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If this article were a thesis, it would be rejected and the canditate would be withdrawn from the program. It is so full of factual errors that the numerous grammatical and orthographical gaffes hardly matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.156.147.125 ( talk) 15:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
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I came to this article with the specific question on my mind as to whether the original purpose of a student/candidate writing a thesis was related more to proving there ability to teach, practice, or research in the field.. As it turns out the article doesn't touch on any history of the custom at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.156.217.72 ( talk) 08:55, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
--> This is of course nonsense. The word thesis has two meanings, and we must not illustrate a definition of meaning 1 with an example from meaning 2 ("an idea or theory that is expressed in a written statement" etc.). The question is, should we have one or two articles?
By the way, the plural is theses. -- KF 01:50, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
A Thesis pertains to the essay, a thesis is the summary of the essay. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.18.113.88 ( talk) 01:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
The procedure for the examination of a thesis is wrong in the context of a UK PhD examination. The article should be changed to make it clear where the system described is applied. DMB 16:08, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
The final oral examination for a PhD thesis in the UK is substantially different from the procedure used in the US or in continental Europe. First of all, the exam is always held in private, unlike in the US or France where public exams are the norm. Second, there are normally only two examiners (one internal and the other external) and the final result is not announced to the candidate shortly after the exam is over. Instead, the two examiners write an exam report that is subsequently submitted to a graduate studies committee or board for a final decision. It may take a few days or even weeks for the candidate to know whether he/she will be granted leave to supplicate for the degree or not. In their report, examiners may:
Recommendation (1) above is statistically by far the most likely outcome, but, unlike in the US, (2) is also known to happen to a handful of candidates every year. It is very unlikely though that a PhD candidate be downgraded outright to receiving a master's degree without the option of revising his/her thesis first and re-submitting it as a doctoral thesis. Likewise, outright failure (with no degree awarded) is extremely rare, though not entirely impossible. The rare cases when final failure or compulsory downgrading to a master's degree do occur tend normally to happen in the candidate's second oral exam. According to the Cambridge statistical data base, that happened in only less than 2.5 % of the final PhD exams in the academic year 2005-2006 (I also looked for Oxford data on the Internet, but was unable to find it). 161.24.19.82 20:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
In the article it states that dissertations are usually called research projects in UK undergraduate degrees. This isn't really accurate. Most universities use the term dissertation (Edinburgh, Durham, Warwick, Newcastle...). Research projects are usually only 20 credits whereas a dissertation is 40 credits. Most institutions, as far as I know, would require their undergraduates to complete a dissertation in their final year. hedpeguyuk 09:38, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Due to the redirect of dissertation to this article, I have begun a sub-section on disserations, as, at least in the US, they have specific meaning. Kukini 16:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
... Any source for this bizarre claim?
— Kwi | Talk 19:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
"In the majority of US doctoral programs, the term "dissertation" can refer to the major part of the student's total time spent (along with 2-3 years of classes), and may take years of full-time work to complete. At some universities, dissertation is the term for the required submission for the doctorate and thesis refers only to the master's degree requirement. At many others, the word thesis is used for both."
I see no sourcing for any of these non-numeric quantities, but in the generally understood meaning of "majority", if one were to break down the first sentence further, "some" should apply to the last sentence and "many" should apply to the middle sentence. Johnd39 13:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The article states that "[...] in the event of a successful defense the candidate's supervisor will often greet the candidate with the words, Congratulations, Doctor X. At this moment a bottle of champagne is often produced." I wonder where that came from. I've been to several Ph.D. defenses in the US and I can attest that the practice mentioned in the article is far from universal, not least because a thesis is submitted only in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Even if the defense is successful, the candidate still needs a few days or weeks to make the necessary changes/corrections that are normally required by the committee before the final (archival) version can be submitted for formal approval by the Dean of the school/college to which the candidate is affiliated as a student. As for the "bottle of champagne", that is obviously not an institutional practice in the United States, but rather a private form of social celebration that should not be mentioned in an encyclopedic article. 161.24.19.82 12:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I took care of it. Rather self-explainitory. "Canada" was changed to "Canada Rules bitches", and "US" was changed to "US bites cheese nips". Lovely. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.19.14.32 ( talk) 04:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC).
A few stand out here:
One examiner is an academic from the candidate's own university department (not any of the candidate's supervisors) and the other is an external examiner from a different university.
Generally true but not necessarily universal. The University of London has normally had a system whereby the internal examiner comes another college within the university and the external from outside, but from recollection there have been cases of two externals or an internal from the same college - usually because the college is the one in the university covering the field. I've heard of other practices elsewhere so should the above be presented as a hard and fast rule.
