General Guidelines for Thesis Writing

All theses submitted for B.Sc. in Engineering degree should comply with the following
instructions. These instructions concern the layout, structure, and formatting of the thesis.

1. Plagiarism
Remember that you must acknowledge your source every time you refer to someone else's
work. Failure to do so amounts to plagiarism, which is against the University rules and is a
serious offence. Under the rules, Original Plagiarism report must be submitted while
submitting the thesis. Plagiarism report should be submitted at the time of thesis submis
sion for further processing for external evaluation.

Attach the originality report from Turnitin in the thesis. A sample is provided at the end.

2. Chapter Guidelines
 Start each chapter from a new page
 The first paragraph of each chapter must give an overview about the whole chapter,
including what the chapter is about, what it contains, and its structure
 Each chapter should contain at least 1000 words of text and min. 3 pages.
 Each figure should be mentioned in the text with detailed explanation.

3. Abbreviations and Acronyms

Acceptable abbreviations and acronyms may be used in footnotes, tables, and references. To
save space and time, it is sometimes convenient to use abbreviations for lengthy scientific
words or phrases used frequently throughout the thesis. When used for the first time,
such abbreviations must be presented in parentheses immediately after the words or
phrase for which they stand. An example is “Phosphate Buffered Saline (PBS) was used
in all dialysis operations.” In succeeding sentences throughout the thesis, the initials PBS
can then be used in place of the words phosphate buffered saline.

4. Grammar
The past tense is preferred for scientific writing. Use active voice rather than passive voice.
Check and correct your grammatical mistakes using a software such as grammarly
(www.grammarly.com).
 5. Typing and Page Directions
 Good quality (minimum 80g) white paper of A4 size must be used.
 1 in. margin must be on right and bottom side, while 2.0 in on top and left
sides. NO EXCEPTION SHALL BE MADE.
 No header or footer should be used while typing and no-extra margin should be
left within the marked margin.
 “Times New Roman” font style is recommended throughout the thesis, with a
linespacing of 1.2.
 The main headings font size should be 16, while the sub-heading and main text should be
14 and 12 respectively.
 Throughout the document, text should be Justified with Non-Indented paragraphs.
 All figures should be centrally aligned with captions at the bottom of figure.
Figure title and caption should be in the same line, with figure title and number in
italics and the caption without italics (e.g. Figure 1. Visual illustration of
theoretical model.)
 All tables should be centrally aligned with captions at the top of the table. Write
table number (e.g. Table 1) in the first line and the caption of the table (e.g.
Comparison between Assessment Methods) in italics in the next line
 All equations should be centrally aligned with proper numbering

6. Pagination
All pages must be numbered. Pages of Abstract and Acknowledgements should bear
Roman numbers (I, II, III, IV, V, VI etc.), whereas pages from Introduction onward
should be given Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.) in the center/right side at the
bottom of the page.

7. Printing and Binding Instructions (For final report submission in

July)
 3 hard bound copies of the thesis are required to be submitted for final
thesis examination.
 Color of binding should be Black/Maroon and the text on the title page should be in
Gold
color
 The spine of the bound thesis should have Name of Degree (B.Sc _____).
See next page for format
This is exactly how it should look like after binding.
Note the font styles, sequence of text, format etc.
No change shall be accepted.
 Distribution of Work (Order of Contents in the Thesis)

The Thesis should be organized in the following order:

1. Title Page
2. Inner Title
3. Abstract
4. Dedication (optional)
5. Acknowledgements
6. Table of Contents
7. List of Figures
8. List of Tables
9. List of Graphs
10. List of Abbreviations and Acronyms (Alphabetically arranged)
11. Introduction
12. Literature Review
13. Research Design / Materials and Methods
14. Findings (or Results)
15. Discussion
16. Conclusion and Future Direction (including theoretical and practical contributions
and limitations)
17. References
18. Annexure (if any)
EQUATIONS

Use the Insert Equation in MS Word when writing equations by clicking Insert tab and
Equation icon beside the Symbol icon, as shown in Fig.

Equations should be numbered consecutively as in (1) and (2).

Equation (1) is the formula to get the area of a circle while (2) is a quadratic equation. Notice
that the word “equation” was used in the beginning of the statement when referring to (1) but
was not included when mentioning a formula inside the statement like (2).
Equation numbers should be right aligned.
 References
Citations are numbered consecutively inside brackets. In writing the references, we follow
American Psychological Association (APA) style. The references below show examples of how
to include a book with 3 authors [1], a project report [2], a book with one author and cited 3 times
[3-5], a book with 2 authors [6], an online book [7], an article in a journal [8], an article from an
online newspaper [9], work with no author [10], an article in Wikipedia [11], a personal interview
[12], a website [13], and a video found online [14].

[1] Alred, G.J., Brusaw, C.T. & Oliu, W.E. Handbook of Technical Writing.
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006.
[2] Al-Naim M. & Al-Mudara N. Electronic Court. King Faisal University College
of Computer Sciences and Information Technology, 2012.
[3-5] Bond, J. K. (2012). Advanced Programming in Java. (2nd ed.). New York:
ABC Publishing Company.
[6] Bond, J. K. & Lang, A. (2012). Action Script 3. (2nd ed.). New York: ABC
Publishing Company.
[7] Al-Arfaj, H. (2009). The Neural Networks in Motion. Retrieved from
http://books.google.com
[8] Al-Eid, A. (2012). The Changes in GUI. Journal of Computer Explosion,
27(10), 1327-33.
[9] Regal, R. (2012, April 7). Globalizing Variables. KFU News. Retrieved from
http://www.kfu.news.sa
[10] Snippets in C#. (2010). San Diego: ABC Press.
[11] Plagiarism. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved January 10, 2013, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
[12] Rosario, R. (2008, April 7). Personal interview.
[13] Sebastian, B. (2010, July 25). Programming Style. PCPrograms.com.
Retrieved July 25, 2010, from http://www.pcprograms.com.
[14] Al-Mulhem, K. (2009). Delphi Guide [Online Video]. Delphi Videos.
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asd5thw.
DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF ELECTRIC BICYCLE
ORIGINALITY REPORT

17 %
SIMILARITY INDEX
10%
INTERNET SOURCES
0%
PUBLICATIONS
16%
STUDENT PAPERS

PRIMARY SOURCES

1
Submitted to Shinas College of Technology
Student Paper 9%
2
Submitted to Eastern Institute of Technology
Student Paper 3%
3
Submitted to University of Western Sydney
Student Paper 2%
4
www.iaeme.com
Internet Source 2%
5
Submitted to Institute of Technology, Nirma
University
2%
Student Paper

Exclude quotes Off Exclude matches < 2%

Exclude bibliography On