# Dissertation vs. Thesis vs. peer reviewed paper, what is the difference
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 31, 2005, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754 "2005-10-31T17:57:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/21 "2014-03-15T16:13:02Z")
> [@Ruken](#):
>
> I’ve never seen anyone fail their defense.
I have.
Tip to PhD students: If your defense consists mostly of slide after slide of basically the same thing, but one of them is clearly different, you should be able to explain why _that_ one is not like the others.
I also know of one that came very close to being a fail. _Very_ close. As in threats and shouting.
Both of them involved the department chair being the advisor. It helps to have the chair as your advisor, but you can’t be a complete git.
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### Author:  [@ThisUsernameIsForbidden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisUsernameIsForbidden)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/22 "2014-03-15T16:21:28Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I’ll note here that the defense is not necessarily required everywhere, and its importance is decreasing, especially in the physical sciences. I’ve never seen anyone fail their defense. It’s turned into a minor hoop to jump through in at least some fields.
I think the reason for this is partly because the defense isn’t scheduled until the advisor says it’s ok, and after he has reviewed the work already.
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### Author:  [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/23 "2014-03-15T17:47:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> While it’s true that almost nobody ever fails a defense, that doesn’t imply that it’s just a rubber-stamp. Rather, it’s that a defense won’t be scheduled until everyone involved (especially the student and their advisor) are confident that it will be successful. In the very rare event that a student does fail a defense, it’s considered to reflect poorly not so much on the student, but on the advisor, who shouldn’t have allowed the defense to go forward to begin with.
Failure is a slow, grinding, soul-destroying process. I’ve seen it a few times and it isn’t pretty. The student is finishing their last year of guaranteed support, and they don’t have much to show for it. A few years lost to experiments that didn’t work, others to dead-end lines of inquiry and negative results, and no “interesting” positive results. The advisor says “not ready” over and over again. To continue past their expected graduation date the student has to get permission from the administration. Maybe they lose their research assistantship, so to continue they have to take on full-time teaching assistant duties. Now they have to fit their research in around [del]20[/del] 40 hours/week of teaching scut-work, and their advisor blows them off because the other students are doing productive and exciting things. Pressure and working conditions get worse and worse with each semester. The most common point of “failure” is actually when the student has a breakdown and quits.
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### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/24 "2014-03-15T18:40:36Z")
Right, but the failure usually involves a student quitting before they get to their defense, not actually giving a defense and failing.
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### Author:  [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/25 "2014-03-15T19:04:54Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Lankford](#):
>
> I wrote a 60 page paper for my own personal study. It’s not for credit at any institute of higher learning. How do I get this peer-reviewed so I can improve up on it and others can benefit from it? I have it on [openthesis.org](http://openthesis.org), but is there something more?
Be wary of [predatory](http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/11/30/criteria-for-determining-predatory-open-access-publishers-2nd-edition/) [“open access” journals](http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/) that charge you for publication in something that nobody will ever read. These are outright scams, taking advantage of naive or crooked authors.
Even legitimate journals will usually charge you a publication fee ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars, though some will waive their fees to authors who don’t have lots of grant money. Open Access is also a legitimate publishing model, that charges higher publication fees in lieu of subscriptions.
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### Author:  [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/26 "2014-03-15T19:18:19Z")
> [@Ruken](#):
>
> I’ll note here that the defense is not necessarily required everywhere, and its importance is decreasing, especially in the physical sciences. I’ve never seen anyone fail their defense. It’s turned into a minor hoop to jump through in at least some fields.
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> While it’s true that almost nobody ever fails a defense, that doesn’t imply that it’s just a rubber-stamp. Rather, it’s that a defense won’t be scheduled until everyone involved (especially the student and their advisor) are confident that it will be successful. In the very rare event that a student does fail a defense, it’s considered to reflect poorly not so much on the student, but on the advisor, who shouldn’t have allowed the defense to go forward to begin with.
To add a slightly different perspective, when I was preparing for my defense, my advisor instructed me to sit down privately with each of my committee members well before the actual defense (but after they had read my dissertation), get their comments and suggestions, answer any questions, and incorporate as much of the feedback as possible into the actual defense. Every committee member had some (mostly minor) suggestions, but also assured me that they were generally happy with the dissertation and the research behind it.
