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.
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How to avoid procrastination during the research phase of my PhD?
I just finished all of my coursework for my PhD program, and am entering the research phase of my degree with a topic already in mind. I've already started the research, but I'm already finding that ...
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What to do when your student is convinced that he will be the next Einstein?
As an adviser, I have found it to be a detrimental motive for a student to focus solely on surpassing Einstein in achievement, for many reasons. One student in particular has busied himself with the ...
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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 ...
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Appropriateness of dedicating my thesis to a Jewish mathematician who died in a concentration camp
I am a Muslim student in a non-Arab country. Would it be unwanted/inappropriate for me to dedicate my thesis on Tauber theory to Alfred Tauber, and more generally to all those Jewish mathematicians ...
user81365
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What's the point of PhD theses if nobody reads them?
At best, the PhD thesis is read by:
The author
The examiners
The supervisor
The author's parents
The author's roommate / spouse / fellow students in research group
Or less than 10 people in total. ...
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What is the best "last slide" in a thesis presentation?
There are some possible options as the last slide of a typical thesis presentation. I've heard of some possibilities:
A question-mark image (as the time to be slaughtered by the referees!),
A Thank ...
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What can I do when some people stole my master thesis work and published it as their own work?
Google scholar suggested a paper for me to read, I opened it and boom it was my master thesis work. My work was based on Arabic language but they claim their work is based on Telugu language. Even ...
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How to respond to a company that wants specific details on implementation of my PhD research?
A company approached me for an interview to explain my work, which has been published as part of my PhD. As I understand from their email, they want to understand my work so that they can use it. ...
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Is it ethical for a professor to get masters students to work on open source modules related to the professor's profit-making company?
My professor of Computer Science has a company (both based in Germany) that promotes an open-source software. Of course the software is free and open-source, but his company generates profits through ...
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What happens if a math PhD student fails to find a proof that is the main objective of his/her thesis topic?
How exactly do Math theses/dissertations work?
Is it fair to assume that the work involves trying to prove something? What happens if you can't?
I did a thesis in Computer Science, and though my ...
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What is a “sandwich thesis”?
On the Internet, I have found that some people have graduated with a PhD by means of a “sandwich thesis”. Could anyone explain what it is?
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Use of first person in a PhD Thesis
Is there a non written rule to which person to use in the PhD thesis, 5 years of using "We" in the papers have brought me to the innate necessity to do it every time I describe something.
Recently, ...
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Should I report an accepted PhD thesis in which the literature review is copied verbatim from sources?
While writing the literature review for my doctoral dissertation, I picked up a few recent dissertations on similar topics from the library to get some pointers on references and style. As I was ...
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How should a faculty deal with the problem of Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated texts?
For many years one of the main problems for academic essays and BA/MA/PhD theses was plagiarism. However with the recent advent of artificial intelligence (AI) that can write high quality texts (e.g. ...
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Where did I lose control of my studies?
I am a 5th MSc semester mathematics student at a local German university. Since fall, I have been working on my thesis, which is the only remaining task for finishing my studies.
I had not had ...
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Can I thank websites that host illegal book downloads in the acknowledgements section of my thesis?
My stance is that these websites are a great boon to the research community and they were certainly extremely helpful for my research. I think they should be applauded rather than persecuted, and ...
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Should I learn to use LaTeX to write up a History Masters Thesis?
So I reviewed the "What are the advantages or disadvantages of using LaTeX for writing scientific publications?" question on this forum and am sitting on the fence at the moment whether or not to use ...
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What standards should I apply when evaluating a PhD thesis from a weaker university?
I have been asked to serve on the examination committee for a PhD thesis. It's in the area of machine learning. It's from a university in a developing country. My job is to provide a written report, ...
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What should be included in a disclaimer about the omission of gender-neutral language in a bachelor's thesis?
I'm working on my bachelor's thesis to get my bachelor's degree at a German university. I am not sure about the situation in other countries, but German universities are very sensitive when it comes ...
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Self-Plagiarism in PhD thesis
I am a final year PhD in UK in a scientific discipline and I am writing my thesis. I have already published 2 journal papers and I have submitted 2 more papers for publications. My department does not ...
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What should be done when the theory behind a PhD thesis turns out to be wrong?
I have a friend who has been working on a PhD dissertation for over 3 years and he is supposed to be wrapping it up. Unfortunately, his thesis involves a complex model and populating the model with ...
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My advisor's new student copied parts of my PhD thesis; advisor doesn't care. What to do?
I wrote my PhD thesis a few years back. After I finished, my supervisor found another researcher and continued research with the apparatus I built, but along a different line of study. I met this ...
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Advisor drops MSci student suddenly in final semester
Today I had a fellow student (who is working on a master's degree) come to me and inform me that our mutual advisor (call her Professor WW) had just dropped her as a student for "personal reasons." I ...
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Can one or two emoticons be used in a PhD Thesis?
I have a very dumb :-) question:
Are emoticons (if rarely placed - one or two times) in a PhD thesis considered unorthodox?
I have an introduction where I give an apt example and appended some small ...
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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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What to do when you spend several months working on an idea that fails in a masters thesis?
How shall a masters student deal with the complete failure to meet the expected results when working on a master's thesis?
For example, in the field of machine learning a masters student might spend ...