...the examination is strictly in private
This may be UofL practice but I've heard that in theory anyone (at least within the university) can attend but in practice no-one else ever does.
...supervisors generally only attend if they feel their student is likely to fail...
Any proof on this? Some supervisors will attend all, others will attend if they feel their presence will help the candidate's nerves, others have various reasons. Are we mindreading? Timrollpickering 22:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I just removed a tag that suggested that this article should be merged with ' Thesis statement', but I agree that some changes need to be made. In my opinion, two different topics are being dealt with here, which should be treated separately:
Accordingly, I propose the following course of action:
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, Quebec, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Switzerland the oral defense is known as a soutenance, in Germany as a Kolloquium or Colloquium: an expert in the field, often from another university, is appointed who will present the dissertation, subject it to a critical examination and discuss it with the author. In the context of the disputation, the critical examiner is termed the opponent, and the author of the dissertation the respondent. The dissertation has to be generally available in its final or at least in a preliminary published form a few weeks before the disputation (3 weeks in Sweden), which is open to the public; after the opponent is finished, anyone present is allowed to ask critical questions (anyone who does is called an "opponent ex auditorio"—an opponent from the auditorium). The final grade is decided after the disputation in a meeting between the opponent and a grading committee of three or (sometimes) four people. In theory, also the points raised by [opponentes ex auditorio] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup ( help) affect the grade. It has happened that such opponent has caused the committee not to pass the respondent, although this would be quite extraordinary nowadays.
Deleted sentence claiming electronic versions of theses are called ETDs. It was stated as if fact or mainstream opinion, but I've never heard this usage and only reference was a wiki book on "Electronic Thesis Documents", hardly an authoritative reference. Smells like a weasel to me. 153.104.46.187 ( talk) 22:52, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
It is my understanding that a degree is granted to those who demonstrate that they are improving their field of study. I don't think the fact that the proposal needs to be formatted in a certain way should be the focus of this article. The article really needs to talk about the reason of having a thesis/dissertation requirement in the first place from the point of view of academia. Kmill ( talk) 04:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
In this section, it explains that the word "Thesis" perse this is the very complicated part of the project section where you must have to take long more time. You cannot easily get the answers what you want to have. Visit naldenz_97@yahoo.com. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.111.232.50 ( talk) 07:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
=== ...what? 162.136.193.1 ( talk) 21:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
This article is about a specific type of document but "thesis" which redirects here is a specific type of statement in a document. Why isn't there an article on that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheRealdeal ( talk • contribs) 17:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
I suspect we are dealing with editors using popular definitions, and probably a bit of US cultural bias, too. I wrote "dissertations" for both my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. The "thesis" was, as you say, a statement made at the beginning of the dissertation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.47.214.214 ( talk) 04:20, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
The word thesis (in the US and maybe elsewhere) is common shorthand for "thesis paper" (or report/document/etc) meaning a paper written about a thesis (statement). In the US, it's essentially synonymous with dissertation, but usually used for Master's level and sometimes undergraduate dissertations, whereas usually the dissertation is used for PhD documents, and very rarely for Master's or undergraduate documents. In common use, it has come to mean that the thesis paper is a lesser version of a dissertation. 153.104.46.187 ( talk) 22:58, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
There are many website that can provide a good data about thesis, like what type of thesis and how to write thesis. 1. [1] www.thesisplus.com 2. [2] www.learnerassociates.net
I'm pretty sure that the general reference to Carleton University at www.carleton.ca is actually supposed to be a reference to the "How to Organize Your Thesis" article at www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/chinneck/thesis.html. This second site receives 300-400 hits per day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.113.111 ( talk) 16:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
A paragraph is recurrently being pushed by User:Garyrendall purportedly about "dissertation structure". Problems are:
I would like to know more in detail what the cited book says about that, if the book can be considered a reliable source and what is the best way to present the information eventually. -- Cyclopia talk 00:13, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the problem is here. You say 'The only source cited is a howto book'. This is a 250pp book published by the top publisher in the field and written by an education professor. The fact that it has 'How to' in the title is immaterial. You say 'The information in the paragraph looks quite like a howto (even if not clearly presented as such)'. Why shouldn't it be presented in these terms? This is precisely what inquirers to this page will surely be wanting. You say 'The paragraph is an obviously incorrect generalization: not all dissertations have 100-200 words abstracts, and the percentages cited look suspiciously arbitrary (5% discussion?)'. You have cited wrongly from the edit I put in: I did not say '5% discussion'. Check it. I said '25% discussion and 5% conclusion'. You should not be editing if you cannot read and report accurately. And it is not an 'obviously incorrect generalization' to say that dissertations have 100-200 word abstracts. Nearly all will conform to this expectation. It has to be succinct, to be presentable on one page. Check it with any university. No abstract longer than 200 words would be acceptable (even for War and Peace). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garyrendall ( talk • contribs) 11:05, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I noticed that Wikipedia has not captured the Capstone process anywhere. A Capstone project is similar to a thesis or dissertation and used in place of them for many Masters programs. Here is some more information about it - http://www.law.duke.edu/curriculum/capstone/procedure and here is a link to the DU capstone repository - http://ectd.du.edu/search/
I think it is a valid process to be added to this page. THDju ( talk) 15:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Correction: "dissertação" is the name used to MSc thesis while "tese" is the name used for PhD thesis
This seems very odd. Shouldn't it be one or the other, with redirects as appropriate? When is the three-word term "Thesis or dissertation" ever used? Ghmyrtle ( talk) 11:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
-- 222.64.223.168 ( talk) 03:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
The article current says:
I don't know how "normal" this is, but it was certainly not the case at University College London for a Ph.D. thesis. The thesis had to be officially submitted to the registrars department, who then posted copies to the examiners.
