Must be 50 pages excluding the list of References and table of contents All chapters should at least have 2-3 sub chapters IT Audit Compliance: A Case Study of IT Cloud Compliance at SAP AG The necess

Simple Suggested Structure

Title Page

Confidentiality / Non-Disclosure Notice

Abstract – about two paragraphs and ½ to ¾ of a page

Acknowledgements/Dedication Page(s)

Table of Contents

List of Tables

List of Illustrations (or Figures)

List of Abbreviations

List of Symbols

Body of Text (numbered sections – sections can follow a different sequence)

I. Introduction

- Thesis objective – research questions and hypothesis/problem statement

- Situation and recommendation in summary form

- Structure of thesis: content of each chapter in order presented

- Literature Review – the most critical influences in your field of research

- Methodology – choice of research method(s) and reasoning

Note: Literature Review and Methodology could be separate chapters in a higher-level research context. See Thesis Getting Started document for details.

II. Detailed Description of

• Situation Background

• Problem or Desired Outcome

• Process Followed

III. Findings & Analysis

- Measurements and/or Interpretations

- Proofs Uncovered

- Issues Encountered

IV. Detailed Development of Recommendation

• Model

• Flowchart

• Steps

• Instructions

V. Conclusion

- Restate objective

- Describe and/or Illustrate recommendation

- Critique of weaknesses, alternatives considered, and/or suggestions for further study

List of References (or Bibliography)

Appendices

Declaration of Original Work

Layout and Citations

Follow the guidelines provided in your study program – see your study regulations, thesis registration, documents from research/writing courses, etc.

Where guidelines are not specifically provided, use an appropriate book or booklet on thesis/academic writing and follow its guidelines very consistently throughout your thesis.

Remember to cite not only direct quotations but also any ideas. Citations give credit to the authors for their contributions to science and knowledge.

Do not use paraphrasing just like you would not use someone else’s direct words. Paraphrasing is sloppy and lazy. Ideas should always be digested mentally and then put in your own distinct words.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is an excellent reference: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/1/

Databases such as EBSCO, WISO and Statista include many journal articles, statistical reports, and other documents. These databases are generally NOT the authors themselves and should not be shown as the author. You must cite the true author, institute, and title of the report or statistics correctly. Check the Helps or FAQs of the database. For example:

Statista states “It is easiest to quote or cite us directly on the internet by referencing the link to a specific statistic. … Please note: we are not the source of the surveys or statistics, rather, the aggregator and collector of information provided by outside sources. In publications, references should always be made to the original source of the information. Our new citation feature for scientific customers makes referencing very easy. We offer four of the most common citation styles: APA, Chicago, Harvard and MLA. https://www.statista.com/help/#52a7448029f8d06f6a00000f

Usage of Figures

Use illustrations, graphics, tables, charts, etc. from your key sources and adapt them to your situation, if relevant.

Develop your own graphics and illustrations to support your own contribution.

If the figures are important, do not bury them in an appendix. Find a way to include them in the main thesis.

All graphics must be sufficiently introduced and explained in writing in the text before the figures show up in the document. They must not be dropped into the document nor appendix where the reader is not told why no matter how ‘obvious’ the author thinks these figures are.

How to cite figures:

Completely designed by author:

Source: Own representation.

Completely designed by author with figures from a specific dataset:

Source: Own representation based on L’Oreal internal data as of July 27, 2015.

Taken directly from another author:

Source: Meyer (2013), p. 534. Or: Meyer (2013), 534.

Influenced by another author’s illustration of figure:

Source: Adapted from Jones (2007), p. 43.

Important Writing Style Guidelines

A thesis or academic paper is not a novel or short story. It is best to tell the reader early what the recommendation or critical findings are. Then follow this with a well-defended thesis/paper that proves the point in an organized manner and in more detail.

Make sure you are constantly checking that you are maintaining a connective thread that supports your research question throughout all your text.

Use an informational and professional style, but do not forget to use proper sentence structure and writing devices.

If you introduce a theory or model with a certain number of categories, stages, or steps e.g. ‘5 steps’, then follow-through with an examination of ALL of the categories (the ‘5 steps’) in the same sequence (e.g. 1,2,3,4 & 5) as introduced.

Similar to the above, use ‘parallel structure’. If you create a list of words, phrases or sentences as elements, then all the elements should be similarly structured. A list of words should all be nouns or all verbs or all modifiers. Phrases and sentences should have the same grammatical structure, e.g. if you start a phrase with a verb then all phrases should start with a verb.

Titles and sub-titles are used as aids to divide your work into appropriate sections. Titles and sub-titles are not part of the text, therefore do not write sentences under the titles and sub-titles that refer to the titles and sub-titles. Instead, you need to incorporate the main words from the titles or sub-titles usually in the first paragraph of text following the title.

Try to avoid words such as obvious, gigantic, enormous, simple, complex, innumerable, famous, everyone, everybody, noone, nothing, and other such indefinite sounding modifiers and nouns.

All statistics and ideas need to be bounded and indicate measurability and comparability .

Avoid opinion and use logic instead. Worthwhile ideas are defendable by known and proven theories, accepted facts, and new evidence.

Standard academic terms and terminology from university courses as well as words in everyday business use do not normally need to be defined. If they are in general use, they can usually be used freely, unless an explicit point or illustration is being made to support a new or critical idea in the thesis.

Do not state that there is no literature on the specific subject, this normally indicates that you did not broaden your search appropriately – an assumed major failure. Many universities have critical databases like EBSCO, WISO, Statista, etc. that allow for direct keyword, author, title, etc. search. These searches bring up MANY articles to explore. However, some of these on-line resources are only searching the titles of journals and some keywords that the journal editors think are important (not the articles in the journals themselves). Often with theses searches NO ENTRIES is the output, but do not trust this! You must go to the databases of journal ARTICLES and DATASETS and STUDIES that perform the search on ALL of the internal text and data.

Try to avoid footnotes. If an idea is important, it should almost always be included in the main text of the thesis. Exceptions include stating that a certain term is a trademark of a corporation, providing a translated statement in the original language, clarifying a term more specifically that could have more than one meaning, etc.