, 2005), and New Oxford Style Manual (2nd ed., Oxford, 2012). Together they form a mine of information on such matters as format for references, expressing dates and numbers, abbreviations, foreign words and phrases, transliterations, abbreviations, common spelling difficulties, and rules of capitalization and punctuation.

Pagination should run consecutively from beginning to end, excluding the abstracts but including the bibliography and any appendices, etc. Cross-references should include page-numbers.

After the title-page should normally follow in sequence:

  1. Preface, if any. This should be kept as short as possible and should be used to call the reader’s attention to any new discoveries and important points about sources, treatment, and obligations to other works. Acknowledgements may also be included.
  2. Acknowledgements (if not included in a preface).
  3. Table of Contents. This should show in sequence, with page-numbers, all the subdivisions of the thesis, including the titles of chapters, appendices, etc.
  4. List of abbreviations, cue-titles, symbols, etc. (see below, para. 6 and 12).
  5. The thesis divided into numbered chapters. Each chapter should have a clear descriptive title. The introduction may form the first chapter, or may stand separate.
  6. Conclusion. The exact form of the conclusion will vary, but it need not be very elaborate. A few hundred words to summarise your conclusions and their implications will often suffice.
  7. Appendices, if any, also with descriptive titles.
  8. Bibliography (see below)

Italics (or underlining if your printer does not have an italic font) should be used:

  1. For the titles of books, plays and periodicals.
  2. For technical terms or phrases in languages other than English (but not for quotations or complete sentences).
  3. For certain abbreviations and expressions, notably a. (anno), c. (circa), et al., passim, sic. Technically the abbreviations ante, etseq., infra,post, supra, v. (vide) should be italicized, but they are better not used. Avoid also loc. cit. and op. cit., which can be in either italic or roman type but are confusing for the reader in either case. — Use ordinary roman type rather than italics for the following abbreviations: c. (chapter of statute, as in 1 Edw. VI, c. 14), ch. (chapter of book), e.g., ibid. (ibidem = in the same place), idem (the same [author]), i.e., q.v. (quod vide = which see), r (recto), s.v. (sub verbo = under a word or heading, as in a dictionary), v. (versus), v (verso), viz. (videlicet = namely).
  4. Occasionally for emphasis: frequent use of italics for this purpose is out of place in academic writing.

These are used to denote the titles of articles and named manuscripts, and for quotations. It is normal to use single inverted commas, except for quotations within quotations, which are distinguished by double inverted commas. Remember always to check that inverted commas are closed as well as opened.

Though admissible in footnotes, abbreviations should be used as little as possible in the body of the text. When used, they should follow some simple standard system and be consistent in form. It is wise to keep a list of your abbreviated forms. In particular, you should make a card, slip or computer entry for each book, article, or volume of documents the first time it is consulted, and include the abbreviated form of reference that is to be used. These entries will also serve as the raw material for the bibliography.

For the common abbreviations used in footnotes, etc., see 5 | Italics & Underlining above

Capitals should be used sparingly in the text of your thesis. They should be used for:

  1. Proper names
  2. Institutions and corporate bodies when the term used is the official title or part of the official title: e.g. ‘King’s Bench’, ‘House of Commons’
  3. ‘The Crown’, ‘the Church’, ‘the House’ (referring to the House of Commons), and similar usages. Use them for titles and dignities of individuals only when these are followed by the person’s name: thus ‘Duke William of Normandy’, but ‘William, duke of Normandy’ or ‘the duke’.
  4. The principal words in the titles of books and articles

Note: Different rules may apply in foreign languages. As a general rule, only the first word is capitalized in titles in European languages other than English, German (which of course capitalizes all nouns), and Welsh (which follows English usage). However, there are various complications. Some of these are detailed in Hart’s Rules, but if after consulting this work you still find yourself in doubt you should take advice from your supervisor.

Quotations in verse, if of more than one line, should be indented and in single spacing. Quotations from prose should run on in the text if they do not exceed two or three lines, otherwise they too should be indented and in single spacing.

You should retain the spelling used in the original documents. Punctuation and capitalization may need to be modernized, but in some contexts, this may be a sensitive issue. You should therefore consult your supervisor on this matter, and your policy should be set out in your list of conventions and abbreviations. When quotations include contracted forms, the contractions should normally be extended and the extension indicated by italics or by square brackets.

Quotations from foreign languages present special difficulties. These vary from case to case, so it is impossible to give absolutely clear-cut advice. You should discuss the issues with your supervisor and take his or her advice. If doubts remain, consult the Director of Graduate Studies. Do this well before you plan to submit your thesis, because it may be necessary to refer the matter to the Graduate Studies Committee. However, the following offers some general points of guidance.

Remember first of all that direct quotation should be used sparingly. Often an English paraphrase or even a brief summary will suffice, thus eliminating the problem of presenting foreign language material. Of course, you must make sure that your summaries or paraphrases are accurate and you must, as always, give precise references to the original material.

