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Using Images and Non-Textual Materials in Presentations, Papers, Theses, and Dissertations

• Documenting and Citing Images
• Finding Images - Select Sources

Documenting and Citing Images/Photographs and Their Sources

Please note that this is advice on best practices and considerations in documenting and citing images and non-print materials. It does not represent legal advice on obtaining permissions.

Generally, images copied from other sources should not be used without permissions in publications or for commercial purposes. Many American academic institutions require graduate students to archive their finished and approved theses/dissertations in institutional electronic repositories and/or institutional libraries and repositories, and/or to post them on Proquest's theses database. Unpublished theses and dissertations are a form of scholarly dissemination. Someone else's images, like someone else's ideas, words or music, should be used with critical commentary, and need to be identified and cited. If a thesis/dissertation is revised for publication,  waivers or permissions from the copyright holder(s) of the images and non-textual materials must be obtained. Best practices also apply to materials found on the internet and on social media, and, properly speaking, require identification, citation, and clearance of permissions, as relevant.

Use the following elements when identifying and citing an image, depending on the information you have available . It is your responsibility to do due diligence and document as much as possible about the image you are using:

• Artist's/creator's name, if relevant;
• Title of the work/image, if known, or description;
• Ownership information (such as a person, estate, museum, library collection) and source of image;
• Material, if known, particularly for art works;
• Dimensions of the work, if known.

The Chicago Manual of Style online can be searched for norms on appropriate ways to caption illustrations, capitalize titles of visual works, or cite print materials that contain images.

Including images/photographs in a bibliography:

Best practice is to not include images within a bibliography of works cited. It is common, instead, to create a separate list of images (or figures) and their source, such as photographer (even if it's you) or collection. It may be useful to also include location, e.g., museum, geographic reference, address, etc.

Examples of Documenting Images

The image below is scanned from a published book. It can be used in a critical context within a presentation, classroom session, or  paper/thesis, as follows:

[ Figure 1. This photograph from 1990 shows the Monument against Fascism designed by Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev-Gerz, Hamburg, 1986-1993. Image from James Young, ed.,  Art of Memory: Holocaust Memorials in History (New York: Prestel, 1994), 70]

If you need to use this image in a published work, you will have to seek permission. For example, the book from which this image was scanned should have a section on photo credits which would help you identify the person/archive holding this image.

The image below was found through Google Images and downloaded from the internet. It can be used in a critical context within a presentation,  classroom session, or paper/thesis, as follows:

[Figure 2. This image shows the interior of Bibliotheca Alexandrina designed by the Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta in 2001. Image downloaded from https://mgkhs.com/gallery/alexandria in March 2016.]

If you want to use this image in a published work, you will have to do your best to track down its source to request permission to use. The web site or social media site where you found the image may not be an appropriate source, since it is common for people to repost images without attribution. Just because "everyone does it" does not mean that you should be using such materials without attribution or documentation. In this specific example, you may need to write to the photographer or to the architecture firm. If you have done due diligence and were unable to find the source, or have not received a response, you may be able to use an image found on the internet with appropriate documentation in a publication.

The image below was downloaded from a digitized historic collection of photographs held by an institutional archive. It can be used in a critical context within a presentation,  classroom session, or paper/thesis, as follows:

[Figure 3. In the 1920s the urban landscape of Los Angeles started to change, as various developers began building multi-family apartment houses in sections previously zoned for single family dwellings. Seen in this photograph by Dick Whittington is the Warrington apartment building, which was completed in 1928, surrounded by older single family structures. Downloaded from the USC Digital Library in February 2016]

I f you plan to use this photograph in a publication, seek permission from the library/institution from whose digital archive you downloaded the image. Contact information is usually found in the record for the image.

The image below was taken by the author. It can be used in a critical context within a presentation, classroom session , paper/thesis, or a publication* as follows:

[Figure 4. Genex Tower, also known as West City Gate, is a residential tower located in New Belgrade. This example of late 20th century brutalist-style architecture was designed in 1977 by Mihajlo Mitrović. Photographed by the author in 2013.]

*Please note, if you re-photographed someone else's photograph or a work of art, or if you re-photographed a published image, you may not be able to publish your photograph without first seeking permission or credit for its content.  If you have done due diligence and were unable to find the source or have not received a response, you may be able to use your image with appropriate documentation.

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Images for Dissertation

Getting started.

Congratulations on your forthcoming dissertation! Please note that the Visual Resources Center (VRC) staff are not lawyers and we cannot provide you with legal advice. However, the VRC can provide you with helpful information about including images in your dissertation. 