Does anyone know the shortest Ph.D. thesis that has been awarded? I recall an ex-colleague, who himself had a Ph.D, telling me he know of Ph.D thesis of X pages. I can't recall what X was, but I think it was about 25. He is dead now, so I can't ask him. My own was 250 pages (see http://www.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/research/borl/homepages/davek/phd/phd.html), which I don't think is that untypical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drkirkby ( talk • contribs) 15:27, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't know what the article is on about in the section "Thesis committee". The whole concept is completely alien to me!
The statement "The committee members are doctors in their field" makes no sense. My own supervisor (Professor David Delpy who is now the Chief Executive of EPSRC) does not have a Ph.D. himself, but had supervised many Ph.D. students and had been an examiner for countless Ph.D students. Prof. Delpy did get a D.Sc, but that was after he was a Professor. I'm sure it's normal for examiners to have Ph.D's, but I know it's not a requirement in the UK. Drkirkby ( talk)
Thesis are also required for undergraduate courses (not all of them, only the ones with curriculum oversaw by the education ministry(?)) They usually go by the name trabalho de conclusao de curso TCC, trabalho de graduacao interdisciplinar TGI. and requires the same rigorousness as a phd thesis, just not required to be about original research as the phd one would.
will not update the page as my english for academia terminology is a joke. as you can see on the paragraph above. 99.27.180.132 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:09, 11 December 2011 (UTC).
The two/three reviewers… my understanding based on listening to my university is you have two to four examiners. You're required to have two but if you get three or four, it means things will likely be sped along if one of those reviewers should take an extensively long time to finish or something happens that makes it difficult for them to review. -- LauraHale ( talk) 22:49, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't know how to edit links, but the first link at the bottom section of the page has been vandalized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.115.246.126 ( talk • contribs) 10:37, March 24, 2012
"Individual departments and faculties set thesis word lengths. Theses in the humanities and social sciences are typically 8,000–10,000 words,[citation needed] with theses in the sciences being roughly half that length[citation needed]. The length of an undergraduate or master's dissertation varies considerably, but is almost always between 6,000 and 25,000 words."
Do you not see how a thesis (postgrad) being 10,000 words seems silly when a dissertation (undergrad) can be up to 25,000 words?
Moreover, I know from first-hand experience that a scientific thesis is not "half the length" of a humanities/social sciences thesis. If it were, I would've finished writing months ago. These are unsubstantiated claims and need to be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.242.160 ( talk) 00:49, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
I recommend that Inaugural dissertation be merged here since it is merely a description of what this type of dissertation is, and nothing more notable. -- THE FOUNDERS INTENT PRAISE 11:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
The accuracy of the Canadian theses under the french-influenced system leaves a lot to be desired and is often factually incorrect, from first-hand knowledge. Furthermore, no sources are cited in that section except for a reference to Carleton University. Quebec universities, which compose the majority of the group of french-influenced universities in Canada, are completely ignored. This section needs serious rework in order to provide any kind of actionable information to readers.