That said, there will undoubtedly be many occasions when direct quotations of reasonable length are either desirable or essential. Sometimes it is appropriate to present foreign language sources in the original, particularly when people to whom the thesis will be of interest (including the examiners) may be reasonably expected to be familiar with the language in question, and/or the quotations are very brief. When quotations are extensive or in a variety of different languages it is often better to present them in English translation. It will not normally be necessary to include the original version in the footnotes or appendices, except if you are laying special emphasis on particular phrases or passages (so that the exact form of the original is important), or the original text is in some other way integral to your argument. The argument for full reproduction is obviously stronger in the case of quotations from manuscript sources. If you do include translations, you will need to make allowance for them in your word limit, or in appropriate cases make a special application to the Graduate Studies Committee for an extension of the word limit (if you are working towards an M.St., M.Sc., or M.Phil. such an application is addressed to the Chairman of Examiners for the relevant degree); you can apply for an extension (also for appendices) using the form on OHH here: https://ohh.web.ox.ac.uk/thesis-presentation-advice.

Languages which do not use the Roman alphabet present another range of difficulties. Some basic information, including the British Standard system for the transliteration of Russian, is given in Hart’s Rules. You should also seek the advice of your supervisor.

Illustrations and tables should be labelled sequentially as Figure 1, Figure 2, etc., or Table 1, Table 2, etc., respectively. Each illustration or table should be accompanied by a caption that lists such information as is appropriate to identify the object illustrated. In the case of an artwork or graphs, for example, the caption might list artist, title of the work, date, medium, and current location as well as copyright information as appropriate. The candidate will be expected to provide such information in a logical and coherent way: the captions should be consistent throughout the thesis.

It is usually easier if the illustrations are bound together at the end of the text, though candidates may, if they feel it beneficial, embed illustrations within their text. Tables will most likely be embedded in the text of a thesis, but large tables may sometimes more appropriately be placed in an appendix. A list of illustrations and/or tables should be included in the thesis at the end of the text and before the bibliography. As well as repeating the information given in each caption, the list of illustrations should identify the source (and copyright declaration) of the illustration itself where appropriate.

You must ensure that the visual material included in your submission is pertinent to the argument of the thesis, dissertation, or essay (i.e., of substantive rather than predominantly illustrative character), and consider any potential copyright issues, especially ensuring that full records of the source of a picture or graph and of copyright ownerships are kept and appropriate acknowledgements made in the submitted work. It is your responsibility to ensure that any such material is intrinsically relevant to the case(s) you intend to demonstrate.

Dates should be given in the form: 12 October 1925. Unless the contrary is indicated it is to be assumed that the date refers to the year beginning on 1 January.

Double dates in Old and New Style should be given in the form: 11/22 July 1705.

Periods of years should be given thus: 1732–54, 1743– 9, and 1760– 1820.

In footnotes or similar matter, names of the first four and the last five months of the year may be abbreviated thus: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., Aug. Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.

Other complications of dating and chronology may require special conventions: these should be clearly stated in the list of abbreviations, etc., at the beginning of the thesis.

References should be in single spacing and should normally be placed at the foot of the page. When a reference is given for a statement or quotation, it must be precise. The purpose of a reference is to enable readers to turn up the evidence for any quotation or statement that they may wish to question or pursue. For this reason, it should be absolutely clear, but it need not be long. Lengthy titles of books or manuscripts can be abbreviated, provided that no confusion is thereby caused. The titles of standard works may also be shortened, but not unduly; the abbreviations must be used with consistency, and should be included in the list at the beginning of the thesis. It is more economical and hence preferable to use initials – generally the full set, not just the first initial – rather than to spell out the forenames of authors, but some latitude is possible here, depending on individual taste. Whatever system you adopt, however, you should use it consistently throughout the thesis. Your supervisor will give you further advice if necessary.

There may be occasions when it is appropriate to quote a manuscript or archival source from a citation in a printed book or article. In such a case it is your duty to make quite clear that you have not yourself consulted and transcribed the original, and to give as your reference the relevant printed text and not the call mark of the document.

For full information on how to cite books, articles, manuscripts and other sources, see the Faculty's Guide to Referencing and Citations.

Footnotes should normally be placed at the bottom of each page. Where they are given at the end of each chapter or at the end of the thesis, two separate unbound copies of footnotes should also be presented, for the convenience of the examiners.

The bibliography should include all the sources and secondary works cited in the thesis. It should normally consist of plain lists of items, without comment, and it is on this basis that the bibliography is excluded from the word limit. If you need to include substantial annotations, they will be counted as part of your thesis proper.

The bibliography should be divided into:

  1. Manuscript and archival sources
  2. Printed primary sources
  3. Printed secondary works [i.e., modern or relatively modern materials in the form of books, articles, etc.]
  4. Unpublished theses.

In practice, it is not always easy to draw the line between printed primary sources and secondary works: doubtful cases should be discussed, if necessary, with your supervisor.

For further details on constructing a bibliography, see the Faculty's 'Guide to Referencing and Citations’.