Thesis like a scientific article

[serbring]

Hi all,

I am a professor in mechanical engineering and I have several master thesis students and I am facing the problem with the quality of their thesis. Especially, most of the thesis I have to correct are often very long because they are rich in useless information and lack of literature review. For example, in many cases, students write about any basic theory related to the topic that we teach in the first two years. For that reason, I am writing a long guide, where I explain how the thesis should be writting. I am thinking to set a limit of only 20 pages for the thesis, like a scientific paper, so that the students will be forced to think about the reader, so they will be forced to select only the relevant information and more important to review many times what they have written. What do you think about this limit? Is in your opinion too limited?

 

[Vanadium 50]

If your problem is that what you get today is 20 pages of value and 30 pages of rubbish, a 20 page limit will turn this into 1 page of value and 19 pages of rubbish.

 

[ZapperZ]

Hi all,

I am a professor in mechanical engineering and I have several master thesis students and I am facing the problem with the quality of their thesis. Especially, most of the thesis I have to correct are often very long because they are rich in useless information and lack of literature review. For example, in many cases, students write about any basic theory related to the topic that we teach in the first two years. For that reason, I am writing a long guide, where I explain how the thesis should be writting. I am thinking to set a limit of only 20 pages for the thesis, like a scientific paper, so that the students will be forced to think about the reader, so they will be forced to select only the relevant information and more important to review many times what they have written. What do you think about this limit? Is in your opinion too limited?

Within the confines of the requirement for a "thesis" as set forth by your department or the graduate school, if there is any, you can set whatever criteria that you wish.

But I'm more puzzled by the apparent lack of influence that you exert on your students, so much so that you had to resort to setting a page limit. Don't you discuss before hand with your students the outline of what they should write? By the time they sit down and start writing, both you and your students should have a clear understanding of what to cover, how much to cover, and what you present. If you do not want them to go in that much detail on the background info, then shouldn't you simply have stated that in the beginning, or during your discussion with your students as you read the first few drafts? It should be as long as necessary and not any longer.

Zz.

 

[symbolipoint]

Hi all,

I am a professor in mechanical engineering and I have several master thesis students and I am facing the problem with the quality of their thesis. Especially, most of the thesis I have to correct are often very long because they are rich in useless information and lack of literature review. For example, in many cases, students write about any basic theory related to the topic that we teach in the first two years. For that reason, I am writing a long guide, where I explain how the thesis should be writting. I am thinking to set a limit of only 20 pages for the thesis, like a scientific paper, so that the students will be forced to think about the reader, so they will be forced to select only the relevant information and more important to review many times what they have written. What do you think about this limit? Is in your opinion too limited?

Discuss the structure you want your students to use and give an outline. College or university students - Is this so? If yes, then they will adapt to your format and other instructions on how to form their reports.

You've several "Master thesis students"? Yes; they can and will adapt to what you want. They are not beginners at writing technical or academic reports.

 

[serbring]

Hi all,

thanks for your answers. I am not complaining to the quality of their thesis, that is usually pretty high, but the quality of their first draft. I usually make clear since the beginning, I also have a guide, that I wrote few years back, buy it usually takes three drafts, that I have to read, to get a good work. But this is time consuming and I want to optimize the process. So I thought of doing something totally different than the others and guide the students to write a very short thesis. A coworker of mine says that is not right because an article is different than a thesis, that it should be much longer. I am not fully agree with him.I am glad for what you say.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

I like to be involved early and often with written student work products. Having them turn in a completed written work once or twice is a recipe for failure. I given them lots of milestones and lots of feedback. Let's have a few drafts of the introduction and background section (s) before we even think about the method or results sections. Most students need to learn to write and learn my standards of acceptable work before they waste too much time creating lots of pages of drivel.

 

[WWGD]

I hope I am not stating something fully obvious, but, aren't they aware that a thesis should contain original research and that foundational results should only be quoted-referred to? Maybe set up a right thesis , show it to them and find a way of having students anonymously criticize their respective theses on these grounds/guidelines of originality?

 

[DrClaude]

Twenty pages appears too little. While you want the students to focus on presenting what they actually did, I think they should be allowed to give as much detail as possible about what they actually did, and present as much as possible of the results obtained.

I think that the goal and the audience of a masters thesis is different from that of a scientific paper.