- Media Informatics

Formal rules

The information provided on this page applies to both bachelor's theses and master's theses.

Papers can be written in German or in English.

Construction

The thesis should contain the following parts in the order listed:

Front page
- Title of the work
- Name of the editor
- Start and end date of the work
- Supervisor
- Responsible university professor
- LFE and University
Abstract (short summary)
In German and English, a maximum of 250 words each
Table of contents
With indication of page numbers; maximum level of detail: 3
Text part
- Headings numbered in the format: 1, 1.1, 1.1.1
- Headings in lower levels are not numbered
- Chapters always start on the right
- Page numbers are located at the bottom of the page
- Page 1 is the first page of the text part, the previous pages (only table of contents) should be numbered in Roman numerals
- Figures are numbered and labeled and must be referenced in the text. The numbering is made up of the number of the chapter and a serial number for illustrations within the chapter: <chapter no.>. <Serial no. for pictures>
- Tables are numbered and labeled and must be referenced in the text. The numbering is made up of the number of the chapter and a serial number for tables within the chapter: <chapter no.>. <Serial no. for tables>
- Code examples that exceed 20 lines or half a page of text are to be given in the appendix
Glossary (optional)
Definitions or brief explanations of terms, symbols and abbreviations
Attachment (optional)
Code, technical details, listings, supplementary images, etc.
List of figures (optional)
List of tables (optional)
Index (optional)
Alphabetical list of important keywords with page numbers of their mention. If the keyword in question occurs in several places, but is defined at a certain point or described in particularly detailed manner, the page number belonging to this point should be highlighted in bold.
Table of contents of the enclosed CD
If necessary with explanatory descriptions
Bibliography
Contains all sources cited in the work, such as books, articles, specifications or texts that are on websites. Web references (see below) can be listed separately or included in the bibliography.
Web references (optional)
Links that do not refer to literature sources, but to a web presence in and of itself, such as a project (eclipse.org), a company (ibm.com) or a download address. These links can be included in the bibliography or listed separately.
Declaration of independence
"I hereby declare that I wrote the present work myself, marked all citations as such and indicated all sources and resources used." With date and signature.

Each of the parts listed begins anew on a right-hand side.

Formatting

Margins	left 2.5cm, right 3.5cm, top and bottom 2cm each
Header	Located on all pages except the title page. Contains title or chapter.
Printing	Double sided
Font size	11 points
Line spacing	1.0
Code	Non-proportional font, specify line numbers

CD Attached

A CD must be enclosed with the work as an attachment. For this purpose, a suitable CD pocket is glued to the last page of the work (or a comparable, easy-to-use attachment). The CD contains the following content:

Electronic version of the work in the original format (e.g. LaTeX, OpenOffice Writer, Word document), in PDF format and, by arrangement, in HTML
If applicable, all software with source code created as part of the work
If necessary, all (!) Data collected as part of the work (e.g. from user studies). If these exceed the capacity of a DVD, an alternative transfer of the data must be discussed with the supervisor (e.g. USB stick, external hard drive).
If necessary, pictures, videos
Sources cited in the work that are available in electronic form (e.g. articles from the web or specifications as PDF)
Software used in the work, as far as legally permitted
Slides from presentations on the work
Table of contents and help on the CD

Scope

The scope of the bachelor thesis comprises 40,000 - 80, 000 characters and the scope of the master thesis comprises 50,000 - 100,000 characters (corresponds to around 40 - 80 pages); this information relates to the main text, i.e. excluding appendix and references.

Number and form of submission

Master thesis:
- Two bound copies and, if necessary, additional copies for additional external supervisors
- At least perfect binding
- All copies with CD attached
- (optional) Name of the editor and / or title of the work on the book spine

Notes on content

The following section is to be understood as a pragmatic (incomplete) collection of information. For more detailed information, refer to the listed sources of literature.