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Dealing with professor's death on my thesis
My professer, regrettably and very suddenly, passed away yesterday. He was my mentor for my graduation thesis. His teaching capabilities were not great, but he was a great man. Always helping out with ...
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What to do (years later) with otherwise good student who has accidentally plagiarised part of PhD thesis?
Here's a not so hypothetical situation. International student x is very talented but comes from a background where technical writing is not taught or understood very well. She writes a great thesis ...
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PhD thesis without acknowledgements
During the process of writing my PhD thesis, I was close to falling out with my adviser, the advice I received from other staff at the lab (including the director) was unhelpful at best.
I have since ...
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How can I find out if someone really holds a doctoral degree?
We're currently interviewing candidates at my company and I'd like to verify if some of them really have the academic degrees they claim. One in particular claims a doctoral degree from a German ...
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Is it inappropriate for a student to attend their mentor's dissertation defense?
I'm an undergraduate student at a research one university. My former instructor and current research mentor is defending their dissertation soon. I asked if I could attend and they said they would be ...
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Colleague blames me for not spotting typos when I only reviewed the structure and content
I am a graduate student (PhD) in a STEM program. A fellow lab mate of mine asked me to review a chapter (basically the background/history of their project) of their graduate thesis a couple months ...
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What should I do the day before submitting my PhD thesis?
I am submitting my PhD thesis in less than two days. I have checked all the tables, figures, appendices, references, and also checked spelling and any potential typos (which I believe there might be ...
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Paper was rejected for high similarity with parts of my own dissertation
My PhD thesis consisted of two published papers and one submitted paper embedded in some additional framing. For completion of my PhD, I had to upload my thesis to the servers of our academic library, ...
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Telling PhD supervisor I published a paper about my thesis without telling them or listing them as authors?
I am in my 3rd year of PhD. In my program, it is a requirement for PhD students to graduate with a paper that is published in a Scopus Index journal.
Before I entered, and during my PhD, I had ...
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Why not make students reproduce work?
Typically, PhD theses are expected to have novel results. As science advances, it is becoming increasingly difficult to accumulate enough knowledge to begin a project that pushes the boundaries. ...
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Strategies to overcome "academic-apathy" in the final stages of the PhD?
Background - I am doing my PhD in atmospheric physics/photobiology.
Here is a scenario:
The experiments are complete - the results are far better than expected
Successfully got the computer program ...
user7130
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Stuck without progress working on thesis - worried about failure
I am a student of Indian origin. I am Studying Mechanical Engineering in a local university in north of Germany.
I am writing my thesis in a company. My task is to optimize the throughput of the line. ...
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What do I do when a student working in my lab "ghosts" me?
I am in my first PhD year and have some teaching duties -- assisting my supervisor with his lectures and also advising students. At the beginning of the semester, a student started working on his ...
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Is Lambert Academic Publishing a reputable company?
I was contacted by the Acquisition editor of Lambert Academic Publishing (LAP) to publish my bachelor's thesis as a printed book. Is LAP any good? I have no idea about it; I have just heard that it's ...
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How to make thesis-writing feel less tedious?
I'm about to finish my master's thesis on a TCS topic (algorithms). I'm quite happy with my results; the most engaging part of the thesis was grappling with getting up to speed on the state of the art,...
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Is it normal for a PhD candidate to be dissatisfied with their PhD thesis topic, if the field is not hot?
I am a 2nd year PhD student in Germany. I am working on computational mechanics. It is on modeling the mechanical behavior of a composite coating. My background is metallurgical engineering. When I ...
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Whether and how to thank a girlfriend or boyfriend in the acknowledgements of thesis?
How is it received by the academia if someone thanks to his/her girlfriend/boyfriend in the acknowledgements of the thesis?
I have seen writers including his/her fiancee in the acknowledgements, ...
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Is paying someone to fix LaTeX issues in one's thesis ethical?
For my bachelor thesis in theoretical CS I paid someone to
fix some weird LaTeX issues I had
make some figures in LaTeX for which I provided exact (!) hand-drawn pictures
adjust the document class/...
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Can I use a section of my thesis to "soap-box" about a meta-issue regarding research?
I'm a big believer in FOSS (Free Open Source Software), and a physics graduate student. I believe a lot of current researchers are not aware of free solutions to problems that are usually encountered ...
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What is the point of a PhD thesis whose content already exists in published papers?
In my area (computer science) it is standard to publish several papers during the course of your PhD and then only "write" your thesis in the last few months of graduate school --- often you only ...
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My professor says I would not graduate my PhD, although I fulfilled all the requirements
I am a Ph.D. student at a university in Germany.
After about four years of research, my supervisor told me to write my thesis.
After I sent him my thesis, he told me that he now thinks my work did not ...
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Is it usual for finished PhD students to send out physical copies of their thesis to unknown persons?
Some time ago, a recently-graduated PhD has sent me a physical (book) copy of his dissertation. The graduate works in a somewhat-related field, but is personally entirely unknown to me (I have some ...
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Advisor refuses to let me get my Master’s after my thesis defense
I am currently a Master’s and PhD student. I am in my last semester of my Master’s program. After a year of being in the PhD program, I have realized that academia is not for me. I received a job ...
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What happens if someone publishes a paper on your current PhD thesis topic
This is not in any way relevant to me, I'm just interested. What would happen if you chose a PhD thesis to work on, and halfway through someone somewhere in the world who was also doing a PhD in the ...
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