# 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:** 4
### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/61 "2014-03-17T03:10:17Z")
> [@njtt](#):
>
> 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.
When I was at MIT all EE students have to do a thesis, which involved some degree of research or design. Not a rigorous defense, and not very long, but it was required.
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/62 "2014-03-17T08:26:53Z")
At my undergrad school everyone had to do a senior thesis:
[https://www.ncf.edu/senior-thesis](https://www.ncf.edu/senior-thesis)
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### Author:  [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/63 "2014-03-17T12:07:05Z")
> [@njtt](#):
>
> A British Ph.D. student gets _full time funding_ for full time research for three years. That does not mean that three years is all the time that gets devoted to the Ph.D. I don’t know about chemistry specifically, but when I was doing my Ph.D. (also _funded_ for three years), nobody I knew or heard of finished in anything remotely like the 3 years. Mine took 8, and was not that much of an outlier. I don’t know how that pans out in a field like chemistry, but I would guess it might mean something like a solid three years in the lab (unlike Americans, they will not be required to do significant _teaching_ during that time) followed by another two or three writing up while working or unemployed (and still having library access).
It’s a solid 3 to 3.5 years in the lab and then another 2 or 3 months writing up (PhD studentship in my lab usually comes with 42 months funding).
Obviously the write-up can be spun out for as long as you like (but not usually past 4 years from the start of your PhD without financial penalty), but that’s as long as it should take if you’re doing it right.
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### Author:  [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/64 "2014-03-17T12:09:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> In physics, at least, the coursework requirement for a PhD is basically synonymous with a master’s degree, and in going from a MS to a PhD you probably don’t need most of them. If someone refers to themselves as “ABD” (“all but dissertation”), it’s just a self-aggrandizing way to say “Master’s degree”.
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#):
>
> Not in my field. ABDs have passed orals, comprehensive exams, and specialization exams. They literally just need to defend for the doctorate.
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> And in my field, an MS has also passed all of those hurdles.
Huh. In most engineering programs of which I am aware, the Master’s degree is somewhat self-contained, and usually either coursework-only, or coursework plus a Master’s thesis (which then substitutes for a class or two). The difference here may be that a fair number of students in engineering enter graduate school with the intention of getting terminal Master’s degree to boost their job prospects in industry, with no particular interest in research.
Completing the doctoral degree requires some additional classwork beyond the Master’s degree, qualifying exams, and comprehensive exams, as well as dissertation research, writing, and defense; none of these are required for the Master’s degree. So although “ABD” is ill-defined and probably not something one would put on a resume, I’ve always taken it to mean that one has done substantial post-Masters work, including classwork, passing quals and comps, and the bulk of the research, and only needs to write and defend the dissertation. It’s interesting that the requirements are different in physics (and other hard sciences, perhaps?)
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/65 "2014-03-17T13:00:07Z")
> [@Busy\_Scissors](#):
>
> It’s a solid 3 to 3.5 years in the lab and then another 2 or 3 months writing up (PhD studentship in my lab usually comes with 42 months funding).
> Obviously the write-up can be spun out for as long as you like (but not usually past 4 years from the start of your PhD without financial penalty), but that’s as long as it should take if you’re doing it right.
Solid in the lab? I was under the impression that American Ph.D. students spent many hours per week as TAs. (OK, much of that may be in a lab as a demonstrator, but that isn’t research.) The ones I knew did. Or is chemistry different in that too?
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### Author:  [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/66 "2014-03-17T13:24:35Z")
> [@njtt](#):
>
> Solid in the lab? I was under the impression that American Ph.D. students spent many hours per week as TAs. (OK, much of that may be in a lab as a demonstrator, but that isn’t research.) The ones I knew did. Or is chemistry different in that too?
Sorry, I was describing the UK system - I’m a chemistry prof in the UK. Think (but am not certain) that this structure would be fairly standard across most engineering and physical sciences in the UK, as we are all funded through the same research council (EPSRC).
Our system is slightly too short, IMO - I think 4 years of solid lab-work is the magic number for a science PhD. This is the timeframe where you can still justify the PhD as training, whilst enabling the student to ask big questions, get meaningful results, advance science etc. Anything longer and you’re no longer training the PhD student - hit 6+ years, as can happen in some US labs, and you’re given up any pretence of doing that and are basically exploiting slave labour.