So in my case, I think the actual two-hour defense _was_ pretty much a minor hoop, but only because the rigor of the “defense” had been transferred to an earlier part of the process.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/27 "2014-03-15T19:22:57Z")
> [@ThisUsernameIsForbidden](#):
>
> Thesis: Master’s Degree
> Dissertation: PhD
This is not true in Britain. When I did my Ph.D. I and my teachers always referred to the thing I was writing as my thesis. I was scarcely aware that the term “dissertation” existed.
What is more, British doctoral theses are typically considerably more substantial works than American doctoral dissertations (let alone Master’s theses). This is because, in Britain a doctorate is awarded _entirely_ on the basis of the thesis and the original research conveyed therein, whereas an American doctorate involves a substantial amount of course work besides the dissertation. (The teaching, for a British Ph.D. consists of informal mentoring by one’s advisor, not formally taught classes and seminars.)
I am not sure how a British Master’s degree works, never having been involved in either taking or teaching one, but I have the impression that it normally consists entirely of coursework, with assessment by essays, exams etc, much like an undergraduate degree, and rarely if ever involves a thesis or dissertation at all.
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/28 "2014-03-15T19:31:09Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> First, don’t make it 60 pages…but the journals I’m involved with have page limits and word limits, and a 60 page submission would get rejected without review.
>
> Go to a university library and look up journals in the field of your work. They will have submission instructions,…I trust you have searched for previous work in your area. If not, do so now. Experts have a pretty good grasp of what has been done, and if your idea got tried 20 years ago and failed they will know it. You don’t want to get back “Been done - Snerd 2002.”…If you’ve done all this, select a journal to submit it to, reformat your now shorter paper according to their guidelines, and submit it. If it is at all reasonable you will get reviews…
Might it be possible to submit it for review as a possible thesis or dissertation for a graduate degree, or at least for admission to a grad program? I would expect that it wouldn’t be fully acceptable right off the bat (but then that is why there are advisors to guide one on writing these things), and that one would probably need to also do some coursework and/or exams, but can a halfway-thesis get one’s foot in the door and/or cut the time to graduation? E.g. “I see your thesis is already half done, you won’t need to take the 6 credits of thesis preparation classes and we decided to admit you into the program over the other applicant because he doesn’t have any idea what he wanted to do a thesis on.”
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/29 "2014-03-15T20:14:44Z")
The “thesis” vs. “dissertation” thing is quite varied. Some schools use one, others use the other and some use both interchangeably.
One issue that is also unsettled is whether a PhD dissertation “counts” as a peer reviewed publication. It seems that it is officially intended to count, but is unofficially not considered as such.
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### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/30 "2014-03-15T20:20:24Z")
> [@ftg](#):
>
> One issue that is also unsettled is whether a PhD dissertation “counts” as a peer reviewed publication. It seems that it is officially intended to count, but is unofficially not considered as such.
I think that varies a lot by field. In mine, the dissertation is (ideally) a mix of published papers and papers in process, so it’s not generally counted.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/31 "2014-03-15T21:41:23Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#):
>
> Might it be possible to submit it for review as a possible thesis or dissertation for a graduate degree, or at least for admission to a grad program? I would expect that it wouldn’t be fully acceptable right off the bat (but then that is why there are advisors to guide one on writing these things), and that one would probably need to also do some coursework and/or exams, but can a halfway-thesis get one’s foot in the door and/or cut the time to graduation? E.g. “I see your thesis is already half done, you won’t need to take the 6 credits of thesis preparation classes and we decided to admit you into the program over the other applicant because he doesn’t have any idea what he wanted to do a thesis on.”
PhD programs have two levels of testing before you actually get started, one in knowledge of the field and orals for more specific knowledge. Then you get your topic approved. Whether having an idea coming in is good or not depends on the adviser. However few people know enough about a field after a bachelor’s degree to have any really good ideas.
