Section Content

A Master's or Doctoral thesis contains several sections. This page contains information about each of them.

Master's or Doctoral thesis abstracts

Your Master's or Doctoral thesis must contain an abstract in French.

• Master's thesis abstract: 300 words maximum
• Doctoral thesis abstract: 700 words maximum

For greater visibility in international databases, it is recommended that you also include an English abstract.

Each abstract must be on a separate page.

The English abstract must follow the French one.

Table of contents

The table of contents should be generated automatically using your word processing software.

It must include:

• The front matter (abstracts, dedications, acknowledgements, preface, etc.)
• The titles of the body sections
• The list of tables
• The list of diagrams
• The list of figures
• The list of abbreviations and acronyms, etc.

Preface

The preface is mandatory. It consists of one or two parts, depending on the type of master’s or doctoral thesis. It can also be used to comment on the approach taken in the case of a research-creation project, or to provide details about the attached files.

Part 1 - Use of generative AI

The first part is mandatory for all theses and includes a general statement on the use of generative AI.

The  mandatory disclosure should include the following elements:

• With the agreement of [my research supervisor], generative artificial intelligence tools [and other tools, if applicable] were not used in the research , production , or writing of [this master's thesis/doctoral thesis]

OR

• With the agreement of [my research supervisor], generative artificial intelligence tools [and other tools, if applicable] were used [specify in which cases] in the research, production, and writing of [this master's thesis/doctoral thesis], and the content they generated was systematically cross-checked.
• They were used to [description of the task for the relevant research steps or activities and indication of the measures implemented to ensure responsible use].
• Contributions generated by generative AI are explicitly mentioned in [the “Methodology” section/footnotes/an appendix/the “Acknowledgments” section, the bibliography].

In addition, it is important to specify the ethical considerations that guided your responsible use of generative AI and to indicate the measures you implemented to comply with the guidelines, in particular to maintain the development of your research skills, verify the validity of the data, respect copyright, ensure confidentiality, or protect research data.

Important information and examples of statements for different fields of study are provided in the “What are my obligations?” section on the Responsible Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence page.
 

Part 2 - Integration of articles

A second part of the preface is mandatory for master's or doctoral theses that are article-based or combined, or for portfolio format theses.

This part contains information on:

• the status of the integrated article manuscript, or its date of submission, acceptance, or publication. See the page Types of theses for more details.
• the status of preparation, publication, or production of the piece of the thesis by organized file
• changes between the integrated version of the article or piece of the organized file and its published version, if applicable
• your author status (first author, co-first author, or, exceptionally, co-author)
• your exact role in the preparation of each article or piece of the portfolio format thesis
• the co-authors of each article or piece of the portfolio format thesis

Appendices

Appendices are supplementary materials that complement the main body of the thesis. These may include literature reviews, questionnaires and forms, long calculations, maps and other supplementary information. Appendices may be placed before or after the bibliography, depending on the usage in your discipline.

Audio, video and multimedia files, as well as large files, must be submitted as supplementary files to the main file. Consult the Authorized software and file formats page to learn more.

The description of each appendix file and its link to the thesis should be provided in the preface to the manuscript, or in an accompanying document.

Research data

Pay special attention to research data submitted as an appendix to your thesis. It is imperative that datasets be accompanied by a Readme file providing documentation of the data. Please refer to the Library's website for further information regarding the correct documentation of your data.

Grant-awarding agencies and publishers may have policies or guidelines that set out the conditions for the storage and sharing of research data in an appropriate data repository. Université Laval has a reserved space on Borealis, the Canadian Dataverse repository, which can be used for this purpose. If research data related to your thesis is to be found in such a repository, be sure to mention this in your preface.

For more information on best practices in research data management, consult resources offered by the Library (in French only).

Body of the thesis or dissertation

Each of the sections (introduction, chapter, conclusion) in the body of the Master's or Doctoral thesis must start on a new page.

Bibliography

The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies does not have a prescribed bibliographic style. You should choose a style based on the standards in your field of study.

Included papers

There are certain special rules to follow when including papers.

See the presentation rules for including papers

In the event of a discrepancy between the French and English texts, the French version prevails.