Note - A thesis is not an assignment

• A thesis is often more open-ended, without a specific conclusion
• You plan out the course of the work

Thesis types

Research Project

Carry out a small focussed piece of research

Development Project

Build a software and/or hardware system

R&D Project

Both!

Parts of the UNSW Thesis

Thesis A

• Background research (literature review)
• Current state of the art
• How to advance
• Presentation (Project overview + plan)
  • Use feedback to broaden literature review and to refine the topic
• Report (Summarise thesis A achievements)

Thesis B

Solve the problem

• Get some preliminary results or analysis / Work on the prototype
• Demonstrate the results, and reflect on progress against your plan
• Give a detailed plan for Thesis C

Thesis C

Complete the solution, evaluate your work and write the report

• Complete the solution and evaluate
• Demonstrate the solution and analyse it (including weaknesses)
• Use feedback from the presentation to improve your solution
• Final thesis report
  • Project description + Literature review
  • Approach + Evaluation + Conclusion
• Summary / Abstract