Few tips and advices to help you go through it

How to Write a Master Thesis in Neuroscience

By Aurore Perrault, PhD Student

Plan

• Master thesis 1.01

• Plan of Action

• Academic Form

• General Outline

• Administrative Stuff to Do

• Oral presentation

• Evaluation

• Tips from PhD students

What is a Thesis? How Should it Look Like?

• A master thesis is, basically, a research report on your experiment.

• The content should

• Address a specific issue

• Describe what is already known about this issue

• Describe what you’ve done during these two years of research and its purpose.

• Be enough original to make a contribution to the field.

• The form should• Be well organized with a clear outline• Be written in a simple voice• Understood, not only by expert in your field,

but should be accessible to non-specialist

Plan of Action• Writing a thesis is a long-lasting process!

• Sit and think on how you want to proceed before jumping into the action

• Set a time-frame

• Literature processing

• Idea processing and proposal/improvement by your adviser

• Pure research: experiment, collection of data, analysis

• Thesis writing

• Literature and methods (can be written pretty early during your master)

• Results and discussion

• Conclusion, introduction and abstract

• Re-write until final version

• First draft should be done and send to your adviser 2 months before deadline

• Edition

• Triple-check your spelling!

• Do not skip the formatting part (at least 1-2days)

• Ask at least 2 non-specialist persons to read your work (spelling? global comprehension? outline?... )

Academic Form

• 45-80 pages - A4

• Font

• 12 point font: Time New Roman

• 1,5 line space – 2,5cm margins

• Whole text should be justify

• First line of each paragraph should be moved forward

• Number each pages (except flyleaf, abstract & appendices)

• Print only one sided

• Bind your thesis but do no use staples.

• M-Print-shop(http://www.migrosprintshop.ch/)

• UniCopy (http://www.unicopy.ch/)

General Outline

• Flyleaf

• Abstract

• Acknowledgments

• Table of Contents

• List of Abbreviations

• Review of Literature

• Methodology

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusion

• References

• Appendices

abstract

• 1 page max.

• MAJOR part of your thesis!

• Should contain

• A short introductory sentence: from general theme to your particular research field

• Quick method (techniques, design, conditions, groups of subjects)

• Highlight your best results

• Conclusion on these results/your research

• Ask several persons to read it!

General Outline

• Flyleaf

• Abstract

• Acknowledgments

• Table of Contents

• List of Abbreviations

• Review of Literature

• Methodology

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusion

• References

• Appendices

• One page max.• Can also be the list of

contributions (help from others lab-members…)

General Outline

• Flyleaf

• Abstract

• Acknowledgments

• Table of Contents

• List of Abbreviations

• Review of Literature

• Methodology

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusion

• References

• Appendices

• 1-2 pages• Very precise BUT no

more than 3 subtitles• Use Word « styles »

General Outline

• Flyleaf

• Abstract

• Acknowledgments

• Table of Contents

• List of Abbreviations

• Review of Literature

• Methodology

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusion

• References

• Appendices

• 1page• In alphabetical order or in

order of appearance• Don’t use too many

abbreviation: only if the word/phrase is use >5 times in your thesis

Review of Literature

• 10-30 pages

•  «Funnel » theory

• Review of literature should guide the reader from a general theme to your particular field of research

• Present background of this field

• Introduce idea/concept that the reader will need later to understand your work

• Possible structure

• Brief introduction on your field of research

• An organized explanation of the different theories/concepts/brain areas/cells…

• Logical links from the theoretical background to your research

• Question/Objectives/Hypothesis of your research

• Each concept need to be link to your research and well-explained by several references

• Provide non-specialist with a clear understanding of the field

• NO PLAGIARISM ! Be very careful in how you retranslate others’ ideas/results

• 5 - 10 pages

• How did you perform your experiments? What kind of material/methods did you use? What population/cells…?

• Should contains

• Subjects/Groups/Cells…

• Experimental techniques used (staining, patch-clamp, fMRI, EEG, behavioral measures…)

• Experimental design/paradigm

• Data analysis

• Statistical analysis

• No results, only methods

Always anonymize your human subjects!

Materials and Methods

Results

• 10 -20 pages

• Organized and logical presentation of your results

• Do not analyze your results here

• Comment/interpret all your results in the discussion section

• Entitle and comment all your figures, graph, table…

• For statistical results, always specify if it is significant and add the F value (or t, chi2…) and its p value.

33

A conjunction analysis of all the conditions (Figure 3.5) revealed a widely

distributed fronto-parietal cortical areas, importance of the superior frontal gyrus,

bilateral sensorimotor cortices, the ACC, frontal and temporal opercular areas,

occipital areas and superior ipsilateral cerebellum.

Figure 3.2 – FULL condition related activities in controls. The color code (right) represents the Z-score associated with activated voxels. FULL condition activates the IPL, ACC, M1, SMA, S1-M1, DLPFC and cerebellum.

