Final Year Thesis
Revised December 15, 2008
In your final year you need to undertake a thesis. This is represented by two courses, SENG4910 Thesis A and SENG4911 Thesis B.
FAQ
How do I Choose a Thesis Topic?
Please look at the CSE thesis site.
What is a Thesis Project?
A thesis involves a project that requires you to undertake an independent piece of research or development. Theses usually involve the production of a piece of software, but they can be theoretical with no implementation involved. The important requirement you should have for a thesis is that it should expand your knowledge and skills and stretch your abilities. Don't choose a topic that involves a lot of routine programming that won't expand your capabilities.
What is Thesis A?
Many topics are broad or ill-defined, so Thesis A is concerned with better defining the project. This will involve understanding the scope of the topic, doing a literature search, defining the problem you are going to solve and developing a research/development plan. At the end of the semester you have to give a presentation, which is largely concerned with explaining the topic clearly to the audience and convincing them that you know what you are doing.
What is Thesis B?
Thesis B is concerned with carrying out the research/development and writing the thesis/report. This is a critically important activity and you should give it your full attention. Also, use your supervisor and anyone else appropriate to get comments on what you are doing. Many carry out their research/development in isolation and only receive critical comments when the project is finished, when it is too late to do anything about those comments.
What is the Thesis Report About?
The report should be written as much as possible while you are doing the work. Don't regard the report as something you will write when you are finished. The report is the most important outcome of your project, and the mark you receive for your thesis is largely based on the report. The report will be marked by your supervisor and your assessor. Your supervisor may have detailed knowledge of what you have done, but your assessor typically does not have such intimate knowledge and their mark will be based almost solely on the report.
There are a number of important things you should pay attention to when writing the report:
- Clearly explain what you set out to do and what you did to achieve it; don't simply describe the technicalities of what you did and leave it to the reader to work out the significance of what you did.
- If your project involves an implementation, your report should contain a clear statement of the design; don't present a long description at the level of the implementation code.
- In many cases you will be too close to the project and may not appreciate what needs to be explained about your project; if you can, get a friend, who is technically literate, but who isn't familiar with your project, to read your report and critically comment on all the things they don't understand. If you do this, you will usually find that there are important aspects that you did think through, but have lived with for so long that you've forgotten their importance.
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