The time to start writing your thesis is early in your candidature. This gives you an opportunity to discuss the appropriate style, structure, format and content with your supervisor. Presentation You should read carefully the format specifications for the presentation of the thesis set out in Procedure 8 of the Procedures of Higher Degrees by Research which is given later in the handbook. You should discuss the length, composition and format with your supervisor, but you are responsible for its production and for ensuring that it conforms with the specifications. If there are special reasons for a different format, these should be discussed with your supervisor at an early stage and approval obtained from the Research Higher Degrees Committee.
Examiners object when a thesis is too long.
It is written for experts and should be as short as is consistent with the proper development of the subject for such readers. You are strongly encouraged to use a good computer-based text processing system, such as a word processing or desktop publishing package. Use the spelling checker, but remember that many typing errors lead to incorrect but valid words which will not be found by the checker. The spelling checker is no substitute for careful proof-reading of the text. Many text-processing packages offer the facility of automatic hyphenation, but few of them do the job in an acceptable manner and this can be annoying for the reader.