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Finance Research Seminar

2nd Semester 2016-2017

Master Thesis: Structure and Style

Structure of a thesis

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Structure of a Thesis
• Title page
• Acknowledgements
• Table of contents
• Abstract and/or Executive Summary
• Foreword or Preface (not mandatory)
• Main text
• Introduction (Problem Statement)
• Literature Review (including Conceptual Framework and
Hypothesis Development)
• Data and Methodology
• Empirical Analysis and Results (interpretation of results)
• Conclusion (incl. recommendations and further research)
• Appendix
• Bibliography

I – Abstract/Executive Summary

Answers to these questions should be found in the abstract:

• What did you do?
• Why did you do it? What question were you trying to answer?
• How did you do it? State methods.
• What did you learn? State major results.
• Why does it matter? Point out at least one significant
implication.

In short, it explains: why the paper is important, gives a summary of

your major results and outlines the major implications of your work.

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I – Abstract/Executive Summary

A good abstract is concise, readable, and quantitative.

• Length should be ~ 1 paragraphs, approx. 300 words.
• Abstracts generally do not have citations
• Information in title should not be repeated.
• Be explicit.
• Use numbers where appropriate.

An executive summary is longer: 1 full page.

The content is the same as an abstract, but more
detailed.

II – Introduction

The introduction should be compelling and convincing

about the importance of the topic
• Motivate your research
– It is an important/interesting scientific problem that your
paper either solves or addresses.
– Give examples or illustrations of the problem.
– The motivation should NOT be personal
(Personal motivation in the foreword or preface)
• Make the reader want to read the rest of the paper!

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II – Introduction

The introduction should provide a short discussion of what

we know and what we do not know about the topic
• Cite those who had the idea or ideas first, and/or have done
the most recent and relevant work on the topic
• Next, explain why more work is necessary

• All cited work should be directly relevant to the goals of

the thesis. This is not a place to summarize everything
you have ever read on a subject!

II – Introduction

The introduction should explain how your research is

going to contribute to this topic by building knowledge in
this area
• Contribution (the originality of the thesis): define the goal of the
paper; why the study was undertaken, or why the paper was
written.
• Introduce your research questions.
• Briefly describe your empirical analysis and results.
Last paragraph of the introduction: provide outline of the
thesis
• A verbal "road map" or verbal "table of contents" guiding the
reader to what lies ahead.

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III – Literature review (incl. Conceptual

Framework and Hypothesis Development)
Reminder: 3 goals of the literature review:
1. Survey all the recent literature relative to your research question
show the contribution of your thesis (show what other papers
did not do)
2. Give an overview of the samples, data sources, measurement,
methods used in other paper
provide ideas for your own empirical analysis
3. Synthetize the results of other papers relative to your research
question
benchmark for you own results
Review and cite only empirical research papers that
are published in the list of top journals in finance

III – Literature review (incl. Conceptual

Framework and Hypothesis Development)
Conceptual Framework: Overview of theories and
models relevant to your analysis.
Review and cite older important papers and
textbooks
Make sure to:
• Cover all the relevant previous knowledge on the
topic
It should lead to the hypothesis section:
• Hypothesis are based on strong theory and
knowledge

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IV – Data and Methodology

Define clearly your sample:

• Should be representative of the underlying
population
• Sample selection criteria should be objective and
rigorous to avoid bias
State the data source or explain how the data was
collected and recorded;
Discussion about measurement choices

IV – Data and Methodology

Descriptive statistics (of the final sample)

• Mean, median, standard deviation, min, max of all
variables
• Graphs (scatter plot, histograms) if useful
Econometrics Methodology
• Describe clearly any manipulation of data, computation,
transformation, etc.
• Show the regression equation(s) (mathematical notation)
• Report your method in enough details so that they can be
replicated
• Discussion:
o Is it an appropriate method to achieve your research
objective?
o limitations, assumptions, and range of validity of your
methodology.

