Bert Van Lancker Dept.

of Structural Engineering LMO 1

A guide to a successful thesis

First of all
Besides fun and interesting, a thesis should proof your (intellectual, practical, scientific, )
capabilities. Because the latter contributes a lot to you final grade.
The quotation of your thesis is roughly based on two aspects, namely your work throughout the year
(evaluated by tutor and promoter) and the quality of the dissertation (evaluated by a jury).
Concerning the work throughout the year, the following aspects are highly appreciated: motivation,
collaboration and self-dependency. Besides executing some of the experiments or computations
suggested by your tutor/promoter, it is of utmost importance to come up with your own ideas (and
discuss them in advance with your tutor). Concerning the quality of the dissertation, the following
aspects are highly important: quality of the text, figures and tables, a nice lay-out, scientific writing
skills and a critical view.
In order to achieve a very high quality of your dissertation, I recommend that you start writing your
literature study as soon as possible.
Literature study
1. Read articles provided by your tutor/promoter
2. Search for articles by means of scientific internet databases (by means of UGent-account)
a. www.sciencedirect.com
b. http://apps.webofknowledge.com
c. www.glassfiles.com
3. Search articles by means of a search engine (google, bing, )
4. Search for patents (espacenet, )
Take close attention at the way how scientific articles are written, since this is very similar to the
structure of a dissertation (introduction, aim, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion
and references).
Make a folder on your own computer in which you save all the articles.
Make an EndNote or Mendeleey library and cite the collected articles in this library (Ill show you
how this works).
Start reading as soon as possible, since this will give you an idea what has already been done by
others and what still needs to be done.
The literature study should be around 30 pages. It is very important to compare findings from
different authors and also that you have a critical view.
Start writing the literature study as soon as possible. After you have written 5 pages or so, give them
to me so I can correct your writing skills.
The literature study should be finished by 20 December.
Bert Van Lancker Dept. of Structural Engineering LMO 2

Scientific writing skills
Materials and methods and the results section should be written in the past tense, since it covers
things that have been done in the past.
Statistical data analysis
In order to make conclusions based upon your experiments, I recommend performing experiments in
triplicate. By means of statistical data analysis software (e.g. SPSS), you can see if significant
differences exist between different samples.
Numerical analysis
3D FE modelling with Abaqus can be usefull. This software is available via Athena. Different tutorials
give you more insight and information in how to use this computer program.
Intermediate reports:
In order to keep track of your work, I would like to receive every two weeks a small written report
(cfr. template) of the work you have been doing the last two weeks and the work you will do for the
next two weeks. In case you have finished some experiments or FEM-calculations, please provide
some graphs or figures with the most interesting results. You can always use the text and
graphs/figures for your dissertation later on.
Meetings:
At least once every two weeks we will sit together and discuss the progress of your work. Dont be
afraid to ask questions. You can always reach me on the number +32 473 68 45 70.
Confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement:
Please do not forget to sign the non-disclosure agreement. Some of the work may lead to a patent or
is covered by a patent. This means you are not allowed to share the results with others (even friends
or family), unless otherwise stated by tutor or promoter.
At the end
Before you defend your thesis, I expect to receive a CD/DVD with all data concerning your
dissertation. Please make a folder (Thesis your name) and the following subfolders:
Literature
Results (Excel-files, Abaqus-files, SPSS-files, )
Dissertation (text, chapters from your thesis)
Pictures (from setups, ...)
Besides this CD, I also expect to receive all your laboratory notebooks. Therefore, I hope you pay
attention to order, cleanliness, handwriting,
Good luck!
Bert