Notes on the First Draft of My Thesis

It's been a long, long while, haha. I've been buried in English exams and writing my thesis, and my head has been spinning. Finally caught a break today, so let me knock out a quick post and recap how the first draft went.

1. Overview

Big picture, my thesis draft has roughly seven sections.

# Abstract
 
A brief intro to the background, goals, methods, key results, and conclusions of the research.
 
# Chapter 1 Introduction
 
## 1.1 Research Background
 
Why this topic was chosen — the background and reasons.
 
## 1.2 Research Significance
 
The scientific significance and practical value of the topic.
 
## 1.3 Research Status at Home and Abroad
 
Current progress in this field, both domestically and abroad, and the open problems.
 
## 1.4 Research Content and Technical Roadmap
 
Outline of the main content, methods, and technical path.
 
# Chapter 2 Technical Background
 
## 2.1 Development Languages
 
The main programming languages used in the project.
 
## 2.2 Development Tools and Environment
 
The tools and software environment used during development.
 
## 2.3 Related Technical Standards and Protocols
 
Technical standards and network protocols relevant to the project.
 
# Chapter 3 Requirements Analysis
 
## 3.1 Functional Requirements
 
A detailed description of what the system should do.
 
## 3.2 Non-functional Requirements
 
Performance, security, and other requirements.
 
# Chapter 4 System Design
 
## 4.1 System Architecture Design
 
The overall architecture and how components are split up.
 
## 4.2 Database Design
 
Database structure and design rationale.
 
## 4.3 Interface Design
 
Internal and external interface design.
 
# Chapter 5 System Implementation
 
## 5.1 Development Environment Configuration
 
The specific environment setup for development.
 
## 5.2 Implementation of Main Modules
 
How each module was actually implemented, and what came out of it.
 
# Chapter 6 System Testing
 
## 6.1 Testing Strategy
 
The overall strategy and approach for testing.
 
## 6.2 Test Cases and Results
 
Specific test cases and their results.
 
# Chapter 7 Conclusion and Outlook
 
## 7.1 Summary of Research Outcomes
 
The main results and innovations.
 
## 7.2 Limitations and Future Work
 
Where the research falls short, and where it could go next.
 
# References
 
All references cited in the paper.
 
# Acknowledgments
 
Thanks to the people and organizations who helped during the research and writing.

Every school is a little different, so I'm just using mine as an example. Have a look. The rough word count is around 15k characters, but somehow I ended up with 25k — probably went a bit hard with the prompts, haha.

2. Tips

A quick word on what each section needs, again using mine as the example.

Use an object-oriented writing style: outside of Acknowledgments, do not use first-person "I" or "we" anywhere. Replace with "the author", "this system", "people". The thesis should be primarily prose; figures, tables, and code are supporting material.

In other words, you can't write "I", "my", "we" — replace them all with "this system", "this thesis", "this project", and so on. Don't forget.

There's a lot of content, ugh, but those are roughly the pieces. You'll also need a bunch of diagrams: use case diagrams, class diagrams, sequence diagrams, package diagrams, and so on. I learned them on the fly — looked up the definitions, then drew them in draw.io. Some I did in processon. Both are pretty solid.

For some diagrams, you'll need to coach your prompt (ps: you know what I mean). Tell it what should look like what, what symbols mean what — for example, a flowchart needs a start and end, export it as plantUML or whatever. After a few rounds of training, it gets the idea.

3. Plagiarism Checking

• paperYY
• WeiPu
• CNKI
• WanFang ...

You can try any of these. A lot of them give you a free first run, so you can take advantage of that — definitely enough for a first draft. Refine later.

4. Some Detours I Took

People plant trees so future generations can sit in the shade. Early on, I put the frontend and backend project in one repo and tried to learn NestJS while building it. Progress was painfully slow. So my advice: don't try to learn and build at the same time. Otherwise, the whole thing stays a fantasy.

For undergrads, I also wouldn't recommend writing an algorithms-research thesis. I'm in software engineering, and there are a lot of reasons — hard to draw diagrams for it, hard to fill out the content, etc. (Doesn't apply to the heavy hitters — I'm only talking about beginners like me.)

5. Closing

Conservation of energy, I guess. Anyway, I finally got a rough draft out of it; the rest is slow polishing — same as writing code. I hope everyone reading this graduates smoothly and lands a job they're happy with.

Not sure how many more years I'll be writing code (### ………………)