This guide outlines the general workflows associated with tracking your images you’d like to use for future publication, and outlines the ways the VRC can collaborate with you to support your dissertation. We invite you to begin discussing images for your dissertation with the VRC as early as possible, including at the dissertation proposal phase. Our services and resources for managing personal image archives may be useful for your fieldwork and research. The latest we can begin collaborating with you on images for your dissertation is one quarter before your dissertation will be filed with the Dissertation Office. You are welcome to work with us in some or all elements of the lifecycle of your dissertation—it is not required to opt-in to all aspects. Likewise, the different components do not necessarily need to proceed in a particular order, and some work can happen simultaneously or in parallel with other phases of the workflow. 

This service is offered to graduate students in the University of Chicago Humanities Division as a parallel to our Images for Publication service , which is available to graduate students and faculty in the University of Chicago Humanities Division.  [Last updated 6/3/22]

Campus Resources

Dissertation Office

Copyright Information Center

Check-In with the VRC

Book an appointment to discuss your dissertation project and how the VRC can help you move forward with images. Before our meeting, we’ll review any materials you can share and make some notes. We can help conduct copyright assessments, direct you to resources, and do some light research into potential copyright holders. However, we cannot send permissions requests on your behalf. 

Before meeting with a VRC staff member, please share any materials you’ve assembled, including an image list, captions, image files themselves, etc.

Create a Spreadsheet

The VRC recommends tracking the images used in your dissertation in a spreadsheet, where you can include information about each image, including the caption, the copyright status, a fair use justification (where appropriate), the image size, and other notes. 

The VRC uses this template —if you have a Figure List for your dissertation, the VRC can import that into a spreadsheet for you. If you’d like to start your own spreadsheet, you can make a copy of the template and adapt/expand it for your own purposes. The second tab of the template defines the role of each field in the template.

Choosing to file your dissertation with all, some, or no images is ultimately up to you. The VRC can offer advice about images you may want to include or exclude. Regardless of which images are submitted with the dissertation, tracking all of the images in the spreadsheet will help in selecting images for future publications.

When you go to publish the dissertation as a book, your publisher will likely ask you to complete a similar spreadsheet known as a permissions log. The VRC’s template was designed with publishers’ permission logs in mind, which will hopefully set you up nicely to pursue any official permissions for the book project. 

Keeping track of your complete research images sooner rather than later will be an important part of managing your personal image archive . If you haven’t been tracking images previously, doing this work at the dissertation filing stage will save you a lot of time when it comes time to publish this as a book or article, etc. Platforms like Tropy, Airtable, Google sheets, etc. can also easily export information into templates to track your dissertation/publication information.

Image Captions

Citing each work properly, and in sufficient detail, is critical. When using photographs of other works (e.g., paintings, sculptures, other works of art), it is necessary to assess the copyright status of both the underlying work itself and the photographic reproduction of the work. In such cases, it’s important to fully cite where your image of the work came from , either in the caption or in your own records . For example, if an image was scanned from a book, you may or may not need to provide a full citation of the text, including page number. If it’s from an archive, include all identifying information available to you, including the name of the papers, series, box, folder, etc. If you obtained the image from a website, individual, or institution, it is important to note that as well. Include rights information, such as Creative Commons licenses or other permissions notes. Note that the original source of the image should be included in the citation. If the image was posted to a third-party website (such as a blog), you will need to find where the website sourced it from. 

We recommend you review the University-Wide Requirements for the Ph.D. Dissertation , whi ch includes formatting requirements, and “ Citing Images ,” in  Images: A Guide to Visual Resources which is maintained by Arts Bibliographer Nancy Spiegel in collaboration with VRC staff. Additionally, Chapter Three in the Chicago Manual of Style includes a detailed discussion of captions for art works and examples of usage. University of Chicago users have access to the full text online using the Quick Link on the Library home page . The VRC also recommends the CAA Publications Style Guide , which provides instructions on formatting captions as well as robust examples for a variety of work types, including architecture, book illustrations, engravings, installation views, interiors, manuscript illuminations, murals, paintings, performances, photographs, scrolls, sculptures, video games, video stills, and woodcuts. There may also be discipline and/or sub-field specific conventions and best practices as to what information should be included as part of a source statement, and we rely on you and your faculty to be familiar with those conventions. The VRC invites you to explore our resource on Image Citations and Captions , which includes also a discussion of citational ethics.

Creative Commons Licenses

Many museums and other image archives are making digitized versions of the collections available through Creative Commons licenses . Creative Commons (CC) provides six different license options that allow institutions to grant users certain permissions to use their work under copyright law and allow users to quickly identify what they can do with particular works. 

