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When is a diploma thesis in mathematics (bachelor or master thesis) actually considered good enough for a supervisor to propose publishing it in a journal? In some universities (e.g., ETH), this appears to be a prerequisite to obtain an excellent grade. What does one have to do to achieve this? Is proving a new theorem or anything equivalent necessary?

Most math theses at the bachelor or master level contain results that are already known. Therefore, there might be no point in publishing them in an academic journal I think.

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Some theses, especially at the undergraduate level, are expository on existing theory rather than new contributions. There are some venues that would publish such things but they need to be at a high standard.

It is difficult for students at both the undergraduate and masters level to do research resulting in true advances, partly, at least, due to the constrained timelines for such things. It is even difficult for most students to gain sufficient insight into a small area of a field to be able to begin such explorations. Some achieve it, with the help of a good advisor and a lot of work. And some advisors are better at suggesting appropriate problems than others are.

But for research in math, as in other fields to be publishable it has to be both novel and correct. "Novel" means that it makes a valuable contribution to the literature. This is judged by reviewers and editors, however, and is known only after review. Your advisor can likely judge if what you produce is something ready for submission.

But a literal answer to your headline question is that it is "publishable" when the editor says it is publishable.

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Essentially seconding @Buffy's answer: it's not easy, and not typical, for undergrad (or Master's) theses (at least in the U.S., where I've observed) to be publishable in serious journals.

Why? Well, for most even-high-end students, they've still not had enough time to really catch up to the state-of-the-art, to begin with. Further, surely it's not reasonable for absolute novices to somehow depend upon succeeding at things that much more senior people had failed to do (and would have wanted). Yes, an expert advisor can help in subtle choices of projects... and in doing the non-obvious things that might make them work ... but, still, this can't be cranked out as though on an assembly line.

(... let's not talk about increased commodification by "higher" administration...)

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  • Ah, well, the downvote is either a random cranky one, or blaming the weather reporter for the weather... Yes, as has been discussed here before, there is an irrational inflation of apparent expectations... (which cannot literally be met, no). Commented Aug 1, 2023 at 21:52
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    Don't know about the downvote either (I upvoted). One thing that might be somewhat open to discussion, though, is the line "succeeding at things that much more senior people had failed to do", I guess. I think quite a significant fraction of the mathematical results that are published do not really prove something that others tried to prove before and failed - rather, the authors simply consider questions which nobody has (seriously) tried before, yet. This seems to be one way how, sometimes, an undergraduate student can get a result from their thesis published. Commented Aug 1, 2023 at 22:12
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    @JochenGlueck, yes, indeed, "questions which nobody has (seriously) tried before"... Still, although that criterion is good in a number of ways, it may also reflect the shallowness of the question. Hard to know... Commented Aug 1, 2023 at 23:07

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