Figure 3.3 – FREE condition related activities in controls. The color code (right) represents the Z-score associated with activated voxels. FREE condition activities are localized in the IPL, SMA, S1-M1 and DLPFC.

6.2

2.3

6.3

2.3

Z =

Z =

Discussion

• 5 -15 pages

• Interpretation of your results and how you include them in your field of research (link to background part)

• Possible structure

• Recall your project

• Summarize and analyze results presented

• Possible interpretation and comparison with others’ theories

• Consistent with others’ results? Why or why not?

• Support or contradict theories?

• Strengths and limits

• Place your findings into a bigger perspective

• How your experiment could be improved

• Direction for future studies on the subject

• Possible clinical application…

General Outline

• Flyleaf

• Abstract

• Acknowledgments

• Table of Contents

• List of Abbreviations

• Review of Literature

• Methodology

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusion

• References

• Appendices

• 1-2 pages• Recall of your research,

results obtained and possible interpretation

references

• Minimum 50 references – There is never too much references!

• No outdated research sources!

• Use the most up-to-date research/articles/authors…

• Except if seen as a basic

• Alphabetical order or order of appearance

• In the text: (Neurogod et al., 2013)

• APA format

• Neurogod, A., Biogoddess, B. & Psychogirl, C. D. (2013). How to write a thesis. Journal of Important NeuroStuff, 7 (45), 314-356

• http://citationmachine.net

General Outline

• Flyleaf

• Abstract

• Acknowledgments

• Table of Contents

• List of Abbreviations

• Review of Literature

• Methodology

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusion

• References

• Appendices

• Not numbered• Can be:

• List of participants (age, gender, condition…)/Type of cells…

• Details on the procedure/technique/conditions…

• Complete table of your statistical analysis

Administrative Boring Stuff to Do (I)

• When you and your adviser decide that you’re ready to graduate:

• Email your faculty and Mona Spiridon

• Find 2 jury members (ask your adviser)

• One must be a UNIGE faculty member (professor, assistant, MER…)

• They should represent at least 2 institutions: Faculty of medicine (HUG, CMU, Belle-Idée), faculty of psychology and/or sciences.

• Fix a date for your oral presentation

• At least 2 weeks after all the jury members receive your thesis

• Book a room for the oral presentation (Unimail, CMU or Sciences)

• Make sure you fulfill all the requirement to graduate

• Acquisition of mandatory and optional credits (30ECT)

• Complete seminar sheet

• Supplementary internship

• Presentation of your project/data at a LabMeeting

Administrative Boring Stuff to Do (II)

• Send an email to your faculty and Mona when you’re ready to graduate and ask them about their protocol

• Mandatory documents

• Official report of your master thesis

• Attestation for the supplementary internship

• Seminar sheet (12)

• Each faculty has a different protocol to validate your master

• Psych: go directly to the faculty desk and give: official report of your master thesis (+attestations), attestation of research, attestation of the library (psych intranet), flyleaf of the thesis, digital version of your thesis (CD-ROM)

• Science: give directly to Mona Spiridon the 3 mandatory documents + copy of your thesis binded

Oral Presentation

• Your adviser + 2 jury

• 30min presentation + 30min of questions

• Brief PowerPoint with an emphasis on your results and interpretation

• Send your final version of your thesis at least 2 weeks before the presentation

• Can be in English or in French (ask your adviser)

• Do not forget to bring the official report of your thesis!

Evaluation

• Characteristics of evaluation

• Clarity of the research question and goals

• Scientific knowledge and insight on the field of research

• Justified methods

• Precision of the data analysis and controllability of the data

• Discussion argumentation

• Data fit in the discussion

• Care given to the presentation and language

• Appropriate layout

• No grammatical, structural or spelling errors

• Coherency, organization, comprehension

• If the jury think that your thesis doesn’t reach these criteria (grade <4), you’ll have 1-2 weeks to re-write

• In master thesis, they won’t judge you on your results but on the knowledge and insight you have on your research!

Master Thesis Tips From PhD Students (I)

• No plagiarism!

• Read a LOT of articles

• Take notes and references for every articles

• Do not wait the last months to write your review…

• Manage your time

• Should be understand by non-specialist reader. Explain any scientific jargon that is not common knowledge (ex: calcium dye, BOLD signal…)

• Articles in your field can help you organized your thesis but also write the methods section…

• Keep track of everything you do/your results/material you use in a labnotebook

• All results must be explained and linked to theories in your field

Master Thesis Tips From PhD Students (II)

• Think about the way you will be read! What do you want them to keep from your thesis? Is it clear?

• Rule out what is not necessary/ambiguous

• Be careful with long sentence… sometimes short is better!

• All your figures/graph/tables should have a title and explained

• Don’t forget about the scale for fMRI scans…

• Plan ahead your outline and time-frame!

• Don’t get lost in all your data/articles/ideas… Don’t be a mess!

• Don’t play solo: ask for help when needed, take everyone’s comment into account, talk with your adviser regularly

• Do not wait until the last minute!

Questions?

Thank You for your attention & Good Luck!