What Thesis Students Need To Know & Do for Success

What Thesis Students Need To Know & Do for Success

Oct 01, 2024Rene Tetzner

The Responsibilities of Thesis and Dissertation Students

Most postgraduate research and the theses and dissertations that grow from it are student driven, and the enthusiasm, initiative and persistence of candidates are often considered to be as important as their research topics and written work. In most cases it is your job as the student to determine exactly what your responsibilities are, and supervisors will vary in the degree to which they are willing to encourage you in making the necessary discoveries. It is your thesis or dissertation, after all, and you are the one who will receive the degree if you are successful.

Universities tend to set a specific amount of time within which a thesis or dissertation must be completed and examined in order for a candidate to receive a degree. This deadline will probably already be well known to you, but there are a number of other less obvious deadlines that will also require careful planning. You may, for instance, have to draft parts of your thesis within a certain period of time, and have them approved by your committee members before proceeding further. Your university’s or institute’s approval of your research project may involve finishing that research within a given amount of time, and may not allow the repetition of tests and procedures without additional approval. Your supervisor and other committee members will require a reasonable amount of time (two weeks is common) to read and provide feedback on any piece of writing you share with them. In addition, there are always forms and other bureaucratic procedures that must be completed at various stages in the degree process, with frustrating delays and complications resulting if they are not.

As a postgraduate student, you will need to be aware of all such deadlines and requirements and design your own work schedule around them, and you should also do your best to learn of any unusual circumstances that may affect your progress. For example, perhaps your supervisor or another committee member will be away for a period of time and therefore unable to provide feedback on your research or writing, a situation that may require some careful planning on your part.

When it comes to the nature of your research and the content of your writing, your supervisor may use discussions and comments to nudge you in the right directions, but it is your responsibility to conduct your research in appropriate and approved ways, to present and analyse that research honestly and effectively, to master to an acceptable degree the language in which you are working, to write your thesis or dissertation clearly and professionally, and to observe all university guidelines regarding the length, style, format and referencing methods of your text. You will also need to discuss your work and the responses it receives from your supervisor and other mentors in a mature and respectful manner, revising and improving your methods, analysis and writing in accordance with the advice your receive from them.

Finally, if necessary, you will be the one who has to take the initiative in resolving any issues or problems in your research or in your intellectual relationship with your supervisory committee that may arise during your degree process. Keep in mind that while the responsibility is yours to determine your academic or scientific success as a postgraduate student, the career rewards will also be yours and well worth the effort.

Why Our Editing and Proofreading Services?
At Proof-Reading-Service.com we offer the highest quality journal article editing, dissertation proofreading and online proofreading services via our large and extremely dedicated team of academic and scientific professionals. All of our proofreaders are native speakers of English who have earned their own postgraduate degrees, and their areas of specialisation cover such a wide range of disciplines that we are able to help our international clientele with research editing to improve and perfect all kinds of academic manuscripts for successful publication. Many of the carefully trained members of our manuscript editing and proofreading team work predominantly on articles intended for publication in scholarly journals, applying painstaking journal editing standards to ensure that the references and formatting used in each paper are in conformity with the journal’s instructions for authors and to correct any grammar, spelling, punctuation or simple typing errors. In this way, we enable our clients to report their research in the clear and accurate ways required to impress acquisitions proofreaders and achieve publication.

Our scientific proofreading services for the authors of a wide variety of scientific journal papers are especially popular, but we also offer manuscript proofreading services and have the experience and expertise to proofread and edit manuscripts in all scholarly disciplines, as well as beyond them. We have team members who specialise in medical proofreading services, and some of our experts dedicate their time exclusively to dissertation proofreading and manuscript proofreading, offering academics the opportunity to improve their use of formatting and language through the most exacting PhD thesis editing and journal article proofreading practices. Whether you are preparing a conference paper for presentation, polishing a progress report to share with colleagues, or facing the daunting task of editing and perfecting any kind of scholarly document for publication, a qualified member of our professional team can provide invaluable assistance and give you greater confidence in your written work.

If you are in the process of preparing an article for an academic or scientific journal, or planning one for the near future, you may well be interested in a new book, Guide to Journal Publication, which is available on our Tips and Advice on Publishing Research in Journals website.



更多文章