Within an English-language book, the table of contents usually appears after the title page, copyright notices, and, in technical journals, the abstract; and before any lists of tables or figures, the foreword, and the preface. It should be written in the same font and size as the rest of your text usually 12 pt Times New Roman. In the table of contents, you should include all level 1 and 2 headings, left-aligned and formatted as plain text.
Level 2 headings are indented. Including lower-level headings in the table of contents is optional. Put your cursor where you want to add the table of contents. If you make changes to your document that affect the table of contents, update the table of contents by right-clicking the table of contents and choosing Update Field. The Table of Contents TOC is an organized listing of the chapters and major sections of your document. A clear, concise, and well formatted TOC is the first indicator of a good research paper.
A List of Tables is a reference tool that allows your readers to quickly and easily navigate to data in your thesis or dissertation.
Construction of the list is similar to creating a Table of Contents. The main difference between the Table of Contents and Index is that the table of contents consists of main headings, titles, and page numbers associated with it whereas an Index lists briefly the key elements, important words, concepts, etc from each chapter.
Making a glossary This is usually at the end of the document, perhaps last before the credits section, or before an index. A glossary will become a separate section in the book. The definition of an index is a guide, list or sign, or a number used to measure change. An example of an index is a list of employee names, addresses and phone numbers. An example of an index is a stock market index which is based on a standard set at a particular time.
Therefore: Check the syntax for creating indexes in your database. Given that the contents above covers an expansive array of information, you might want to break some of those sections into subsections. The formatting for that would be as follows:.
Of course, you can continue to include as many subheadings as you need. If you go in-depth into the various types of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, then you can include each type as its own subheading. Just note that, while the table of contents is meant to direct the readers, you only want to highlight the most important sections. Too many levels can make things unnecessarily complex, voiding the purpose of the table of contents.
A multi-level table of contents would look something like:. Let's look at a table of contents specific to academic writing. The above contents can work for academic writing or novel writing. Often, in academic writing, each heading is numbered and labeled. If you're submitting your paper electronically, you can even link each section to the appropriate page number, allowing readers to jump right to that section with a click of the mouse.
As a rough estimation, a table of contents for an essay might look something like this:. A great table of contents comes in many shapes and sizes. While it depends on the length of the work and the style guide you're bound to , there are a few common denominators to keep in mind. An unclear or sloppy table of contents may even have an adverse effect on your grade because the dissertation is difficult to follow.
Examiners are readers, after all, and a dissertation is an exercise in producing an argument. Your table of contents section will come after your acknowledgements and before your introduction. It includes a list of all your headers and their respective pages and will also contain a sub-section listing your tables, figures or illustrations if you are using them. In general, your thesis can be ordered like this:.
Title Page 2. Abstract 4. Acknowledgement, Dedication and Preface optional 5. Table of Contents 6. Chapters 8. Appendices 9. Endnotes depending on your formatting The formatting of your table of contents will depend on your academic field and thesis length. Some disciplines, like the sciences, have a methodical structure which includes recommended subheadings on methodology, data results, discussion and conclusion.
Humanities subjects, on the other hand, are far more varied. Whichever discipline you are working in, you need to create an organized list of all chapters in their order of appearance, with chapter subheadings clearly labelled. Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. These are listed with the chapter number, followed by a decimal point and the subheading number.
Chapter 1 1. The key to writing a good table of contents is consistency and accuracy. You cannot list subheadings for one chapter and forget them for another. Subheadings are not always required but they can be very helpful if you are dealing with a detailed topic. The page numbers in the table of contents must match with the respective pages in your thesis or manuscript.
So long as you remain both accurate and consistent, your table of contents will be perfect. Fortunately, the days of manually writing a contents page are over. You can still produce a contents page manually with Microsoft Word, but consider using their automatic feature to guarantee accuracy and save time. To produce an automatically-generated table of contents, you must first work with heading styles.
Select top-level headings your chapter titles and apply the Heading 1 style. As you can see in the image below, the table of contents uses the heading styles in your document to determine where each section begins. Sections that begin with a Heading 2 or Heading 3 style will be nested within a Heading 1 style, much like a multilevel list.
A table of contents also creates links for each section, allowing you to navigate to different parts of your document. Just hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click to go to any section. If you edit or add to your document, it's easy to update the table of contents. Just select the table of contents, click Update Table , and choose Update Entire Table in the dialog box that appears.
The table of contents will then update to reflect any changes.
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