Whether you’re writing a book, a thesis, a research paper, or a market plan, a table of contents is definitely one of the most important things that you need to include in your work. This following article will provide you with certain examples that you can look through and formulate your table from.
Table of contents
A table of contents―also referred to as simply ‘contents’―is a list of the topics that are included in a specific literary work. The point of making the table is simple―it is to allow the reader to turn to any part of the book or thesis which grabs his attention. This can easily be managed if he knows the contents and the specific pages on which the topics will be found. Hence, the table of contents serves an important and crucial purpose in the scheme of things.
In this following article, we will highlight a few examples of how to go about formulating a table of contents so that you can form one from the same.
Table of Contents Format
The table lists out all the topics that are included in the extract or the work that the reader is about to take up. Till the end the things seem coherent to the reader and so it is always a good practice to make sure that all the contents are properly arranged in the table. That is to say, all the topics which you intend to include in the contents section need to be properly and chronologically arranged so that the facts given make perfect sense to the reader. Arranging the contents in just about any random order can often confuse the reader, which is precisely why it should be avoided at all costs.
The table of contents contains two main things: the title, and the page number on which a particular topic has been covered. A very important thing to keep in mind is to ensure that the title makes complete sense and doesn’t leave the reader guessing about its content and purpose. Make sure that each title in the table is self-explanatory and does not confuse the reader.
Sample Table of Contents
Simple Table
| TABLE OF CONTENTS | |
| CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION | pg 1 |
| CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW | pg 4 |
| CHAPTER III: MATERIALS AND METHODS USED | pg 8 |
| CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS | pg 14 |
| CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS | pg 25 |
| APPENDIX | pg 40 |
| REFERENCES | pg 42 |
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | pg 43 |
Detailed Table
| Table of Contents | |
| Introduction | |
| Background | 2-1 |
| Objective | 2-2 |
| Methods | 2-3 |
| Review of Literature | |
| 3.1 Definitions | 3-1 |
| 3.2 Basic Concepts to be Understood | 3-2 |
| 3.3 Concept Model | 3-4 |
| Materials and Methods Used | |
| 4.1 Population and Sample | 4-1 |
| 4.2 Survey Development and Design | 4-2 |
| 4.3 Data Collection Method and Analysis | 4-5 |
| Results and Discussions | |
| 5.1 Description of the Sample | 5-1 |
| 5.2 Description of the Responses | 5-2 |
| 5.3 Analysis of Responses | 5-3 |
| Conclusions | |
| 6.1 Summary | 6-1 |
| 6.2 Recommendations | 6-6 |
| Appendix | 7-1 |
| References and Acknowledgements | 8-2 |
These two format and examples of table of contents will have given you a sufficient idea of how to go about writing the table, and the kind of things that you’re supposed to include in the same. Follow the pointers given in this article to formulate your own table.
