Talk:Thesis

Wikipedia is not a place to air grievances.

If this article were a thesis If this article were a thesis, it would be rejected and the canditate would be withdrawn from the program.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) If your statement was a thesis, it would be rejected. Besides it being an opinion and of no help to actually improve the article, you didn't even sign it. If you find factual errors, you can fix them yourself. Not even listing a sigular factual error, much less providing any support that any factual errors exist, makes it clear that you are uncapable of making such revisions. --MahaPanta (talk) 15:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

History and Origin of the process or custom of writing a thesis

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)

Famous thesis

Church-Turing thesis

--> 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)

I agree; the Church-Turing thesis was certainly not a thesis in the sense used in this article. Michael Hardy 02:38, 10 Feb 2004 (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)

Defending a thesis?

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)

Go right ahead, and please place new discussions at the bottom of the page, not the top. Exploding Boy 16:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Most of that section duplicates material already covered in other articles such as Doctor of Philosophy (or perhaps it's doctorate) and should just reference those articles for the details. 121a0012 06:22, 5 February 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:

1. Recommend that the candidate be granted leave to supplicate for the PhD degree, but, in virtually all cases, only after minor revisions/corrections are made in the thesis. The candidate is normally expect to complete those revisions in a few weeks.
2. Recommend that the thesis be referred back to the candidate for future re-submission as a PhD thesis and a new oral exam after major/extensive revisions, or, alternatively, accept it as a master's thesis as it stands, with no possibility of revision/re-submission.
3. Recommend that the thesis be referred back to the candidate for re-submission after revisions as a master's thesis only.
4. Outright fail the candidate with no degree awarded.

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)

Defending a thesis?

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)

Dissertation

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)

"All professors are required to wear togas"

... Any source for this bizarre claim?

— Kwi | Talk 19:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

It's vandalism. --MahaPanta (talk) 15:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Editing/sourcing on which is the preferred term in US

"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)

Congratulations Dr. X

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)

Some Minor Vandalism in the Headings for the Canada and US sections

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).

UK practice

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)

A few additional points on this, from the point of view of the School of Engineering Sciences at the University of Southampton.

The External Examiner doesn't have to be an academic, they can be from a commercial company who do research in a similar field. Likewise, the internal examiner can be from another department, although they would always be from the same University.

As for the part about supervisor attendance, certainly it is normal practice here for the supervisor to attend. I can remember one instance of a supervisor being consulted during a viva, after a student was unable to answer a question. Further to this, I would suggest that a good supervisor would never allow a student to submit a thesis or viva if they thought they would fail, indeed it is normal practice for us to have one or two journal publications which (almost) guarantees the candidate passes in most cases - hence,

"...not least because there is a real chance of a candidate failing at this stage."

is not really accurate in our case.

The problem here, I suppose, is that there is a lot of variability in terms of what happens in a UK Doctorate viva. The current article is written from the point of view of one university/department.

McMullet (talk) 11:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Differentiating topics

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:

• Thesis statements – a term used to describe the argument(s) made in a particular text;
• Theses and dissertations – terms used to describe an original, substantive piece of research that is produced as part of the requirements for a (usually advanced) degree. In some countries, a 'thesis' is written at the Master's level and a 'dissertation' at the Doctoral level; in others, the reverse is true.

Accordingly, I propose the following course of action:

1. 'Thesis statement' and 'Thesis' should remain separate articles;
2. References to the 'thesis statement' sense of the term 'thesis' should be removed from this article;
3. This article should be retitled 'Thesis or dissertation', with both terms redirecting here;
4. The main division in this article should be between Undergraduate, Master's, and Doctoral level projects, as the terms 'thesis' and 'dissertation' can apply to any of these three, depending on the country of study. – SJL 01:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Good ideas all. Thesis statement already exists, and it seems the relevant info has been moved from this article, which has been renamed Dissertation. Exploding Boy (talk) 16:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Removed from article

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)

Misses the point

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)

This article does seem weird from an encyclopedia point of view. Rather than being stuff about dissertations as information for just about everybody, this is more like information and advice for people planning on writing/submitting a dissertation. But that almost seems like a complete re-write. Cretog8 (talk) 04:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thesis

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)

Thesis Statement Should Be Separate

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)

References to some web sites providing Information regarding Thesis, how to write thesis, what is thesis?