A project or diploma thesis is to be regarded as a scientific work and must be designed accordingly both in terms of form and content. Formulations should be kept in a correspondingly functional style:

Simple and concrete formulations without unnecessary filler words
Careful distinction between the presentation of facts and one's own assessment / opinion
Avoidance of the first and second person ("I / We" form)
If the thesis is written in German, and if an appropriate German term is also available for an English technical term, then the latter is generally to be preferred.

Introduction

Introduces the topic, taking into account questions such as:
- Motivation for working on the topic
- Principal methods to be used to solve the problem
Gives an overview of the starting point of the work, ie the current state of research in the subject area. Depending on the scope, the state of research is often dealt with in a separate chapter, which usually follows the introduction.
Can be divided into several sub-chapters
The introduction ends with an overview of the individual chapters of the thesis (usually 1-3 sentences per chapter)

Main part

Clear, logical structure
Chapters that are as balanced as possible (in terms of scope and number of sub-chapters)
All work contains as little redundancy as possible
Is also well structured within the individual chapters or sections
Chapters and sub-chapters always begin with a very short introduction (usually 1-3 sentences that explain what to expect in the following)
Short, meaningful headings in a consistent style
Description of concepts. Technical details, such as source code, extensive lists, supplementary images, etc. are included in the appendix.

Conclusion

Can be divided into several sub-chapters
Picks up theses or questions from the introduction again
Summarizes the work succinctly and concisely
Arranges the results in an overall context
Draws conclusions from the results obtained
May also contain your own reviews or opinions
Provides an outlook on possible consequences or necessary further problems to be solved

General

The work is intended to provide the reader with as precise an understanding as possible both of all thematically relevant facts and of the overall context in the shortest possible time
Leaving out unimportant information as briefly and precisely as possible, avoiding unnecessary digressions
General knowledge from the subject area, e.g. content from the basic computer science course, can usually be assumed to be known and do not need to be introduced further in the work. All other terms and facts are to be introduced to the reader.
All statements must be substantiated and justified by means of sources, unless they are part of the generally recognized general knowledge of computer science.

Citations and references

In the following, citation and source indication techniques that are important for scientific and technical literature are described. Traditional procedures such as the indication of the source by means of comments and footnotes (common especially in humanities subjects) are dispensed with. Notes and footnotes should be used sparingly or not at all in our context.

General rules

Basically, quotes that have been adopted and incorporated into one's own academic work must always be identified as such. This applies not only to texts, but also to photos, illustrations, graphics, tables and the like. A distinction is made between
1. literal (true to original) quotations and
2. non-literal (analogous) quotations, so-called paraphrases.
All citations must be substantiated with a source including the page number (for literal citations) from the primary document used as a template. Verbatim quotations are indicated by quotation marks. Analogous paraphrases of a quote in your own words do not come in quotation marks.
Quotes should be short.
In technical papers, as well as notes and footnotes, citations should be used sparingly. If a quote is still available, it should be short.
Quotations must be precise and accurate in content and form.
In other words, in the case of literal quotations, a text must be reproduced precisely in its spelling and punctuation, which also applies to typographical errors and outdated spellings. Any quotation that is put into a new context must keep its original meaning.
Quotations must be immediate.
In other words, they should come from the original text and not be taken over from "second hand". Only in exceptional cases - if the original literature cannot be obtained - quoting from "second hand" is permitted. It then needs to be labeled with the addition "cited in", followed by an indication of the secondary source.
Citations should be appropriate.
In other words, they should fit into the context of your own presentation and be cleverly integrated into the running text.

Special rules of verbatim quotation

When writing scientific papers, one should also know and master those techniques of verbatim quotation that relate to changing the form of the text (e.g. inserting a quotation into one's own sentence structure through grammatical adjustments). These techniques are rarely used in technical literature, however, reference is made at this point to the further literature at the end of the document.

In the case of English quotations, it can be assumed that the readership of the academic work is able to speak the language, so that a translation is not necessary and quotations can be reproduced in literal English.

