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Types of text, content and standard structures of academic texts

Types of text, content and standard structures of academic texts

 

The type of text determines its structure and content.

This page introduces the standard IMRAD structure for academic texts and outlines the typical structure of a thesis.

IMRAD

Articles in specialist journals are often structured according to the IMRAD format. IMRAD stands for:

  • Introduction

  • Method

  • Results

  • And

  • Discussion

This means that a typical journal article includes an introduction, a description of the methodology used, a presentation of the findings, and a discussion of these findings.

Typical structures of theses

Theses written for Bachelor's and Master's degrees at the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen often follow one of the structures listed in Table 1.

 

Table 1: Empirical and theoretical theses

Empirical

Theoretical

Empirical

Theoretical

Introduction

Introduction

The introduction is usually divided into three sub-sections:

  • The problem statement, which provides a general background to the problem and marks the starting point of the thesis

  • The aim of the thesis and/or the research question

  • The structure of the thesis

Definitions, theories and empirical foundations

Definitions and theories

Method

(possibly method)

  • Description and justification of the chosen method

  • Definition of the measurement parameters and description of the measurement, test or experimental setup

  • If a methodology section is required, the literature review should be described (including search strategies, choice of information sources, search results and selection of references)

Results

Research and findings on the subject

Discussion/Conclusion

Discussion/Conclusion

  • Review of the research question (critical reflection): What was achieved and what was not?

  • Interpretation of the results

  • Discussion of the practical relevance

  • Outlook on further necessary investigations and areas of research yet to be explored

'Reading for genre' is a useful way to familiarise yourself with a specific type of text. In this approach, you examine several texts belonging to a single genre, or specific text type, such as a number of bachelor's theses.

While reading, you focus on the purpose, function, content, language, structure and layout of the text. This allows you to gain an understanding of this type of text.

The following resources are useful for searching for Bachelor's and Master's theses.

 

Back to Course and self-study materials: table of contents.

bibTutorial | Last updated 05/2026

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