24 May 2023. I think I've resolved the problem underlined above in a sourced edit published today. Feel free to further improve it. I must point out I'm the author of one of the references provided. No personal gain is derived from this. Something I published just happens to be relevant to this topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Groov3 ( talk • contribs) 01:23, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
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I've added a new paragraph Thesis Consultation and a useful source. This page is about thesis so the students who visit this page are definitely looking for what is thesis and how to write. In other words, they need consultation on thesis. There are thesis consultation desks here in Universities in Pakistan. Don't remove anything that you just aren't aware of. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SohailKhanzada ( talk • contribs) 10:31, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
I propose this article be moved/renamed/reverted to the title Thesis (academic document). Currently the definition appearing in searches on the term thesis show wikipedia's definition to be contrary to Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy. The etymology currently given in the article itself points to the error, namely that the academic document (thesis) is a special case of intellectual proposition (thesis) or in other words the academic document ("thesis") is a special usage of the general term: thesis meaning an intellectual proposition. The reductionist appropriation of the term by academia to give the impression that it solely or primarily refers to academic work is both unnecessary and destructive of the wider, more fundamental and higher meaning of the word. Even academics must recognise that even a doctoral thesis does not mark the pinnacle of intellectual propositions. The article should therefore
see e.g :
Google search:
1. a statement or theory that is put forward as a premise to be maintained or proved.
2. a long essay or dissertation involving personal research, written by a candidate for a university degree.
3. an unstressed syllable or part of a metrical foot in Greek or Latin verse.
Dictionary.com:
1. a proposition stated or put forward for consideration, especially one to be discussed and proved or to be maintained against objections:
He vigorously defended his thesis on the causes of war.
2. a subject for a composition or essay.
3. a dissertation on a particular subject in which one has done original research, as one presented by a candidate for a diploma or degree.
4. Music. the downward stroke in conducting; downbeat.
5. Prosody. a part of a metrical foot
6. Philosophy. an assertible proposition.
The meanings relating to music conducters and poetry prosody being distinct and possibly now archaic, it is unnecessary for this argument that there is no other hierarchy of meanings offered but ONLY that these are orderings of meanings that stem from the common etymological definition: "the setting out of a proposition". This article should therefore be reverted/moved/renamed to its original title. Redirection of Dissertation would continue to be to this article as renamed.
LookingGlass (
talk) 08:50, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
@
Justlettersandnumbers: @
Ghmyrtle:
I really like Justlettersandnumbers' idea to give the current consensus time to be commented upon (e.g by
Saddhiyama), but I don't know what any norm here might be. I'd suggest 14 days, as being a general standard.
LookingGlass (
talk) 11:08, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
{{{thesis_title}}}
links to [[Thesis]].@ Wbm1058:: Your comments sound so high-handed that I find them offensive. I hope I have misunderstood but you appear to state that DESPITE this section REACHING a consensus you have decided to overrule this. I am pleased that you cite your reasoning for disagreement but I find it entirely unacceptable for you to elect yourself as judge jury and executioner on the matter. In answer to the precipitating question: "What goes here?", I cannot see this as an issue as browser calls to this page ("here") would then simply automatically be redirected. The disambiguation page seems a red herring to this discussion. The fact that Wikipedia "is not a dictionary" is not intended to suggest that Wikipedia should "contradict dictionaries". Wikipedia has to align with the body of authoratative knowledge out there. Style guidance, site management, bandwidth considerations, and everything else must follow if Wikipedia is to retain any credibility going forward. The bottom line for me is that the facts of the subjects should lead the Wikipedia articles on them. LookingGlass ( talk) 12:30, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
{{{thesis_title}}}
parameter. So fixing over 4K links might not be as daunting as it seems. The first step to disambiguate links would be to change the link in the template to the new title, then wait for the system to automatically update "what links here" (this may take some time to work through the
job queue), then manually fix what's left.@
Wbm1058: ( @
Ghmyrtle: @
Justlettersandnumbers: @
Saddhiyama: @
Anthony Bradbury: @
Vysotsky: )
What I feel strongly about, Wbm1058, is this: the agreement reached here (before, this time, you overruled it) is based upon the most authoratiative sources - dictionaries, so while of course I do not accept the "intellectual reasoning" provided to justify retaining the error(s), what I simply cannot accept as credible is the argument that they must remain as wikipedia has no practicable methodology for their correction. HOWEVER, I will bow out before your apparently greater interest in the matter and superior capability and erudition in this space. If those who are in a position to do so not only have no interest in correcting such errors but instead apply their energies to maintaining them, and if those who are not choose to stand by, then after speaking out all that remains is to move on.
