In the US and Canada, in my experience, the big piece of writing done at the end of an M.A. degree is called a Master's thesis, and the big piece of writing done at the end of a PhD is called a dissertation. This is why the system informally has the acronym ABD - "All But Dissertation" - to denote people who have passed their required coursework and exams for their PhD.
Now, in the UK, there is no coursework for a PhD, nor are there exams usually. Many places prefer PhD candidates who have done an MA or MPhil in the relevant field (i.e. coursework) to one who hasn't, but it's not generally a hard-and-fast rule.
This evening, at a reception after a talk on mathematics in Late Antiquity, a woman corrected me when I started to talk about my PhD dissertation. "You mean thesis. A dissertation is what you'd write at the M.A. level."
Have I somehow done an MA in this country and interacted with UK academics for this long and missed this fundamental distinction? It's possible. Was she right? Am I going to be endlessly confused when the terms are entirely reversed from one side of the ocean to the other?
Now, in the UK, there is no coursework for a PhD, nor are there exams usually. Many places prefer PhD candidates who have done an MA or MPhil in the relevant field (i.e. coursework) to one who hasn't, but it's not generally a hard-and-fast rule.
This evening, at a reception after a talk on mathematics in Late Antiquity, a woman corrected me when I started to talk about my PhD dissertation. "You mean thesis. A dissertation is what you'd write at the M.A. level."
Have I somehow done an MA in this country and interacted with UK academics for this long and missed this fundamental distinction? It's possible. Was she right? Am I going to be endlessly confused when the terms are entirely reversed from one side of the ocean to the other?
Profile
owlfish- S. Worthen
- S. Worthen
Comments
Just when I think I have all the important, basic vocabulary down, something this big and important tackles me.
I wonder - is MA=dissertation/PhD=thesis the hard-and-fast rule here? More precisely, is a thesis only something written at the PhD level in the UK?
Isn't the appropriate response to the snooty an equally snooty, "Oh? That's not how Toronto does it." ??
Comment multiply away. None of us can help the limitation which is uneditable comments.
The advisor who made this distinction, and insisted that it was called a dissertation within the actual text, was American but had been in the UK for a while. My supervisor, who was British, agreed with him. I did what I needed to get them to allow me to submit it.
A thesis as the theory you're putting forward makes sense, for in the terms I was trained in, every piece of argumentative writing requires a thesis, which is the argument itself, the heart of the discussion. No one in my department in Canada would dispute that a dissertation requires a thesis - but they wouldn't say I'd written a thesis.
Properly, though, the thesis is the point you're arguing, and the dissertation is the written document which contains the argument. But this distinction is usually glossed over, and the word thesis (or `big papery thing tied up with string - like the thing we burnt' (tm S Baldrick and E Blackadder) as it became known in our office) generally refers to the dissertation itself.
Now, in the UK, there is no coursework for a PhD, nor are there exams usually.
No, they throw us all in at the deep end, right at the beginning (my supervisor said ``Here's some of my recent papers. Have a read through and see if anything appeals'' which was as close as he ever got to suggesting a research problem for me). Although in our undergraduate degrees we specialise (usually in one subject, sometimes in two closely related subjects - and no requirements to take any courses which aren't specifically relevant to your chosen subjects) right from day one, too, so I guess the theory is that we're ready to start doing research right away.
In practice, though, everyone has to do some background study (reading and/or specialised graduate-level courses) to get up to speed in their chosen area. This is why many departments require PhD students to register for an MPhil or MA/MSc to start with, and then transfer to PhD after they've jumped through the required hoops - typically, some sort of oral exam or written report at the end of the first year. Some others require first-year PhD students to effectively do an MA/MSc in the first year (a couple of terms of graduate-level courses, plus exams), making the MA/MSc dissertation the first chapter or so of the PhD thesis.
But it varies from department to department, and university to university - there's no standard scheme of qualifying exams, like in the US, for example.
"dissertation" has more letters and syllables than "thesis", therefore it sounds more complicated and important to me!!
But a common student error here is tenure/ten year(s)
Just thought I'd share.