Dissertation First Chapter

The Physics Department recommends that the first chapter of the thesis be a succinct summary of the entire thesis, including in particular:

(1)

a brief review of the field prior to the thesis research to provide context

(2)

a presentation of the goals and motivations of the thesis research

(3)

a clear description of what the student has achieved in the thesis research (primarily written in the first person singular, but with due credit to other as appropriate). This description should refer back to (1) and clearly indicate the relation to prior work.

It may also make sense to add:

(4)

suggestions for how to best build upon the thesis research in future work.

Otherwise these suggestions should appear in the conclusion of the thesis.