LookingGlass (
talk) 10:50, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
Aren't they different hence a separate article? DaneGil1996 ( talk) 09:18, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
What's the difference between the two? -- ExperiencedArticleFixer ( talk) 12:45, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
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If this article were a thesis, it would be rejected and the canditate would be withdrawn from the program. It is so full of factual errors that the numerous grammatical and orthographical gaffes hardly matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.156.147.125 ( talk) 15:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
|
I came to this article with the specific question on my mind as to whether the original purpose of a student/candidate writing a thesis was related more to proving there ability to teach, practice, or research in the field.. As it turns out the article doesn't touch on any history of the custom at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.156.217.72 ( talk) 08:55, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
--> This is of course nonsense. The word thesis has two meanings, and we must not illustrate a definition of meaning 1 with an example from meaning 2 ("an idea or theory that is expressed in a written statement" etc.). The question is, should we have one or two articles?
By the way, the plural is theses. -- KF 01:50, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
A Thesis pertains to the essay, a thesis is the summary of the essay. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.18.113.88 ( talk) 01:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
The procedure for the examination of a thesis is wrong in the context of a UK PhD examination. The article should be changed to make it clear where the system described is applied. DMB 16:08, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
The final oral examination for a PhD thesis in the UK is substantially different from the procedure used in the US or in continental Europe. First of all, the exam is always held in private, unlike in the US or France where public exams are the norm. Second, there are normally only two examiners (one internal and the other external) and the final result is not announced to the candidate shortly after the exam is over. Instead, the two examiners write an exam report that is subsequently submitted to a graduate studies committee or board for a final decision. It may take a few days or even weeks for the candidate to know whether he/she will be granted leave to supplicate for the degree or not. In their report, examiners may:
Recommendation (1) above is statistically by far the most likely outcome, but, unlike in the US, (2) is also known to happen to a handful of candidates every year. It is very unlikely though that a PhD candidate be downgraded outright to receiving a master's degree without the option of revising his/her thesis first and re-submitting it as a doctoral thesis. Likewise, outright failure (with no degree awarded) is extremely rare, though not entirely impossible. The rare cases when final failure or compulsory downgrading to a master's degree do occur tend normally to happen in the candidate's second oral exam. According to the Cambridge statistical data base, that happened in only less than 2.5 % of the final PhD exams in the academic year 2005-2006 (I also looked for Oxford data on the Internet, but was unable to find it). 161.24.19.82 20:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
In the article it states that dissertations are usually called research projects in UK undergraduate degrees. This isn't really accurate. Most universities use the term dissertation (Edinburgh, Durham, Warwick, Newcastle...). Research projects are usually only 20 credits whereas a dissertation is 40 credits. Most institutions, as far as I know, would require their undergraduates to complete a dissertation in their final year. hedpeguyuk 09:38, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Due to the redirect of dissertation to this article, I have begun a sub-section on disserations, as, at least in the US, they have specific meaning. Kukini 16:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
... Any source for this bizarre claim?
— Kwi | Talk 19:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
"In the majority of US doctoral programs, the term "dissertation" can refer to the major part of the student's total time spent (along with 2-3 years of classes), and may take years of full-time work to complete. At some universities, dissertation is the term for the required submission for the doctorate and thesis refers only to the master's degree requirement. At many others, the word thesis is used for both."
I see no sourcing for any of these non-numeric quantities, but in the generally understood meaning of "majority", if one were to break down the first sentence further, "some" should apply to the last sentence and "many" should apply to the middle sentence. Johnd39 13:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The article states that "[...] in the event of a successful defense the candidate's supervisor will often greet the candidate with the words, Congratulations, Doctor X. At this moment a bottle of champagne is often produced." I wonder where that came from. I've been to several Ph.D. defenses in the US and I can attest that the practice mentioned in the article is far from universal, not least because a thesis is submitted only in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Even if the defense is successful, the candidate still needs a few days or weeks to make the necessary changes/corrections that are normally required by the committee before the final (archival) version can be submitted for formal approval by the Dean of the school/college to which the candidate is affiliated as a student. As for the "bottle of champagne", that is obviously not an institutional practice in the United States, but rather a private form of social celebration that should not be mentioned in an encyclopedic article. 161.24.19.82 12:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I took care of it. Rather self-explainitory. "Canada" was changed to "Canada Rules bitches", and "US" was changed to "US bites cheese nips". Lovely. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.19.14.32 ( talk) 04:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC).
A few stand out here:
One examiner is an academic from the candidate's own university department (not any of the candidate's supervisors) and the other is an external examiner from a different university.
Generally true but not necessarily universal. The University of London has normally had a system whereby the internal examiner comes another college within the university and the external from outside, but from recollection there have been cases of two externals or an internal from the same college - usually because the college is the one in the university covering the field. I've heard of other practices elsewhere so should the above be presented as a hard and fast rule.