Not to insult **Jonathan Lankford** , but if he was well read in whatever field he is interested in he would not be proposing a 60 page paper. You actually learn stuff in grad school - not only about your subject but about doing research. It is not a way of rubber stamping a dissertation. There are “universities” which do that, but they are all ripoffs. In any case, he was asking for a way of getting feedback, which is really a good thing to want.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/32 "2014-03-15T22:01:35Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> PhD programs have two levels of testing before you actually get started, one in knowledge of the field and orals for more specific knowledge. Then you get your topic approved. Whether having an idea coming in is good or not depends on the adviser. However few people know enough about a field after a bachelor’s degree to have any really good ideas.
>
> Not to insult **Jonathan Lankford** , but if he was well read in whatever field he is interested in he would not be proposing a 60 page paper. You actually learn stuff in grad school - not only about your subject but about doing research. It is not a way of rubber stamping a dissertation. There are “universities” which do that, but they are all ripoffs. In any case, he was asking for a way of getting feedback, which is really a good thing to want.
Not to disagree with what you say, but it may be worth noting that a paper that takes up 60 pages if written in Word at a default type size, such as 12pt, would be a lot fewer pages when printed in a journal, which will generally use a smaller font size, tighter line spacing, and probably narrower margins (even though the actual pages may be smaller). If the original 60 pages is double spaced (which most journals ask for in submissions), it might come in at under 20,000 words, which is a long but not ridiculously long paper in some fields.
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### Author:  [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/33 "2014-03-15T22:33:33Z")
> [@njtt](#):
>
> This is not true in Britain. When I did my Ph.D. I and my teachers always referred to the thing I was writing as my thesis. I was scarcely aware that the term “dissertation” existed.
>
> What is more, British doctoral theses are typically considerably more substantial works than American doctoral dissertations (let alone Master’s theses). This is because, in Britain a doctorate is awarded _entirely_ on the basis of the thesis and the original research conveyed therein, whereas an American doctorate involves a substantial amount of course work besides the dissertation. (The teaching, for a British Ph.D. consists of informal mentoring by one’s advisor, not formally taught classes and seminars.)
>
> I am not sure how a British Master’s degree works, never having been involved in either taking or teaching one, but I have the impression that it normally consists entirely of coursework, with assessment by essays, exams etc, much like an undergraduate degree, and rarely if ever involves a thesis or dissertation at all.
😛 I was going to come in to say: “It seems all of this is different in the UK” - where for both your Bachelor’s & Master’s you write a _dissertation_. So… well now I’m confused. I was at the University of Manchester, but I heard everyone say dissertation. Thesis is usually something exchange students say! Also, for my MA I need to do original research.
I think all of this must differ vastly between countries and between institutions. We should really get round to clearing up the language and the means of comparing universities some day.
ETA: I went and checked my transcript, out of curiosity, and that says dissertation.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/34 "2014-03-15T22:49:59Z")
> [@gracer](#):
>
> 😛 I was going to come in to say: “It seems all of this is different in the UK” - where for both your Bachelor’s & Master’s you write a _dissertation_. So… well now I’m confused. I was at the University of Manchester, but I heard everyone say dissertation. Thesis is usually something exchange students say! Also, for my MA I need to do original research.
>
> I think all of this must differ vastly between countries and between institutions. We should really get round to clearing up the language and the means of comparing universities some day.
>
> ETA: I went and checked my transcript, out of curiosity, and that says dissertation.
Well, you are talking about Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, apparently, whereas I was talking about a PH.D. It may be that in Britain we say Master’s dissertation and doctoral thesis. That would be consistent with both your experience and mine. (Apparently, from what others have said in the thread, it is also the _opposite_ of the way the words are commonly used in America, but that is not impossible. The reality is that the two words are essentially synonyms, and largely interchangeable.)
Actually I never heard of anyone being required to produce a dissertation (or thesis, or whatever) for a bachelor’s degree, but maybe it happens sometimes.
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### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/35 "2014-03-15T22:54:33Z")
A bachelor’s thesis is not common in the US, but it’s certainly not unheard of, either. The degree to which it has to be original research varies a lot by field. My sister did her undergraduate work in political science, and her thesis was probably about 90% literature review and at most 10% synthesis.
