Dissertation vs. Thesis vs. peer reviewed paper, what is the difference

Factual Questions
41

I do know of a failed defense, but that was through the grapevine. The person ended up with a consolation Master’s degree instead of a PhD. But unlike others who start PhD and switch to Master’s, this was after the point where he presented the defense. I do not know the details, as this had just happened when I arrive to the place, but it seems to have involved the committee members and possible backstabbing. I did see him later in another department at the same school, working on other PhD project, with a completely different group.

I do know of a couple of PhD students who downgraded to Master’s. In one case it was for job opportunity (the ideal job didn’t require the PhD), and in others I’m guessing it was for similar work or family reasons.

42

There have been several people in my program while I’ve been here that have “Mastered out” - that is, for one reason or another, they couldn’t continue with the PhD work, and instead took a Master’s degree and left early.

43

While it’s fairly rare to fail a defense or otherwise have the doctoral thesis finished and yet not defend it (because you’ve been told by your committee that it’s not good enough as it stands), it’s reasonably common to start on a Ph.D. and stop after getting a master’s for any of a number of reasons. You might lose interest in the subject. You might decide that the kind of job you can get with just a master’s are quite sufficient for your purposes. You might not be able to afford to stay in grad school. You might have personal or family problems that prevent you from staying in grad school. You might decide that you can’t cut it academically in finishing a Ph.D. Your professors might decide you can’t cut it academically (because you don’t do well enough on your doctoral qualifying exams or whatever). Failing a defense or finishing a doctoral thesis and not defending it are a little weird. Taking a master’s and not going on isn’t that big a deal.

44

I’m reading “hire” as sarcasm, although perhaps it’s not. What does the second sentence mean?

45

What doesn’t sound right?

What I said about a British Ph.D. is (or certainly was) entirely correct, based on my experience of actually doing one (and knowing other people who did). What you say about your experience is quite consistent with what I said about American doctorates. However, when I was an exchange student in the U.S., I took a number of graduate classes (they did not count toward my own doctorate) along with U.S. doctoral candidates who were already working on their dissertation research, so it is certainly not always the case in the U.S. that the taught, coursework part of the Ph.D. is separated off from the research part in the way you describe. It may be done that way in some places, but, either way, what I said remains true: American Ph.D.s are based partly on courses and partly on research, whereas British ones are based entirely on (more substantial) research.

This does mean that, in Britain, you cannot drop out of PH.D. study part way through and still be eligible for a Master’s on the basis of what you have done, whereas some institutions in America (I doubt if it is all of them) do make this possible. In Britain, a Master’s is a completely separate degree, mostly taught, and usually lasting one year of full time study.

46

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”.

And I’ve heard it said that the most important tool for writing a thesis is a stapler. That is, by the time you’re getting ready to finish, you probably have several papers which have already been published, and you just staple those papers together and call it a thesis. It’s not quite true, of course (you need to go a bit more in depth, and have at least some sort of vague theme unifying all of them), but the bulk of the work is certainly found elsewhere. In some cases you had that unifying theme in mind right from the start, while in others it’s just whatever work you happened to do in that time.

47

Sheesh, give a guy a break. What it means is that they have completed all of the coursework, papers, teaching requirements, and whatever else is required by the department and university (except for having defended). That term was reserved for people who were working on their dissertation only. Mostly, when I was in grad school, everyone in the Doctorate programs had their Masters already before they entered the program.

48

In the programs that I’m familiar with, reaching ABD generally involves doing a fair bit more than the master’s requirements, so I don’t agree with this.

49

Tenured prof at a research-intensive university in the U.S. here. Lots of good answers here, but I have to preface everything with “IT DEPENDS.” Disciplines, areas of research, and institutions vary considerably. But here are some fairly general responses.

