5 ms·
No one will ever read your thesis... if it sucks. I have read many, many theses. In fact, I prefer to read theses than conference papers, because a thesis does
by TriinT 17y ago
No one will ever read your thesis... if it sucks. I have read many, many theses. In fact, I prefer to read theses than conference papers, because a thesis does not have as many editorial constraints.
This kind of generalization is dumb. "No one will read your thesis". Is that a law of nature? Does that apply to Claude Shannon? His M.Sc. showed how to map Boolean logic to electric circuits. I mean, who would ever want to read such a thing, right? ;-)
OK, enough of the title. I am all for making research work available and accessible, just as long as the quality of the work is not sacrificed. Research will always be difficult. It can't be made easy by adopting a new writing style, but it can be made easier.
- der_ketzer 17y agoSure there must be some interesting thesis to read. But I think thesis are like patents, there are many and most of them are useless.
- kentf 17y agoHahaha. Thanks for the honesty :) I think you are an exceptional person if you are reading more than 1 thesis. Didn't mean to offend with the title, but I was hoping to elicit that kind of reaction. I have had this talk with a bunch of people at the University of Toronto and we all sort of agree.. but I am an extremist I guess. If you are interested in Context Awareness and HCI then I will send you a copy when I am done ;)
- kentf 17y agoHow about the title. "Why most people won't read your thesis"
- TriinT 17y agoThat would be (sigh) depressingly accurate :-(
- brg 17y agoI think the author is correct in the result, but not in the reasoning. The vast majority of M.Sci thesis are not read because they are neither ground-breaking nor well written. As for ground-breaking, they are only one year projects on average. No one can expect much more from it. The author's main critique is the style of the thesis, but here I think he is incorrect. Research papers need to be concise and precise, and to do that they must use an agreed upon language and style. The proper place for a casual style is in a survey or popular article (re: advertisement). I think another reason that one shouldn't expect their thesis to be read is that a M.Sc thesis is usually the first full publication of the author, while even a PhD thesis is too often the collation of the author's first publications. One simply does't have the practice necessary to write a great paper. Also, it is good to remember that the audience of a thesis the review committee. It is not written as a dialog in the research community as a journal article or conference paper is. Most advisors will not push for style changes or expanded references because at that would engage a larger review.
- brg 17y agoClaude Shannon's thesis is special in that it is the most influential M.Sc. thesis ever written. See the second paragraph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon
- shard 17y agoThis kind of generalization is dumb. So is reading hyperbole as logical fact. It's his thesis that needs to be accurate and unambiguous, not his blog entries.
- TriinT 17y agoI was criticizing the title, not the post. It's hard to name blog posts, but some names are more inflamatory than others. I was not attacking the thesis.
- kentf 17y agoSorry shard... didn't mean to strike a chord... it was a poor choice of title. I am merely saying that we should bring the best parts of fiction and storytelling to academic writing as I believe more people would be read it and gain inspiration / insight from it.
- shard 17y agoI am actually commenting on TriinT's comment, not on your title. I'm not very agitated by hyperbole in blog titles. I also agree with your proposal that academic writing have informal sections which explain things in a manner that's not obfuscated for those not in the field.
- sown 17y agoI can't agree with your sentiment. :( Your have an interesting anecdote but it is just that -- a special case. You might as well say that prayer works. Given the ratio of ground breaking theses compared to all the rest that are it is safe to say that no one will read a given thesis. At least, the chances are effectively 0. The sad part is that even if it is a good thesis it still won't ever see the light of day.
- TriinT 17y agoI've said it before, and I will say it again: I regularly read theses. Maybe I am insane, but I find them rather enticing when they're really, really good. OK, only one thesis every 100 years can be as monumental as Shannon's thesis, but that does not mean other all thesis suck. I often find myself reading theses by former MIT and Caltech grad students. I like Math, CS and Engineering theses. Needless to say, I don't read bullshit theses on women's studies or other pseudo-intellectual junk. Conference papers are limited to 6 pages or so. Authors need to cite the right papers to ensure they won't offend anyone. They need to revise prior work. They need to stick to the core of the idea and refer to 1000s of other papers. Theses have less editorial and political constraints, so they're much more enjoyable to read IMHO. And, fortunately, theses don't have that hideous double column format. If I want to learn a new field, I don't read papers. I read theses.
- sown 17y ago>If I want to learn a new field, I don't read papers. I read theses. That's an interesting idea and I think I will try it myself. But still, I think the two of us are 'insane' :)