Questions tagged [thesis]

Questions related to initiation, preparation, editing and presentation of a research thesis. A Thesis is a long research report including personal research conclusions and outputs. A Thesis must include personal research and the proper citations from other publications in the research topic.

A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.

In some countries/universities, the word "thesis" or a cognate is used as part of a bachelor's or master's course, while "dissertation" is normally applied to a doctorate, while in others, the reverse is true.

Writing a thesis involves conducting a research project, preparing thesis draft, reading and editing it by the professors and the student and finally reviewing by the assessment committee of the thesis in which two to five professors present.

Note: This tag wiki has content adapted from Wikipedia, used under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.

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I realize I made a huge mistake in my thesis and am not sure what to do. I'm defending very soon (days away). What should I do?

I realize there is a somewhat similar question posted, but my question is different in that I found a pretty big mistake in my thesis. It's such a big problem, it changes my results. I almost wish I hadn't noticed, and been so careful to go back and…
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Is it common to have a personal copy of one’s own PhD thesis?

I worked very hard on my PhD thesis, and I think it would be cool to have a nicely bound physical copy of it. I’m simply wondering if obtaining one is a common thing to do.
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Capitalisation of "Section" and "Chapter" in a Ph.D. Thesis

I am submitting a Ph.D. thesis fairly soon and my supervisor has flagged my use of capitalisation in "Section" and "Chapter" as possibly incorrect. I have googled about a bit and I see mixed opinions. So my question is, when writing a computer…
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How to manage new ideas coming at late stages of PhD

I have started writing my thesis, to be finished in the next coming months. Basically, I am revisiting my early papers and reviewing the problems that I solved three years ago to put in my paper. However, I come across some of new ideas, which I did…
orezvani
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How important is the write-up of a PhD thesis for an academic career?

How important is your written PhD thesis for an academic job search, assuming the results are already written in papers? Do search committees ever read your thesis in addition to your papers? My PhD advisor said that the written thesis is not…
user10694
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Thesis' "Future Work" section – is it acceptable to omit personal involvement in a mentioned project?

So I've been doing my bachelor's thesis. Alongside my bachelor's thesis, I've been taking a course that trains students in working in teams for projects. Let's call this 'course X'. Coincidentally, the project that I'm working on in course X happens…
Jim Alison
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What is the purpose of dissertation embargo periods?

I just heard about "dissertation embargoes". My institution recommends that every graduating student place an embargo on their dissertation. What is a dissertation embargo, and what is its purpose?
Matt Fenwick
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MSc thesis written jointly by two students

Have you encountered such a thing? A thesis submitted jointly by two people? Is that allowed anywhere? I didn't realize it was even remotely possible until I looked up the MSc thesis of one Benjamin Netanyahu. Turns out he submitted it jointly with…
Felix Goldberg
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Proof for seemingly obvious statements in thesis?

I'm currently writing a bachelor thesis in which there is a section that deals with the pros and cons of different data serialization formats. Since this is not the main focus of the thesis, I would like to limit the comparisons to include 2-3 of…
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How much of a "personal touch" on dissertation is OK?

I don't know if this is the case at other institutions but at my university dissertations are published as A5-size books/booklets. There are some regulations on how the formatting is supposed to be but it's pretty relaxed otherwise. Common practice…
posdef
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When you make a thesis in a field of physics and math is it supposed to be revolutionary and groundbreaking?

When you write a thesis is it supposed to all be 100% independent research? Does the thesis need to be ground-breaking? For example, the thesis from Riemann about Differential Geometry. Does a thesis always have to be 'revolutionary' in math and…
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Unfair penalization of Bachelors thesis resulting in a "downgrade" of my degree

I recently submitted my completed Bachelors Thesis. In the guidelines we were given for the thesis, it was stipulated that the thesis should not be more than a certain amount of pages long. My thesis due to the nature of the topic it deals with…
Perturbative
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Why are the final copies of thesis dissertations often required to be double spaced?

From http://thewallaceline.blogspot.com/2006/11/double-line-spacing-in-dissertations.html: It is standard practice to require dissertations to be double-spaced. In the age of word processors, one wonders why this practice persists. This must surely…
Jonathan
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Should each substantive chapter of a PhD dissertation be of similar length?

A professor told me once that the chapter sizes (measured in number of pages) in a PhD dissertation should be coherent. That is, the number of pages in each chapter should be somehow close to each other (to the average). Note: This does not include…
AJed
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How do I compare my thesis research work to commercial products that I can't obtain?

My MSc thesis work in Computer Science involves developing a software solution for a particular problem for which already exist several solutions, in particular commercial software. I know I can't ignore them in my work and have to cite them, but I…
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