A master’s thesis (or report) is essentially a literature review, original study, or case study. It is bound by a page length, most likely, as well as a time interval, and of course, a relatively novice research design and depth. I’ve supervised a few honors undergraduate theses and served as a reader for a master’s thesis (ongoing at the moment). Someone with the level of experience in the research realm as a master’s student will probably take some narrow aspect of a topic, or present an overarching view - the thesis writing/analysis period here is between one long semester to one academic year. The research design and topic are vetted by the supervisor, and there is an additional reader to give feedback and remarks. In essence, the scholarly oversight is one prof, plus a sidekick - it would be unusual for scholars to war over a master’s thesis. The supervising prof will direct the study and perhaps ask the second reader to opine on certain aspects of the work germane to his/her specialty. The “defense” is an oral examination, essentially a meeting with the supervisor, reader, and student; the student presents their findings, supervisor and reader comment, and if all goes well (which it should, otherwise the supervisor wouldn’t allow the meeting to happen), the student gets a pass. In the programs where I have supervised studies, there is also an option to commend a student for a particularly rigorous and outstanding study.

A dissertation is the culmination of a program of doctoral study. It is an original research study, complete with purpose, literature review, methodology and research design, findings, and synthesis/analysis. I’m in the social sciences, and I tend to supervise qualitative studies - the first thing I can tell you is that they are fairly long, usually 125+ pages. Dissertations are expected to fill a gap in the research literature, so it starts with a student surveying the literature and pointing out an unanswered question, then proposing a study that would help fill the void. The intermediate step is the proposal meeting (or proposal “defense”) when the purpose, review of literature, and methodology/research design are proposed by the student. A committee comprised of the supervisor and readers (usually 2-4 additional scholars) responds to the proposal, and if the student is reasonably on the right track, he/she is given permission to proceed with the study.

Dissertation timetables vary with disciplines, but I can tell you the typical time from proposal to defense is about a calendar year. Students in my field don’t tend to have lots of funding so they do most if not all of the research themselves - from collection to analysis - and much of what I do is helping them figure out what is reasonable and possible given their circumstances. I’ve done enough research to know when their ideas will keep them writing for another 6-12 months, and my institution also has a clock for dissertation writers - so often I am advising them not to pursue another research question, or to drop their data collection after a certain period of time. (Most graduate students envision a grandiose dissertation that will solve a major problem in the field; the reality is, all research is an exercise in compromise, starting with the expectations of your supervisor.)

The dissertation writer is in semi-frequent contact with the supervisor and perhaps other readers for feedback and direction. At some point, there will be enough analysis of the data to draft findings and implications chapters. The supervisor should have some review of this work, and when s/he deems it ready, will have the dissertator convene the committee for a defense. At my institution, defenses vary. My personal feeling is that a defense should be a pro forma experience; if we’re at this point, I have a near-complete confidence that the work is ready and of the quality that the other 3-4 members will also agree and sign off on the student’s dissertation. In other fields, it’s actually more dramatic than that, and a student’s performance in the oral and written presentation will determine whether he/she passes.

Once the dissertation is approved (signatures collected from all committee members), the student then has to meet the university rules for submission. Someone mentioned uploading the work to UMI/ProQuest - they maintain a database of dissertation abstracts and complete studies. My institution has a subscription to ProQuest and you can download complete dissertations. Once all that is done, the graduate advisor signs off on the student’s academic work and he/she graduates with a doctoral degree.

Last, a peer-reviewed article (in my field) is a 25-30 page manuscript that also states a purpose, literature review, theoretical framing, methodology/design, findings, and implications/discussion section. Dissertations are often “spun off” into a number of articles; it’s unlikely that someone is going to read a dissertation cover to cover. In some humanities fields, the expectation is that a dissertation will become a monograph or book; at my institution, that book needs to be published by a major university press to earn tenure and/or promotion. In my field, we look at peer-reviewed articles as the measure for promotion and/or tenure; you need from 10-15 articles after 5-6 years as a quantitative measure. Quality and impact matter as well.

Peer-reviewed articles are blindly submitted and reviewed by other scholars. There is a blind review, and the author receives feedback and a decision from the journal editor (accept, accept with minor revisions, revise and resubmit, or reject). If it’s a reject, the author either scraps the paper, or aims toward another venue. The other decisions typically involve revising the manuscript. Revise and resubmit means that the revision may or may not be accepted depending on its quality.

In my discipline, peer-reviewed articles are the gold standard and are perceived as the most rigorous and respected work. We also have handbook chapters that are peer-reviewed that are almost as good. Then there’s book chapters, which typically don’t undergo blind peer review (it’s a colleague asking you to write on a topic you are knowledgeable on), and other publications (editorials, publications outside of your area of expertise). For senior scholars (tenured profs) editing a book or writing a book with a major press (commercial or university) is a sign of impact on the field.

