1 / 6

A thesis is the acquisition and dissemination of new knowledge.

Thesis. A thesis is the acquisition and dissemination of new knowledge. In order to demonstrate this, the author must demonstrate that they understand what the relevant state of the art is and what the strengths and weaknesses of the SoA are.

marli
Download Presentation

A thesis is the acquisition and dissemination of new knowledge.

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Thesis • A thesis is the acquisition and dissemination of new knowledge. • In order to demonstrate this, the author must demonstrate that they understand what the relevant state of the art is and what the strengths and weaknesses of the SoA are. • For someone's work to be knowledge there must be a demonstration that suitable and systematic methods were used to evaluate the chosen hypothesis. • It is important that "new" is not just new to the researcher, but also new to the community. • Novelty/originality/new understanding/marshalling existing ideas in ways that provide new insights is what it is all about.

  2. A PhD Thesis • Must Contain: • Knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the field. • This will show motivation, relevance to X, Y, & Z, who is doing what, why & how. • Critical analysis of related work. • Person X is doing Y, this is important because ..., this doesn't address these points ... Need to link the failings of related work to your own work. • Importance (relevance) of own work. • State contributions, is this an incremental improvement on the state of the art, an evolution on existing work, & why. Beware of appearing to be too original, don't appear to have missed or ignored existing work.

  3. A PhD Thesis is Not • Not "a diary of work done" • In order to be awarded a PhD you must be able to present your work so that it is accessible to others and so that it demonstrates your mastery of a given subject. Although PhD theses may differ widely, you certainly won't be awarded a PhD just for doing three year's work and you won't be awarded a PhD for "a diary of work done". • A common attitude is "well, I've done my PhD, now all I've got to do is write it up". Beware! The thesis IS the PhD - it doesn't really matter how great your research has been during the three/four years - all that really matters is the thesis. • Not "a collection of papers". At VIT this need not be an acceptable PhD thesis (some other universities allow this as a PhD route, e.g. for staff, but the required standard is very high). At VIT your thesis must have a THEME. It is similar to writing a book. You can however take a collection of papers and turn it into the core of a PhD. • Not "a big final year project". Though some final year projects are excellent, most do not contain sufficient critical analysis or scientific method.

  4. A PhD Thesis is Not • Not "a lone journey". • It is important to have other people involved, if for nothing else then for proof-reading. • You need to have an ‘experienced’ supervisor who can tell you when to stop! (this is often the biggest problem faced by students). • As the person doing the PhD, you are too involved and therefore you have the worst judgement on what is good or bad - you must get external advice. • Also remember that a thesis should be designed for the benefit of the reader, not the writer! • So get lots of people to read your thesis and tell you what parts they could not understand.

  5. Typical PhD Thesis Layout • Abstract • 1. Introduction • Set the scene and problem statement. Introduce structure of thesis, state contributions. • 2. Background • Demonstrate wider appreciation (context). Provide motivation. The problem statement and the motivation state how you want the PhD to be judged - as engineering, scientific method, theory, philosophy, & why. Related Work - Survey and critical assessment. Relation to own work. 3-5. Analysis, design, implementation and interpretation of results • Critical assessment of own work • State hypothesis, and demonstrate precision, thoroughness, contribution, and comparison with closest rival. 6. Summary and Conclusions • Appendices • References

  6. UG G PG Ph D

More Related