Method of citing the source

To prove the origin of a text passage taken literally or analogously from the literature, it is customary in technical literature to indicate the source by means of brackets. The reference to the source is made in the running text immediately after the quotation or the presentation of a situation by specifying alphabetical or numerical keys in square brackets. Each key identifies an entry in the bibliography, which contains the detailed bibliographical information. There are a large number of variants for creating the keys. The consecutive numbering and the formation of a key from the author's last name and year of publication is very common. In the case of an alphabetical key, it is quoted in the work from different works of an author,

Creation of a bibliography

As a rule, the literature is arranged alphabetically according to the surname of the (first) author or editor. If several books or articles are mentioned by an author, the year of publication is used as the second ordering criterion. The reproduction of the individual sources takes place depending on the type of literature (book, journal article, conference article, standard, etc.) in a certain way determined by conventions, whereby there are many different variants in detail. The following information is common (given in an abstract, BNF-like notation that can be read by computer scientists):

For books

<Autorenliste>. <Titel und Untertitel des Buches>. <Verlag>, [<Nummer der Auflage>], <Erscheinungsort>, <Erscheinungsjahr>.

Example:
Helmut Balzert. Lehrbuch der Software-Technik. Software-Entwicklung. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg, Berlin, Oxford, 1996.

For conference articles

<Autorenliste>. <Titel des Artikels>. In: [(<Herausgeberliste> {(Hrsg.)| (Ed.)}.] <Titel der Proceedings>. <Ort der Konferenz>, <Zeitpunkt der Konferenz>, <Verlagsinformationen>, [<Seitenzahlen des Artikels>].

Example:
Birgit Demuth, Heinrich Hussmann. Using OCL Constraints for Relational Database Design. In: UML'99 The Unified Modeling Language. Second Int. Conference. Fort Collins, CO, USA, October 1999, Springer, 1999.

For magazine articles

<Autorenliste>. <Titel des Artikels>. In: <Name der Zeitschrift>, <Zeitschriftenjahrgang>:<Heftnummer>, <Erscheinungsjahr>, <Seitenzahlen>.

Example:
Bertrand Meyer. Applying "Design by Contract". In: IEEE Computer, 25:10, 1992, 40-51.

For essays from compilations

<Autorenliste>. <Titel des Artikels>. In: <Herausgeberliste> {(Hrsg.)| (Ed.)}. <Titel des Sammelwerkes>. [<Nummer der Auflage>], <Verlag>, <Erscheinungsort>, <Erscheinungsjahr>, [<Seitenzahlen des Artikels>].

Example:
Theo Härder. Realisierung von operationalen Schnittstellen. In: Peter C. Lockemann, Joachim W. Schmidt (Hrsg.). Datenbank-Handbuch. Springer, Berlin, 1987, 167- 342.

For standards, specifications and documentation

<Name des Autors, der Organisation oder Firma>. <Titel und Untertitel>. [<Adresse>], [<Version>], [<Zeitpunkt>].

Example:
Object Management Group (OMG). Unified Modeling Language (UML) 1.3 specification. Version 1.3, 2000.

For websites

<Name des Autors, der Organisation oder Firma>. <Titel und Untertitel>. [<Version>], <Zeitpunkt>. <URL>

Example:
Paul Callahan. Wonders of Math - The Game of Life. 17. Nov. 2004.
<http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html>.

For academic qualification theses (diploma, dissertation, ...)

<Autorenliste>. <Titel der Arbeit>. <Typ der Arbeit>, <Institution>, [<Ort>], <Jahr>.

Example:
Sten Löcher. UML/OCL für die Integritätssicherung in Datenbankanwendungen. Diplomarbeit, Technische Universität Dresden, 2001.

The following two general rules are important when creating a bibliography:

Decide on a style for all references!
State all sources used and give them as precisely as possible!