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### Author:  [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/67 "2014-03-17T13:25:00Z")
> [@njtt](#):
>
> Solid in the lab? I was under the impression that American Ph.D. students spent many hours per week as TAs. (OK, much of that may be in a lab as a demonstrator, but that isn’t research.) The ones I knew did. Or is chemistry different in that too?
My experience in the physics Ph.D. program at a big American university was that students who’d found an adviser were generally fully supported as research assistants. Being a T.A. was mostly what we did in the first year or two of the program, when we were still taking courses. Generally professors weren’t supposed to take on students if they didn’t have the grant money to support them, but of course funding situations could sometimes change. There was one semester late in my degree where I had to work as a grader for a quantum mechanics course because my adviser was between grants.
That was in physics, but it sounds like the experience for chemistry students was similar.
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### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/68 "2014-03-17T13:29:21Z")
> [@njtt](#):
>
> A British Ph.D. student gets _full time funding_ for full time research for three years. That does not mean that three years is all the time that gets devoted to the Ph.D. I don’t know about chemistry specifically, but when I was doing my Ph.D. (also _funded_ for three years), nobody I knew or heard of finished in anything remotely like the 3 years. Mine took 8, and was not that much of an outlier. I don’t know how that pans out in a field like chemistry, but I would guess it might mean something like a solid three years in the lab (unlike Americans, they will not be required to do significant _teaching_ during that time) followed by another two or three writing up while working or unemployed (and still having library access).
>
> I think your take on it owes more to American jingoism than what actually happens. (Well, unless British doctoral requirements have got a _lot_ less rigorous since I was doing one, or chemistry is just completely different from other subjects. Your account of how it works for U.S. chemistry students does not match what I saw amongst U.S. experimental psychology students, when I spent a year among them as a graduate exchange student, for instance.)
Maybe things have changed there. The 2010 ESRC PhD three-year submission rates are [here](http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/postgraduates/dtc/dtc-policy/phd-submission-rates/2010-phd-submissions.aspx). Does psychology falls under their purview? Institutions are penalized if their rates fall too low.
As for teaching, I taught 10 h/week (instruction time plus prep and grading) during the first year when I was taking classes. That’s it. Yes, it interfered with research, which began the first year, but it was only two semesters. The next four years were 70 h/week, 49 weeks/year in the lab. Weekends and holidays meant there was free parking. Writing happened at night.
Personally, I like the idea of limiting the time. Three years (or what would be equivalent to the UK’s 1 + 3 path, since we tend to skip the separate master’s) is plenty of time to demonstrate one’s ability as a researcher. But employers here like to see the fruits of that research.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/69 "2014-03-17T15:51:15Z")
> [@njtt](#):
>
> Solid in the lab? I was under the impression that American Ph.D. students spent many hours per week as TAs. (OK, much of that may be in a lab as a demonstrator, but that isn’t research.) The ones I knew did. Or is chemistry different in that too?
In CS, when I was a student, and psychology, when my daughter was, it all depended on your funding. I had an interest they needed so I went right into a research group. When we ran out of money for a term we all became TAs. When my adviser died and I switched schools, I didn’t TA at all, except for one term when they retroactively imposed a teaching requirement on me, which I met by becoming an instructor, one level above TA. (I owned my classes.)
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/70 "2014-03-17T16:01:10Z")
Re: Masters degree vs. ABD.
Everywhere I was at as a student or professor ABD meant that the research was more or less completed but the thesis wasn’t. Since Masters students did not have to do the depth of research of a PhD student, that is a _big_ difference right there.
Also, the requirement for coursework and qualification exams was lower for Masters students. In addition, Masters students didn’t have to do a thesis proposal defense, which could get quite nasty in my experience. So not at all comparable.
I was ABD for the first year of my first position. I had 3 job offers. None of those places would have looked at me for a second if all I had was a Masters.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/71 "2014-03-17T16:09:09Z")
Technically my school had two different pass levels on the comps, with the lower one being adequate for an MS but the higher one being required for the PhD. It was all the same test, though, and most students who left with a master’s got the PhD pass, anyway.