…and that’s what I do for a living. Teaching and service gets worked in there too. :slight_smile:

50

Just noticed that some posts discuss the “consolation prize” master’s degrees. In my field, practitioners often seek a terminal master’s. We rarely accept doctoral students without a master’s degree, so occasionally, a student who does not make satisfactory progress in the doctoral program is offered a terminal master’s as an agreement that they will leave the program (rather than get kicked out). But if they already have a master’s, it’s of questionable value. And of course, if they already have a master’s from our institution in our field, they can’t get another one. (Presumably, that should never happen, as we should know them pretty well from the master’s degree.)

51

Not in my field. ABDs have passed orals, comprehensive exams, and specialization exams. They literally just need to defend for the doctorate.

Someone who has completed their doctoral coursework but none of the aforementioned exams is not ABD. And ABD has a shelf life. In my field, ABD for 1-2 years, maybe even 3 is possible. ABD for 5 years or more? That’s someone who dropped out of a doctoral program.

52

Leo Bloom asked about this sentence.

Before word processing a thesis had to be typed by hand. Most PhD students couldn’t type well enough to do this. Remember, they had to typed to a really high standard. No white out, certain margins, etc. They also did grammar checking, etc. So the work would be hired out. It was extremely common that the people who had the skills to do this but were desperate enough to not charge much were also grad student spouses.

RUNOFF was an early document formatting system. Think like LaTex. Text mixed with codes for paragraphs, underlines, etc. Printed out on a daisy wheel printer or some such.

test
My era was apparently the same as Voyager’s.

(Egad, I just remembered. I think I still have my thesis daisy wheel in a box somewhere. You bought a fresh wheel for printing your thesis. Didn’t want to use a worn one. Yet Another Thing That Needs To Be Thrown Out.)

53

Oops, wrong RUNOFF. Right runoff. Well, for me anyway.

54

I can’t speak for other disciplines, but a British PhD in chemistry is based on less substantial research than in the US. It typically takes 3 years (e.g. Cambridge), as opposed to 4+ (after classes are complete), which is why we generally discourage students from pursuing a PhD there if they plan to come back to the US and be employable. The degree here is awarded entirely based on your research. The classes and early examinations are just some early hoops to jump through which determine whether you get to stick around or not.

55

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.)

56

And in my field, an MS has also passed all of those hurdles.

Also in my experience, PhDs from anywhere in the world are considered equivalent, but any lower degree could be all over the place, and sometimes it’s hard to figure out what the equivalent degree even is.

57

Not sarcasm at all. In those benighted days many grad students had wives, and many were expected to know how to type - and much faster than your usual PhD student. It was a reasonably thriving business - one gone for a variety of reasons.

For me I got my wife a Multics login. She had quit her job when we went to Europe for a conference, and I wrote in longhand over night and she typed it in during the day while I sat next to her and coded the next phase of my compiler.
Students today have it easy, and get off my cyber-lawn!

58

Depends on his field. I have no idea if English Lit type journals would accept something this long, but engineering journals won’t. Especially from an unknown.
And I’ll be there is a lot of fat in there. I’ve had to cut 1,000 word submissions to my column down to 550 many times, with the submissions coming from pretty well known researchers. The first 300 words are easy. Much easier to chop the priceless prose from someone else rather than your own!

59

That’s the one I used also.
After seeing a professor at my school struggle to run his dissertation through a selectric terminal twice to do the subscripts and superscripts, I strictly limited the diagrams and few equations for mine to those that could be printed on a line printer.
It worked. Much easier. Not exactly a work of art, but as I tell my interns, always remember your goal in grad school is to get the dissertation finished. Nothing else.

60

At mine you needed to pass fewer of your quals to get a Masters, so those who couldn’t get through all of them managed to get one. Except a few who no one wanted to touch, so they went to the EE department where you didn’t have to do a Masters Thesis.

I read a book once about ABDs - from someone in Education - and what they meant was someone who had finished all requirements but the dissertation. In that field PhD students typically were working, so the level of desperation was not quite so high.