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V – Empirical Analysis and Results

• Remind a reader your testable hypotheses

• Discuss univariate, bivariate tests results
• Perform regression (diagnostic tests can be
shown in appendix)
• Interpretation of results (statistical significance,
economic meaning and significance of
coefficients)
• Discuss robustness of your findings

VI – Conclusion

• Summary of your thesis

• Answer to research question
• Strengths and weaknesses, credibility of
results
• Recommendations
• Opinions
• Remaining open questions for further researc

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Appendix

• Appendix include material that is not directly relevant to

the main content but needs to be referred to in the text
(e.g., "as described in the Appendix . . .")
• For instance, if your study is based on a questionnaire or
interviews, the questionnaire or interview plan must be included in
the appendices.
• Descriptive documents about your topic or your data
• Preliminary test or results, diagnostic tests
• Appendix immediately follows the body of the paper.
• Appendix must have a heading. Multiple appendices
are numbered or referred to as Appendix A, Appendix
B, etc.

Bibliography

The reader should be able to see the full reference of

all sources used in the thesis
• It gives an idea of the credibility of the source (e.g.
newspaper article, website, published article in a
scientific journal)
• The reader should be able to find the source if he wants
to know more; complete bibliographic information should
be present
Format the of the bibliography is very important
• Follow the guidelines!
Sources present are those that were actually cited in
the text of the thesis, not all the possible source that
you came across.

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Style guidelines

Style Guidelines

Basics:
• Avoid excessive use of "we" or "I."
• Write in the present tense (e.g., "Black and Scholes find . . .", not "Black
and Scholes found . . .").
• Use of the active voice greatly improves the readability of a paper (e.g.,
"the tests show" or "we show," not "it is shown")
• Italics, quotation marks, and capital letters are distracting and should be
kept to a minimum (a priori, etc., i.e., e.g., et al., ex ante, and ex post are
not italicized).
• Acronyms are spelled out at the first occurrence with the acronym in capital
letters in parentheses immediately following, as in "Center for Research in
Security Prices (CRSP)." exceptions are NYSE, Nasdaq, and Amex.

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Avoid Plagiarism!

Plagiarism is copying phrases and passages word-for-word without quotation

marks and without a reference to the author; paraphrasing an author's work
and presenting it without a reference.

• Quoting is using the exact words, ideas or images of another person. If

you do not use quotation marks around the original author's direct words
and cite the reference, you are plagiarising.

• Paraphrasing is when you take someone else's concepts and put them
into your own words without changing the original meaning.

Paraphrasing versus Quoting

Paraphrase if:
• What you want from the source is the idea expressed, and not the
specific language used to express it.
• You can express in fewer words what the key point of a source is.

Quote from a source:

• To show that an authority supports your point
• To include historically significant language
• To present a particularly well-stated passage whose meaning
would be lost or changed if paraphrased or summarized

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Plagiarism or Paraphrasing?
Original source Plagiarism
Because of their unique According to Lester Thurow (1993),
perspective, Americans fear Americans fear globalization less than
globalization less than anyone else, people from other countries and as a
and as a consequence they think consequence spend less time thinking
about it less than anyone else. about it. Indeed, Americans see
When Americans do think about globalization as an enlarged version
globalization, they think of the of their own economy.
global economy as an enlarged
version of the American economy. Why is this plagiarism?
The writer has used Thurow's exact
Thurow, L. (1993). words without enclosing them in
Fortune Favors the Bold (p. 6). quotation marks. S/he has only
New York: Harper Collins. substituted synonyms here and there.
Even though Thurow is credited with a
citation, this would be considered
plagiarism.
Acceptable Paraphrases
Original Acceptable Paraphrase #1
We do not yet understand all the ways Siegel (1986) writes that although the
in which brain chemicals are related to relationship between brain chemistry and
emotions and thoughts, but the salient thoughts and feelings is not fully
point is that our state of mind has an understood, we do know that our
immediate and direct effect on our psychological state affects our physical
state of body. state.
Source: Siegel, B. (1986). Why is this acceptable?
Love, Medicine and Miracles (p. 69). What did the writer do?
New York: Harper and Row. •Used synonyms
•Changed sentence structure
•Changed voice
•Cited source
Words like brain are generic and do not
need to be changed.
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Paraphrasing
Lester Thurow (1993) maintains that
because Americans see globalization simply
as a bigger form of their own economy, they
are less concerned about it than is the rest
of the world.
Why is this acceptable?
The writer has kept the meaning of the
original passage without copying words or
structure. Words like globalization and
Americans are generic terms (i.e., terms that
are commonly used for the concept they
illustrate - it is difficult to find synonyms for
them). Thus you may use these words
without placing them in quotation marks.
Acceptable Paraphrase #2
Siegel (1986) writes that the relationship
between the chemicals in the brain and
our thoughts and feelings remains only
partially understood. He goes on to say,
however, that one thing is clear: our
mental state affects our bodily state.
Why is this acceptable?
What did the writer do?
•Used synonyms
•changed the sentence structure (use two
sentences instead of one)
•Changed voice
•Changed parts of speech
•Cited source
Words like brain and chemicals are
generic and do not need to be changed.
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Grammatical Structure

