The Differences between a PhD Thesis and a Masters Thesis - Assignment Example

Structure and content of a Doctor of Philosophy thesis and a Master by Research thesis Customer Inserts His/her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name 11th May 2011 Introduction A thesis is a written document that gives the students research and findings. It is handed over to backup a candidate to qualify for the award of academic degrees in the universities. A scientific research must be performed by any student who engages in PhD thesis or master’s thesis where they have to come up with a research oriented project where they must justify theories, models, design, technique used and methodology identify. That is they must come up with a problem that holds attention and solve it in a scholarly version. Both masters and PhD thesis requires the author to provide experimental data to prove the practicability of their solution. This report seeks to explicate the differences between a PhD thesis and a master’s thesis by: Analyzing the structure and content of a Doctor of Philosophy thesis and a Master by Research thesis and by giving the logic behind the presentation and structuring of the content in a research report. The report identifies and applies criteria for differentiating between a PHD thesis and a master’s thesis and applies the criteria in a number in many theses. The objective of this report is thus to acquaint the reader with the differences between PhD thesis and masters thesis. The criteria used in this report to differentiate between a PhD thesis and a masters by research thesis include: Objective and intended learning outcomes, structure and organisation, length, information to include, required time, Work done and supervision. Difference between Doctor of Philosophy Thesis and a Master by Research Thesis Objectives and intended learning outcomes. The total purpose of a PhD thesis and a master by research thesis differ. The main aim of a master research thesis is for the student to be able to demonstrate and display the necessary capacity and knowledge of executing autonomous work in accordance with the context of master level programme of study (University of Texas at Austin 2010, p.16). At the end of a master’s research thesis the student should be in possession of a vast understanding and knowledge from his field of study, master’s student must be able to explore on their own and apply concepts and theories to the problem at hand, they must be able to justify, select and apply suitable research methodology for the phenomenon to be performed and in addition they must be able to consistently and seriously acquire and desegregate knowledge from different sources. Finally, the student must be able to sum up the research findings and complete and hand in the report within the required tome frame work. However the main objective of a PhD research thesis is for the student to come up with an independent concept and prove that it works in a scholarly style. That is a PHD dissertation calls for an original hypothesis which must be supported with primary and pilot theory, cohesiveness in research, argumentation and presentation (ISO 7144, 1986). The PhD thesis must also demonstrate abstract and technical competence in research analysis and presentation and must also demonstrate the vital knowledge of other literature. At the end of the PhD thesis it is anticipated that the student should compete with world-leading specialists in the different field of study. Work done and supervision The application of this criterion to a number of theses revealed that the level scope and difficulty is higher at the doctorate level than at the master’s level. This is because doctorate student is more knowledgeable and thus can work on a more narrowed subject. For a PhD thesis to be accepted the student must ensure that the topic under consideration progresses significantly. Whereas at the level of masters the candidate is required to work on a topic and the final assessment is done subjectively. For a PhD thesis the candidate must be correct especially in proving the workability of his original hypothesis. Contrally to this in a masters thesis the student does not have to be right that is in a masters thesis a candidate can also prove that the theory and hypothesis they were initially working on came out to be wrong. On part of supervision the different thesis showed that less help is provided by the supervisors at the doctorate that is the candidate should work independently. However the student is well supervised by a PhD thesis committee. The committee is made up of the immediate advisor and other members, they are charged with the responsibility of overseeing the progress of the thesis and they also act as the examining committee where they read the thesis and advice the student accordingly on changes to be made (Thomas 2009, P.8). The committee must have members drawn from other departments and universities. However, for masters thesis internal supervisors monitor the advancement in the research. It is a must that the supervisors must be a specialist in the area addressed by the thesis. In case of the masters thesis external supervisors comes in when the candidate embarks on external research. This supervisor must also posses enough knowledge and capability to monitor the project. Length, Information to Include and the Required Time Based on this the assessment of the different masters and PhD theses demonstrated that the length of thesis is not constant. That is it depends on faculties, and departments. Based on the subject the departments and faculties are able to set the length of the thesis. Doctorate thesis in social sciences and humanities are longer than thesis in sciences and engineering. Social sciences and humanities dissertations are about 300 pages and above whereas thesis in sciences and engineering are half of this length. Masters thesis varies substantially in length which is roughly 100 pages. In general masters thesis are shorter than PhD thesis. The information and content in a master’s thesis ranges from hypothetical subject matters to synthesis and data analysis (University of Texas at Austin 2010, P.8). Thus depending on this master’s research can borrow and rely on research by others. However, on the other hand a dissertation in PhD requires an original hypothesis to be augmented by first hand research. A master’s thesis usually takes a period of one year while a doctorate dissertation