...the examination is strictly in private
This may be UofL practice but I've heard that in theory anyone (at least within the university) can attend but in practice no-one else ever does.
...supervisors generally only attend if they feel their student is likely to fail...
Any proof on this? Some supervisors will attend all, others will attend if they feel their presence will help the candidate's nerves, others have various reasons. Are we mindreading? Timrollpickering 22:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I just removed a tag that suggested that this article should be merged with ' Thesis statement', but I agree that some changes need to be made. In my opinion, two different topics are being dealt with here, which should be treated separately:
Accordingly, I propose the following course of action:
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, Quebec, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Switzerland the oral defense is known as a soutenance, in Germany as a Kolloquium or Colloquium: an expert in the field, often from another university, is appointed who will present the dissertation, subject it to a critical examination and discuss it with the author. In the context of the disputation, the critical examiner is termed the opponent, and the author of the dissertation the respondent. The dissertation has to be generally available in its final or at least in a preliminary published form a few weeks before the disputation (3 weeks in Sweden), which is open to the public; after the opponent is finished, anyone present is allowed to ask critical questions (anyone who does is called an "opponent ex auditorio"—an opponent from the auditorium). The final grade is decided after the disputation in a meeting between the opponent and a grading committee of three or (sometimes) four people. In theory, also the points raised by [opponentes ex auditorio] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup ( help) affect the grade. It has happened that such opponent has caused the committee not to pass the respondent, although this would be quite extraordinary nowadays.
Deleted sentence claiming electronic versions of theses are called ETDs. It was stated as if fact or mainstream opinion, but I've never heard this usage and only reference was a wiki book on "Electronic Thesis Documents", hardly an authoritative reference. Smells like a weasel to me. 153.104.46.187 ( talk) 22:52, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
It is my understanding that a degree is granted to those who demonstrate that they are improving their field of study. I don't think the fact that the proposal needs to be formatted in a certain way should be the focus of this article. The article really needs to talk about the reason of having a thesis/dissertation requirement in the first place from the point of view of academia. Kmill ( talk) 04:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
In this section, it explains that the word "Thesis" perse this is the very complicated part of the project section where you must have to take long more time. You cannot easily get the answers what you want to have. Visit naldenz_97@yahoo.com. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.111.232.50 ( talk) 07:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
=== ...what? 162.136.193.1 ( talk) 21:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
This article is about a specific type of document but "thesis" which redirects here is a specific type of statement in a document. Why isn't there an article on that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheRealdeal ( talk • contribs) 17:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
I suspect we are dealing with editors using popular definitions, and probably a bit of US cultural bias, too. I wrote "dissertations" for both my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. The "thesis" was, as you say, a statement made at the beginning of the dissertation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.47.214.214 ( talk) 04:20, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
The word thesis (in the US and maybe elsewhere) is common shorthand for "thesis paper" (or report/document/etc) meaning a paper written about a thesis (statement). In the US, it's essentially synonymous with dissertation, but usually used for Master's level and sometimes undergraduate dissertations, whereas usually the dissertation is used for PhD documents, and very rarely for Master's or undergraduate documents. In common use, it has come to mean that the thesis paper is a lesser version of a dissertation. 153.104.46.187 ( talk) 22:58, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
There are many website that can provide a good data about thesis, like what type of thesis and how to write thesis. 1. [1] www.thesisplus.com 2. [2] www.learnerassociates.net
I'm pretty sure that the general reference to Carleton University at www.carleton.ca is actually supposed to be a reference to the "How to Organize Your Thesis" article at www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/chinneck/thesis.html. This second site receives 300-400 hits per day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.113.111 ( talk) 16:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
A paragraph is recurrently being pushed by User:Garyrendall purportedly about "dissertation structure". Problems are:
I would like to know more in detail what the cited book says about that, if the book can be considered a reliable source and what is the best way to present the information eventually. -- Cyclopia talk 00:13, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the problem is here. You say 'The only source cited is a howto book'. This is a 250pp book published by the top publisher in the field and written by an education professor. The fact that it has 'How to' in the title is immaterial. You say 'The information in the paragraph looks quite like a howto (even if not clearly presented as such)'. Why shouldn't it be presented in these terms? This is precisely what inquirers to this page will surely be wanting. You say 'The paragraph is an obviously incorrect generalization: not all dissertations have 100-200 words abstracts, and the percentages cited look suspiciously arbitrary (5% discussion?)'. You have cited wrongly from the edit I put in: I did not say '5% discussion'. Check it. I said '25% discussion and 5% conclusion'. You should not be editing if you cannot read and report accurately. And it is not an 'obviously incorrect generalization' to say that dissertations have 100-200 word abstracts. Nearly all will conform to this expectation. It has to be succinct, to be presentable on one page. Check it with any university. No abstract longer than 200 words would be acceptable (even for War and Peace). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garyrendall ( talk • contribs) 11:05, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I noticed that Wikipedia has not captured the Capstone process anywhere. A Capstone project is similar to a thesis or dissertation and used in place of them for many Masters programs. Here is some more information about it - http://www.law.duke.edu/curriculum/capstone/procedure and here is a link to the DU capstone repository - http://ectd.du.edu/search/
I think it is a valid process to be added to this page. THDju ( talk) 15:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Correction: "dissertação" is the name used to MSc thesis while "tese" is the name used for PhD thesis
This seems very odd. Shouldn't it be one or the other, with redirects as appropriate? When is the three-word term "Thesis or dissertation" ever used? Ghmyrtle ( talk) 11:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
-- 222.64.223.168 ( talk) 03:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
The article current says:
I don't know how "normal" this is, but it was certainly not the case at University College London for a Ph.D. thesis. The thesis had to be officially submitted to the registrars department, who then posted copies to the examiners.