1. Avoid contractions/use alternative negative forms :

Informal Formal
not… any no
The subjects didn't experience any The subjects experienced no negative
negative effects from the procedure. effects from the procedure.
not… much little
There hasn't been much research on this There has been little research on this
topic. topic.
not… many few
This line of research This line of research has
has not produced many results. produced few results.

Grammatical Structure

2. Limit the use of expressions similar to ”and so forth, etc.” It is

better to be explicit.
Informal
Analysis involves using summaries,
coding etc. to select, focus and simplify
data.
Formal
Analysis involves using summaries,
coding and other techniques to select,
focus and simplify data.

3. Avoid addressing the reader you

Informal Formal

You can find support for this proposition Support for this proposition can be
in several studies. found in several studies.

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Grammatical Structure

4. Limit the use of direct questions to readers.

Informal Formal

What are the indications of a robust The indications of a robust trading

trading strategy? strategy are:…

5. Place adverbs within the verb.

Informal Formal
In this section, first I will discuss how In this section, I will first discuss how
commercial buildings can be built in commercial buildings can be built in
economical ways. economical ways.

Then any underlying causes can be Any underlying causes can then be
identified and addressed. identified and addressed.

Vocabulary

1. Avoid emotive, colorful language

Example: “Interest rates on US bonds are shockingly low compared
with European bonds.” => replace shockingly with extremely or
very.

2. Slang or journalistic idioms

Example: It seems more likely that China will muddle through a few
more years of growth" => A better wording would be “China’s
economy will continue growth'

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Vocabulary

• Latinate equivalents of the multi-word verbs of Old English

are more formal or academic.

Old English origin Latin origin

look into investigate
work out determine, calculate
come up with develop
make up constitute
get rid of eliminate

Vocabulary

Words commonly used in conversation:

• believe, know, mean, say, tell, think, understand

Words for more formal speech or writing:

• assert, assume, claim, concede, conclude, confirm, contradict,
criticize, declare, define, deny, discover, doubt, explain,
hypothesize, imply, infer, interpret, observe, predict, prove,
remember, suggest

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Tables and Figures

• All tables and figures in the text must be numbered and should
always have a heading and captions

• Tables should be self-explanatory.

• Should contain information on sample, model, statistics
provided and variable descriptions.
• Alternatively, you may provide variable description table
separately and refer to it in each table..

General Format

Font: The recommended fonts are Book Antiqua or Times New

Roman. Font size in the text must be 12. A larger font (14) can be
used for headings.

Spacing: The recommended line spacing is 1.5. Longer quotations

should be single-spaced and separated from the text.

Paragraphs: Paragraphs can be divided either by leaving a blank line

between paragraphs, or by indenting the first line of a new
paragraph by five spaces.

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General Format

Page numbering: The title page is not counted. Pages such as the
abstract and contents are counted but are not given visible page
numbers. Page numbering should be visible from the first page of
the introduction. Page numbering continues until the end of the
document, including the bibliography and appendices.
Highlighting: For highlighting or emphasis, use italics. Bold print can
also be used for clarity if necessary (for instance if you use a lot of
linguistic examples that require italics).
Footnotes: Endnotes and footnotes should be used sparingly. If you
do use notes, they should be placed at the bottom of the page
using smaller font size (10) and single-spacing.

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