And the funding situation can vary from group to group, even within a department. Generally speaking, the more experimental and applied groups tended to have more funding than the more theoretical groups. Of course, some of that funding has to go towards lab equipment and materials, but there’s still usually more for the grad students. And my first advisor encouraged his students to teach at least some even when funding was available, because teaching is the most likely career path for a theoretical scientist, and it’s good experience.
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/72 "2014-03-17T17:20:15Z")
IME:
BA-Social.Sciences/Humanities
BS-“Hard” Sciences
BTW, what’s the recommended word count for a science dissertation?
Another thing: all fields are eligible for Honors Thesises afaik.
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/73 "2014-03-17T17:56:12Z")
etv78, that’s not at all consistently true. It may have been true at the college you went to, but there are a variety of ways in which colleges and universities in the U.S. decide what the title that someone who is to get a bachelor’s degree will get. At some places, everyone gets a B.S. or everyone gets a B.A. or everyone gets an A.B. At some places, the major that one has is what decided whether one gets a B.S. or a B.A. At some places, people with the same major can get either a B.S. or a B.A., depending on certain additional courses that one can take outside of one’s courses in one’s major. There are even more arcane distinctions. At one place, someone admitted into the regular daytime classes gets an A.B. However, there are people only admitted into the evening classes or into an associated community college who after their sophomore year are fully integrated with the people admitted into regular daytime classes, but they get a B.S. There is simply no consistent rule across all colleges and universities in the U.S.
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/74 "2014-03-17T17:59:11Z")
Thanks Wendell. Have you heard of, for example: a BS in Political Science or English? How common is a BA in Chemistry?
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/75 "2014-03-17T18:05:17Z")
O.K., just doing a quick search, I found the following:
> **[Academic Programs | University of Bridgeport](https://www.bridgeport.edu/academics/programs/#undergraduate/english-bs)**
>
> University of Bridgeport offers a variety undergraduate, graduate, doctoral programs, and certificates.
So that is a university that offers a B.S. in English. For an even quicker example, my undergrad school (New College in Sarasota, Florida) gives a B.A. to all its graduates, regardless of their major. I have a B.A. in mathematics. I knew a number of people who were there when I was who majored in chemistry, so they had a B.A. in chemistry. I understand that your rule may have worked at your college, but it doesn’t work for all colleges and universities in the U.S.
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/76 "2014-03-17T18:11:33Z")
BAs in science seem common. I forget what extra is needed for the BS, probably upper level math or labs.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/77 "2014-03-17T18:14:59Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> When my adviser died and I switched schools, I didn’t TA at all, except for one term when they retroactively imposed a teaching requirement on me, which I met by becoming an instructor, one level above TA. (I owned my classes.)
How did that pay comparatively? IME a one-off class (adjunct?) pays substantially less than a TAship, especially including fee waivers and such. I’ve TAed, taught my own class, and designed and instructed my own class solo but paid as a TA, and that last one was much more preferred.
> [@etv78](#):
>
> BTW, what’s the recommended word count for a science dissertation?
IME again, but substantially shorter than a humanities dissertation. The former will be a variation on a paper, and needs to get the point across. The latter is sometimes not experimentation but literature research. I think the division is not “humanities/SS vs. science” specifically though. I’d imagine many fields in sociology are closer to science in this respect?
And IME for my diss and the 3 or 4 colleague dissertations I’ve read: anywhere from 60-150 pages in this science field, I don’t know the word counts. And even that will include figure pages, tables, etc.
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/78 "2014-03-17T18:17:27Z")
I’m not discussing what is more common. I was objecting because your statements in post #72 made it sound like there was a single rule across all the U.S. about what degree title was given to college graduates. I’m only saying that, contrary to what you said in that post, it’s not true that there is a single rule that decided what title is given based solely on one’s major. I have no idea what rule is used most commonly. I was only saying that there are many different rules used depending on the college.
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/79 "2014-03-17T18:27:14Z")
TY horror. And apologies to Wendell in speaking in absolutes.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissertation-vs-thesis-vs-peer-reviewed-paper-what-is-the-difference/328754/80 "2014-03-17T19:04:23Z")
At my school, instructors were definitely paid more than TAs (plus, of course, they look better on a resume). And all of the faculty had a gentlemen’s agreement to pay their RAs the same amount as they would get as a standard TA.
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