takes a longer tome up to 4 years because the latter requires many pages and original research. Structure, Style and Organisation of the Thesis For the different thesis that were analysed it was concluded that a distinctive thesis contains title page, abstract, table of contents, list of figures , the thesis body that constitutes (introduction, literature review, objectives, methods, results, discussion conclusion etc) and a reference section. However, this structure varied in the different areas of study such as sciences, technology, social sciences, and arts and so on. However in addition to the above mentioned parts a PhD thesis contained section for the curriculum vitae of the author and also the discussion part for most doctoral thesis are divided in to discussion-validation and general discussion parts. The curriculum vitae are presented in prose and are phrased in the third person. The main purpose of the curriculum vitae is to represent the main facts about the authors’ life including the academic life. Title page is the first page in a thesis and it is not numbered. The title page gives the work title, the name of the author, author’s academic certification, the faculty and department awarding the degree, the name of the university and the date of graduation (ISO 7144, 1986). This was same for both PhD and master’s theses except that in some PhD theses that were analysed some contained the universal copyright symbol in the title page. In most of the thesis title had been typed in both upper and lower case letters. That is English rules were observed and followed in the capitalisation of the title page. Also in the entire thesis that were analysed the literature review section was pertinent in showing how available literature relates and evidences the subject of dissertation. The introduction section in most theses was very effective especially at the beginning in attracting the reader’s interest of the reader. These hooking statements are about the problems that the thesis intends to address. In the introduction sections thesis statements were well stipulated and short background information was given to explicate why the paper was written. The introduction section also explained the scope of work to be covered in the theses and also gives the road map to guide the reader. The language used in the introduction section and in all the other sections of the thesis was very user friendly for a common person to comprehend, most thesis especially technical ones defined acronyms, vocabularies and terms that were frequently used in the thesis. Most theses concluded with strong remarks and statements on the research outcomes that were addressed on the thesis. These statements also explained how the outcomes matched the objectives that were stipulated in the introduction section. The table of contents for most of the thesis appeared before the main text. It showed the title and page numbers of the principal sections and subdivisions of the thesis. The various divisions were indented in the table of contents page. In most of the analysed sample thesis the work cited list and the appendices appeared in the table of contents with their page numbers. In many theses the wording and numbering of the principal divisions coincided with the numbering that was used throughout the text. In addition the table of content was well represented in most theses because the various entries were double spaced and also when chapter and subheading titles were long they were indented to the right and single spaced. In most of the theses tables and diagrams representing data from field and laboratories were well organised and readable well readable in a manner that they properly supported the argument. This is because all tables and figures were identifiable by their numbers by their own and unique numbers. This numbering was done consecutively throughout the text. Captions had also been placed on all tables and figures. It was also evident that in some thesis the some captions were single spaced band margins reduced to one inch for the figure and the caption to fit in one page. Also in some thesis original size of some figure was reduced for the same reason and page numbers were added in order to maintain the size. The naming of the tables in the list coincided with their respective naming in the text. In some thesis to increase the readability a nomenclature section was included before the main text where vocabularies and acronyms were defined. This was more so in the case of science and technical thesis. A bibliography section always appeared at the end. This is true even for books and reports. The bibliography lists all the materials that the author used in his work including their year of publication and edition so that so as to verify in text citations. This listing depends on the writing style which depends on the field of study. This writing style include: Harvard writing style, American Psychological association (APA), Chicago writing style and many others. In some thesis foot notes enabled the reader to identify the source with ease because of their exactness. The reference list was in all theses was linked tot the main text through in-text citations. They differed depending on the style that had been used but in all styles the name of the author, year of publication, and page numbers appeared depending on the type of the reference material. Most of the theses assessed were formatted in Harvard writing style. The examples below show how a book, a journal material, and a web page were referenced in Harvard writing style. Conclusion This report outlines the major differences between PhD thesis and masters by research thesis by analysing the structure and arrangement, information included, work done, length, required time and so on. In addition to this the reports argues that negative aspects associated with the presentation of thesis by proper appearance of the individual during presentation and proper formatting and styling when printing the thesis. References International Standard ISO 7144, 1986, Presentation of theses and similar documents, International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, viewed 10 May 2011,< http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER =13736&ICS1= 1&ICS2=140&ICS3=40> Thomas, G 2009. Doctorate research thesis guide. Thousand Oaks: Sage. University of Texas at Austin 2010, format guidelines for master’s thesis and report, viewed 10 May, 2011, Read More