A table of contents - also referred to as simply 'contents' - is a list of what topics are included in a specific literary work. The point of making the table is simple. If the reader wants to scroll to one part of the book or thesis which grabs his attention, he should know on what page he is supposed to go to in order to find what it is that he is looking for. Hence the table of contents serves a pretty good purpose in the scheme of things. So if you want to learn how to make one, you'd do well to scroll down this article and find yourself one of these examples to your liking.
Table of Contents Format
The table lists out what all topics are included in the extract which you are about to read. To the end that things seem coherent to the reader, 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 and I'm quite sure that you do not intend to do anything of this kind. Hence, if there is one very important tip about drawing up the templates which I would like to share with you, it is to arrange all the contents in correct, coherent order.
The table of contents contains two main things: the title and the page number on which it can be found. A very important thing here is to ensure that the title makes complete sense and doesn't leave the reader guessing what it could be about. Make sure that the title of each of the parts of the table is self-explanatory and does not confuse the reader.
So now, cutting through the crap, here are a couple of examples for your table of contents which you can choose from.
Sample Table of Contents
One can say that there are three main types of templates. So assuming that the table is created for a research of some sort, here are the examples.
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 |
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So these were two generic table of contents for you. Writing the table can be a pretty easy task, if you follow the tips given above!
