Thesis Appendix: What to Include and How to Format It

An appendix is a section at the end of your thesis that holds supporting material — evidence that backs up your research but is too long or too detailed to sit in the main chapters. More than one is called appendices.

The test is simple: your thesis must make complete sense without the appendix. Essential information — the analysis a marker needs to follow your argument — belongs in the main text. Bulky supporting evidence — a full questionnaire, a long data table, an interview transcript — belongs in an appendix, where a reader can check it if they want to.

Rule of thumb If a marker must read it to follow your argument, it goes in the main text. If it only supports or evidences a point you have already made, it can go in an appendix.

Include material that supports your work but would interrupt the flow of your chapters. Typical items in a UK dissertation or thesis are:

• Your research instruments — a blank questionnaire or survey, an interview schedule, or an observation sheet.
• Raw and processed data — full data tables, and statistical output such as SPSS results.
• Interview transcripts, suitably anonymised (see the ethics note below).
• Your coding framework or thematic analysis structure.
• Ethics documentation — your ethics approval letter and a blank consent form.
• Large supplementary tables or figures that would break up the results chapter.

Leave out anything a reader does not need and anything you never mention: as the Oxford Brookes University guidance on appendices puts it, you must refer to each appendix in the body of your work — if you do not, the reader will not know it is there, and it probably should not be included. Never use an appendix as a place to park material that is really part of your argument, or to pad the work out.

In most UK dissertations and theses, appendices come after your reference list or bibliography, at the very end of the document. Each appendix is normally listed in your table of contents so a reader can find it, and each usually starts on a new page.

There is some variation: a minority of departments ask for appendices before the references, and a doctoral thesis with very large appendices may bind them in a separate volume. Generating a clean contents list and consistent numbering is easiest with your university’s thesis template — the University of Hull’s thesis formatting guidance shows how the table of contents, numbering and appendices fit together.

Check first Placement, contents-page listing and page numbering are the details examiners notice. Your handbook is the final word — follow it over any general rule here.

Label each appendix clearly and consistently:

• Name them in order. Use Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C, in the order they are first mentioned in your text, and give each a short descriptive title (“Appendix A — Participant questionnaire”).
• Restart numbering inside each appendix. If Appendix A has two tables and Appendix B has one, the table in Appendix B is “Table B1” (or “Table 1”), not “Table 3”.
• Match your thesis formatting. Use the same font, spacing and margins as the rest of the document, and keep page numbering continuous through the appendices.

Consistent labels make cross-referencing easy and signal a carefully finished piece of work.

Every appendix must be referred to at least once in the main text — that is what justifies its place in the thesis. Point to it with a short phrase at the moment it becomes relevant:

• “The full questionnaire is provided in Appendix A.”
• “As shown in Table C2 (Appendix C), responses clustered around three themes.”

If you reproduce someone else’s work in an appendix — a published scale, a figure, a data extract — cite it as normal, with an in-text citation next to the item and a full entry in your reference list. Material in an appendix is not exempt from referencing.

Word count: appendices usually do not count toward your word limit — but this varies by university and course, so confirm it in your handbook. Whatever the rule, never move parts of your actual argument into an appendix to slip under the limit; markers assess what is in the main text.

Confidential data: anything involving people must protect their identity. Anonymise transcripts and remove names, places and other identifying details before they go anywhere near an appendix, include a blank consent form rather than completed ones, and never include material that could identify a participant. The UK Data Service guidance on anonymising research data explains how to do this properly, and it is part of working within academic integrity.

There is no single UK-wide rule for appendices — expectations sit in your university handbook and your supervisor’s instructions, and those take priority over any general guide. What is fairly consistent is how appendices scale with the level of study:

• Undergraduate dissertation: usually one or two appendices — often a questionnaire or interview schedule and some supporting data.
• Master’s thesis: more supporting material is normal — instruments, transcripts, coding frameworks and ethics documentation.
• Doctoral thesis: appendices can be extensive, sometimes bound as a separate volume, and may include published papers where your regulations allow it.

If you are unsure what a UK marker expects from your dissertation as a whole — scope, evidence, structure and presentation — our thesis and dissertation guidance explains what those expectations look like in practice.

Here is how the appendices of a typical UK dissertation using interviews and a survey might be organised — each item labelled in the order it is first mentioned, and each referred to from the main text:

Appendix A Participant questionnaire (blank)

Appendix B Interview schedule

Appendix C Interview transcripts (anonymised)

Appendix D Supplementary tables and statistical output