Thesis Reference

There are many website that can provide a good data about thesis, like what type of thesis and how to write thesis. 1. www.thesisplus.com 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)

References

Structure paragraph

A paragraph is recurrently being pushed by User:Garyrendall purportedly about "dissertation structure". Problems are:

• The only source cited is a howto book
• The information in the paragraph looks quite like a howto (even if not clearly presented as such)
• The paragraph is an obviously incorrect generalization: not all dissertations have 100-200 words abstracts, and the percentages cited look suspiciously arbitrary (5% discussion?).

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)

Dissertation structure

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)

The point is, my misquoting of 5% vs 25% notwithstanding, that these look suspiciously like arbitrary figures that seem to come from a book which, as far as I can tell, gives advice on how to write a dissertation, not a statistical study on how dissertations are factually made. I can be wrong of course, but the whole thing looks suspicious and I'd like to see the book pages, if possible, claiming that. It looks suspicious because, you see, I've written a couple of dissertations in my academic career and both of them for example had two pages long abstracts, and it was like that because my academy asked that. Also, I am highly doubtful that dissertations in the humanities actually have a strict "Design/methodology - Findings - Analysis" structure. Basically the whole paragraph seems to me an incorrect generalization, but again, I would like to have access to the relevant part of the source you're using, to see how it is worded and what it effectively says. --Cyclopia^talk 12:44, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Cyclopia. This encyclopedia strives to present the world-wide situation. If you seriously think that no university in the whole wide world accepts dissertations with abstracts over 200 words long, you probably have not thought about the variety of academic practices around the world. --MPorciusCato (talk) 18:25, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Capstone

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)

Portugal

Correction: "dissertação" is the name used to MSc thesis while "tese" is the name used for PhD thesis

Article title

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)

Hmm, that seems like a very valid objection, I wonder why I hadn't noticed that myself. Wiki-practice is that an article should have one name only, any other synonyms or related terms should be redirects. The next step from here would be to establish which of the terms that should be the article name. "Thesis" or "dissertation"? --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:28, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

How about Thesis (document) - to differentiate it from "thesis" meaning "central principle of an argument"? Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

In the absence of further discussion, I've moved the article. Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Spelling synonyms of the word for the topic.......

Further information: Talk:Repository (publishing) § Info about the topic of.....

--222.64.223.168 (talk) 03:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

UK practice - Is the examination before or after submission to the university?

The article current says:

This examination normally occurs after the dissertation is finished but before it is submitted to the university, and may comprise a presentation by the student and questions posed by an examining committee or jury.

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)

Unles the writer mens "submitted as a bound/finished work", it is *not normal to have the viva before the thesis is submitted, otherwise what would the examiners ask about? And the section about the no. of words in a UK thesis is way off (my personal experience). bigpad (talk) 21:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Thesis committee

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)

brazil

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).

Australian sport article help

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)

Vandalism?

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

Sorry but I'm not seeing it. Can you please be more specific? ElKevbo (talk) 23:29, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Word Length

"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)

Merging Inaugural dissertation

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)

• Merge - It's hard to justify Inaugural dissertation as a separate article and it has been unreferenced for more than eight years. Recdep (talk) 09:32, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

If it's been unreferenced for more than eight years then it should be deleted or improved immediately, not merged into another article where another group of editors will be forced to find sources or delete the material. Let's fix the problem instead of just shuffling it around to different places in the encyclopedia. ElKevbo (talk) 13:23, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

That's a fair point but those are two unrelated reasons for merging the articles: Inaugural dissertation does not merit its own article because the scope is too small, not because it's content is not noteworthy at all. I couldn't find reliable references for it, but my thought was that it would get more exposure on this page as an added benefit, which might lead to the discovery of references later on. You can call that "shuffling around", but deleting the article isn't exactly constructive either. There are thousands of articles that have been unreferenced that long. Let's fix what we can instead of deleting everything. Recdep (talk) 15:37, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Canadian Theses

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)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on Thesis. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20100825184546/http://www.coneau.edu.ar:80/index.php?item=29&apps=16&id=428&act=ver&idioma=en to http://www.coneau.edu.ar/index.php?item=29&apps=16&id=428&act=ver&idioma=en

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 11:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

New Para Added

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)

At Odds with Etymology and definition - MOVE/REVERT DISCUSS

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

• be reverted to: Thesis (academic document)
• the disambiguation note should explain that this article is specialised
• the opening sentence should detail that the academic document that is its subject is a special case

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)

I agree - I moved the article in 2010 to Thesis (academic document), but it was moved back a few months later in this edit (without any further discussion, I think). Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:43, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