Does anyone know the shortest Ph.D. thesis that has been awarded? I recall an ex-colleague, who himself had a Ph.D, telling me he know of Ph.D thesis of X pages. I can't recall what X was, but I think it was about 25. He is dead now, so I can't ask him. My own was 250 pages (see http://www.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/research/borl/homepages/davek/phd/phd.html), which I don't think is that untypical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drkirkby ( talk • contribs) 15:27, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't know what the article is on about in the section "Thesis committee". The whole concept is completely alien to me!
The statement "The committee members are doctors in their field" makes no sense. My own supervisor (Professor David Delpy who is now the Chief Executive of EPSRC) does not have a Ph.D. himself, but had supervised many Ph.D. students and had been an examiner for countless Ph.D students. Prof. Delpy did get a D.Sc, but that was after he was a Professor. I'm sure it's normal for examiners to have Ph.D's, but I know it's not a requirement in the UK. Drkirkby ( talk)
Thesis are also required for undergraduate courses (not all of them, only the ones with curriculum oversaw by the education ministry(?)) They usually go by the name trabalho de conclusao de curso TCC, trabalho de graduacao interdisciplinar TGI. and requires the same rigorousness as a phd thesis, just not required to be about original research as the phd one would.
will not update the page as my english for academia terminology is a joke. as you can see on the paragraph above. 99.27.180.132 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:09, 11 December 2011 (UTC).
The two/three reviewers… my understanding based on listening to my university is you have two to four examiners. You're required to have two but if you get three or four, it means things will likely be sped along if one of those reviewers should take an extensively long time to finish or something happens that makes it difficult for them to review. -- LauraHale ( talk) 22:49, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't know how to edit links, but the first link at the bottom section of the page has been vandalized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.115.246.126 ( talk • contribs) 10:37, March 24, 2012
"Individual departments and faculties set thesis word lengths. Theses in the humanities and social sciences are typically 8,000–10,000 words,[citation needed] with theses in the sciences being roughly half that length[citation needed]. The length of an undergraduate or master's dissertation varies considerably, but is almost always between 6,000 and 25,000 words."
Do you not see how a thesis (postgrad) being 10,000 words seems silly when a dissertation (undergrad) can be up to 25,000 words?
Moreover, I know from first-hand experience that a scientific thesis is not "half the length" of a humanities/social sciences thesis. If it were, I would've finished writing months ago. These are unsubstantiated claims and need to be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.242.160 ( talk) 00:49, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
I recommend that Inaugural dissertation be merged here since it is merely a description of what this type of dissertation is, and nothing more notable. -- THE FOUNDERS INTENT PRAISE 11:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
The accuracy of the Canadian theses under the french-influenced system leaves a lot to be desired and is often factually incorrect, from first-hand knowledge. Furthermore, no sources are cited in that section except for a reference to Carleton University. Quebec universities, which compose the majority of the group of french-influenced universities in Canada, are completely ignored. This section needs serious rework in order to provide any kind of actionable information to readers.