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### Author:  [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2014, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/36 "2014-03-15T23:01:40Z")
At my undergrad, if you wanted to graduate with honors you had to do an honor’s thesis, the requirements of which were basically “you have to be able to write a paper your advisor will sign.”
All of the Engineering fields require a “senior project” which requires a prototype and a pitch to a local company. There’s also a new major which is essentially an “applied Computer Science” (and focuses heavily on AI and Computer Vision stuff) major that requires a year of research with a thesis. You’re required to work on an original research project\* to graduate, but your final thesis isn’t required to be actual publishable original research, a description of the problem your worked on and an analysis of what you learned is generally sufficient. No results are needed.
- It can be your own project, help on a grad student’s project, help on a professor’s project, etc. “Original” means “original in the field” not “original to the individual writing the paper.”
Edit: actually in that “applied CS” major, there are two degrees: a B.S. and a B.A., only the B.S. requires the thesis.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2014, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/37 "2014-03-16T02:39:55Z")
Well, ok, I did a research project for both my bachelor’s degrees too. Actually, my B.Sc. involved two, one lab based and one based on a literature survey. However, I do not recall anyone referring to them as theses or dissertations. Thesis would certainly have been too grand. That would have implied doctoral level research.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2014, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/38 "2014-03-16T04:02:55Z")
PhD dissertation, Master’s thesis, Honors/Senior Thesis (optional or depends on program), in my experience.
BA vs BS is completely arbitrary on whatever the school wants to define them as. Sometimes one is obviously inferior (BA usually), sometimes they represent different emphases.
> [@ultrafilter](#):
>
> Right, but the failure usually involves a student quitting before they get to their defense, not actually giving a defense and failing.
This is most common. “Failed” defenses I know about have been the equivalent to a paper submission’s “revise and resubmit.” It would delay your graduation but it’s not your last change.
I also know of a Master’s thesis that was really failed (had to start a new project from scratch under a new advisor). This was due to the advisor’s stonewalling, retirement, stubbornness, and general dickishness.
> [@lazybratsche](#):
>
> Be wary of [predatory](http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/11/30/criteria-for-determining-predatory-open-access-publishers-2nd-edition/) [“open access” journals](http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/) that charge you for publication in something that nobody will ever read.
Just to clarify this point: some journals you don’t pay anything except optional charges, others charge you to publish. Journals in the latter category **are not necessarily scams** ; I know at least two good ones. The ones in the list are (I presume) tested to be scams. I get emails for scam conferences as well.
> [@ftg](#):
>
> One issue that is also unsettled is whether a PhD dissertation “counts” as a peer reviewed publication. It seems that it is officially intended to count, but is unofficially not considered as such.
I think it shouldn’t. Many dissertations are either made up of several submitted papers, or else will be submitted in a much, much shorter form afterwards. You can put your diss on your CV you just should put under a different section.
FWIW, the last paper I submitted had a hard 2500 word limit (wait… the just changed it to 2000! But method & results excluded from count). The longer form articles in the same journal are 5000 words.
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### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2014, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/39 "2014-03-16T05:29:54Z")
> [@njtt](#):
>
> What is more, British doctoral theses are typically considerably more substantial works than American doctoral dissertations (let alone Master’s theses). This is because, in Britain a doctorate is awarded _entirely_ on the basis of the thesis and the original research conveyed therein, whereas an American doctorate involves a substantial amount of course work besides the dissertation. (The teaching, for a British Ph.D. consists of informal mentoring by one’s advisor, not formally taught classes and seminars.)
That doesn’t sound right. I took a single year of classes, after which I was eligible for an optional master’s. After that it was only research, on which my degree was entirely based.
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### Author:  [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2014, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/40 "2014-03-16T05:43:40Z")
Most of the cases of failing a defense I’ve heard of tended to involve complete mental breakdowns from anxiety. It’s not that the work wasn’t good enough to pass the defense, but the student completely psyched themselves out. Usually this is followed by either dropping out or scheduling another defense and passing after calming down.
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