@Ghmyrtle:: I'm a bit slow (today?) but I can't find the discussion you refer to just the discussion on the References to some web sites etc topic. I think we should try to get some views on making the move again. Wiki processes are distressingly flawed imo but still, with some more discussion and editors engagement perhaps we could make the move stick. I did look at how to make such a move but hit a wall of information that left my head spinning so it would be great if you'd do the actual moving if and when we get to that point. Is there some ready way we could contact and canvass other editors such as those who have shown in commenting on this Talk page their interested in the article? ~~

See Talk:Thesis#Article title. If there is a consensus that the article title be changed again, it will probably need to be done by an admin, via WP:RM. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:10, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Clearly the page needs to be moved to a title that distinguishes it from the principal meaning of the word, the logical proposition. What that title should be I don't know, but I suggest moving it back to Thesis (academic document) for now. Ghmyrtle, if there's consensus on this page to revert a previous undiscussed move, I think anyone with page mover rights can do it (me, for example); I'm sure a RM would be needed if there was dissension, but for the moment I don't see any. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 14:52, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Go for it. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:14, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

How about giving it it a full week from when LookingGlass started this thread? I think that should give any page watchers time to comment if they wish. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:09, 3 March 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)

OK, LookingGlass, why not? A week is pretty standard for move requests, RfC and the like, but an extra one can't hurt here – there's WP:NORUSH. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:06, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, I think it might be as well to ask for the opinion of Anthony Bradbury, who undid the previous move, on this. Question: if this is moved, what should be at this title (Thesis)? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:41, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

As you say, I undid the move, in 2010. I have some difficulty, now, n recalling why I thought I should do so, but I have absolutely no objection if the consensus is to revert to the other title.--Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 23:18, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• Y'all can't just leave Thesis redirecting to Thesis (disambiguation); that is WP:MALPLACED.
• There are over 4,000 pages linking to "Thesis". Which of you would like to disambiguate these links? How many of them to you think are looking for our article about "the setting out of a proposition"? Wikipedia is not a dictionary; see wikt:thesis.
• Take a look at Template:Infobox scientist. Observe that the parameter {{{thesis_title}}} links to [[Thesis]].
• I'm reversing this. If you want to contest it, please see WP:RM for instructions on how to submit a formal requested move. This is not the kind of thing that should be decided by a local consensus. wbm1058 (talk) 17:48, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@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)

Well, though I don't have any strong opinions about the issue, one must admit that Wbm1058 has a point when addressing the issue of the 4,000 pages & the Infobox template linking to this page. I guess we need to find a solution for this issue beforehand? Vysotsky (talk) 13:50, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

LookingGlass, I'm sorry I offended you. Sometimes I let some emotion creep into my edits. As you obviously feel quite strongly about this, let me give you guidance on how I would approach this if I felt similarly strongly about this.

The first step, before doing anything else, is to disambiguate links. You can quietly do this in the background, and probably no one will bother you. Let me know if someone objects.

There are only 11 article-space links to Thesis (academic document) by my current count, so there's a lot of work to be done.

In contrast, there are 4300+ article-space links to Thesis. I suspect the vast majority of these are transcluding Template:Infobox scientist and supplying a value for the {{{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.

Not sure if you have read the Thesis statement article. This seems to be what you think should be the primary topic, despite the 4,000+ links to the academic dissertation meaning. Is there a difference between a "thesis" and a "dissertation", or are they just synonyms? I also note the Thesis (academic) and Thesis (document) redirects. Are either of those sufficient, or is it necessary to use both, as Thesis (academic document)? The guidance is to make titles as WP:concise as practical. wbm1058 (talk) 14:07, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

@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)

Thesis v. Dissertation

Aren't they different hence a separate article? DaneGil1996 (talk) 09:18, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

No. --ExperiencedArticleFixer (talk) 12:46, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

"bibliography or more usually a references section"

What's the difference between the two? --ExperiencedArticleFixer (talk) 12:45, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The terminology is sometimes used in overlapping ways, but the basic difference is that the bibliography is a list of "further reading", while the references is a list of the sources used in the thesis, with the bibliographical information for each source. You know how you read tons of books and articles that turn out not to be completely relevant for your particular study so you can't use them as sources, but you still want to show the thesis committee that you've read 'em :-) (no, of course the reason is actually that there are books or articles that are generally relevant to the topic and so you want to recommend them, but they are not actually part of the source material or theoretical background of your study.) --bonadea contributions talk 14:23, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, OK, thanks! --ExperiencedArticleFixer (talk) 00:54, 29 October 2020 (UTC)