24 May 2023. I think I've resolved the problem underlined above in a sourced edit published today. Feel free to further improve it. I must point out I'm the author of one of the references provided. No personal gain is derived from this. Something I published just happens to be relevant to this topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Groov3 ( talk • contribs) 01:23, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
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Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 11:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I've added a new paragraph Thesis Consultation and a useful source. This page is about thesis so the students who visit this page are definitely looking for what is thesis and how to write. In other words, they need consultation on thesis. There are thesis consultation desks here in Universities in Pakistan. Don't remove anything that you just aren't aware of. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SohailKhanzada ( talk • contribs) 10:31, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
I propose this article be moved/renamed/reverted to the title Thesis (academic document). Currently the definition appearing in searches on the term thesis show wikipedia's definition to be contrary to Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy. The etymology currently given in the article itself points to the error, namely that the academic document (thesis) is a special case of intellectual proposition (thesis) or in other words the academic document ("thesis") is a special usage of the general term: thesis meaning an intellectual proposition. The reductionist appropriation of the term by academia to give the impression that it solely or primarily refers to academic work is both unnecessary and destructive of the wider, more fundamental and higher meaning of the word. Even academics must recognise that even a doctoral thesis does not mark the pinnacle of intellectual propositions. The article should therefore
see e.g :
Google search:
1. a statement or theory that is put forward as a premise to be maintained or proved.
2. a long essay or dissertation involving personal research, written by a candidate for a university degree.
3. an unstressed syllable or part of a metrical foot in Greek or Latin verse.
Dictionary.com:
1. a proposition stated or put forward for consideration, especially one to be discussed and proved or to be maintained against objections:
He vigorously defended his thesis on the causes of war.
2. a subject for a composition or essay.
3. a dissertation on a particular subject in which one has done original research, as one presented by a candidate for a diploma or degree.
4. Music. the downward stroke in conducting; downbeat.
5. Prosody. a part of a metrical foot
6. Philosophy. an assertible proposition.
The meanings relating to music conducters and poetry prosody being distinct and possibly now archaic, it is unnecessary for this argument that there is no other hierarchy of meanings offered but ONLY that these are orderings of meanings that stem from the common etymological definition: "the setting out of a proposition". This article should therefore be reverted/moved/renamed to its original title. Redirection of Dissertation would continue to be to this article as renamed.
LookingGlass (
talk) 08:50, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
@
Justlettersandnumbers: @
Ghmyrtle:
I really like Justlettersandnumbers' idea to give the current consensus time to be commented upon (e.g by
Saddhiyama), but I don't know what any norm here might be. I'd suggest 14 days, as being a general standard.
LookingGlass (
talk) 11:08, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
{{{thesis_title}}}
links to [[Thesis]].@ Wbm1058:: Your comments sound so high-handed that I find them offensive. I hope I have misunderstood but you appear to state that DESPITE this section REACHING a consensus you have decided to overrule this. I am pleased that you cite your reasoning for disagreement but I find it entirely unacceptable for you to elect yourself as judge jury and executioner on the matter. In answer to the precipitating question: "What goes here?", I cannot see this as an issue as browser calls to this page ("here") would then simply automatically be redirected. The disambiguation page seems a red herring to this discussion. The fact that Wikipedia "is not a dictionary" is not intended to suggest that Wikipedia should "contradict dictionaries". Wikipedia has to align with the body of authoratative knowledge out there. Style guidance, site management, bandwidth considerations, and everything else must follow if Wikipedia is to retain any credibility going forward. The bottom line for me is that the facts of the subjects should lead the Wikipedia articles on them. LookingGlass ( talk) 12:30, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
{{{thesis_title}}}
parameter. So fixing over 4K links might not be as daunting as it seems. The first step to disambiguate links would be to change the link in the template to the new title, then wait for the system to automatically update "what links here" (this may take some time to work through the
job queue), then manually fix what's left.@
Wbm1058: ( @
Ghmyrtle: @
Justlettersandnumbers: @
Saddhiyama: @
Anthony Bradbury: @
Vysotsky: )
What I feel strongly about, Wbm1058, is this: the agreement reached here (before, this time, you overruled it) is based upon the most authoratiative sources - dictionaries, so while of course I do not accept the "intellectual reasoning" provided to justify retaining the error(s), what I simply cannot accept as credible is the argument that they must remain as wikipedia has no practicable methodology for their correction. HOWEVER, I will bow out before your apparently greater interest in the matter and superior capability and erudition in this space. If those who are in a position to do so not only have no interest in correcting such errors but instead apply their energies to maintaining them, and if those who are not choose to stand by, then after speaking out all that remains is to move on.
LookingGlass (
talk) 10:50, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
Aren't they different hence a separate article? DaneGil1996 ( talk) 09:18, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
What's the difference between the two? -- ExperiencedArticleFixer ( talk) 12:45, 27 October 2020 (UTC)