CC BY-NC 4.0

The CC BY-NC 4.0 license is frequently used for cultural heritage materials. 

For content made available under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, users may “copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format” if the image is appropriately cited and if the use is for non-commercial purposes. 

Proper attribution under the CC licenses means that you must provide the name of the creator, the title of the material if supplied, a copyright notice, a license notice, and a link to the material. It is important to read, understand, and comply with the attribution terms of the applicable CC license.

Your use of the material is scholarly, not commercial. However, your dissertation will be available through ProQuest dissertation publishing. ProQuest is a commercial organization, not a non-profit. ProQuest can make and sell copies of your dissertation if individuals request a copy. It is up to you to assess the copyright and decide if your use is in the spirit of the license and whether to include the material in the filed dissertation or not.

Copyright Assessment

Next, you must conduct a copyright assessment and/or fair use analysis for each image. If you’d like, VRC can assist with an initial review of the images you intend to include in your dissertation. We would assess the copyright status of the work and of the image separately, because in some cases the rights holder for the work depicted in the image may be separate from the image rights holder. Please note that you will need to carefully review this initial assessment. Where permissions are required, the VRC can help advise with your strategy and language, but you will need to coordinate all licensing and permissions efforts with the relevant copyright holders.

Be sure to take note of any copyright statements, licenses, or other rights information provided by the image source. In addition to needing to include that information in the caption or citation, we recommend that you also vet the information provided against your own knowledge of art and image copyright using the recommended resources below. Occasionally, individuals or institutions may attempt to claim rights over the work or the image when it is in the public domain or when there are no additional rights to claim. (For example, claiming copyright over a reproduction image made from a scan or photograph of a 2D work of art that’s in the public domain, or supplying a CC-BY-NC license over a work that is in the public domain and should have been presented under a CC0 license instead.)

Resources for Assessing Copyright Status

• Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States
• Digital Copyright Slider: Is it Protected by Copyright? For works published in the U.S.A.
• Digital Image Rights Computator
• Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis: Ownership, Fair Use, and Your Rights and Responsibilities (ProQuest)

Sample Language for Noting Work Copyright Status

The underlying work depicted in the image (ie, the work of art) will typically be listed as Copyrighted or Public Domain. Include the full rights statement provided by the institution in the work or copyright status field, as appropriate, and in the caption as well.

Sample Language for Noting Image Copyright Status

The image reproduction of the artwork may have its own copyright considerations. Some sample language for noting image copyright status include: 

• Photograph by the author (you are the copyright owner of a photograph you have made)
• Copyright statements or credit lines from the copyright owner, such as “© Albert Renger-Patzsch Archiv / Ann u. Jürgen Wilde, Zülpich / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York?”
• N/A: This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional work of art.
• N/A: CCO license (or similar Creative Commons designation)
• N/A: Open access use

Other Permissions Considerations

There might be additional considerations in addition to copyright-related issues that you may need to make. For example, if your photographs have people depicted in them, you may want to request their permission for publishing their likeness. Additionally, if your images depict sensitive materials or cultural objects, they might require additional permissions. The VRC maintains a page on Ethical Considerations for Images that we invite you to explore for more information.

Fair Use Analysis

For works and/or images that are copyrighted, conduct a fair use analysis to see if you can justify your use of the image in your justification. The VRC follows the CAA Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts . Section One of the code outlines the situations, principles and limitations of using images fairly in analytic writing. 

If you intend to use an image under fair use in your dissertation, you should prepare a justification for that claim of fair use in your tracking spreadsheet. 

The United States Copyright Act provides a framework to determine whether the use of copyrighted materials constitutes a “fair use” based upon a consideration of the following Four Factors: 

• Purpose and character of your use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
• The nature of the copyrighted work you want to use;
• The amount and substantiality of the portion of the work that you used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
• The effect of your use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The United States Copyright Office provides useful guidance for understanding this analysis.

Where you plan to claim fair use of a copyrighted work, you will want to provide a justification supporting your analysis. We recommend consulting the guidance outlined in the CAA Code of Best Practices for Fair Use when drafting your analysis. Include as many phrases that are relevant to your specific use. 

For example: 

• The use of the work in its entirety is crucial to the argument outlined on pages x-y because 123. The scan is a high-fidelity copy of a work published in 1975, with accurate color and cropping. The image size is 1536 pixels on the long edge and 72 ppi, a resolution suitable for use in papers, PDFs, and classroom projection but not reproduction. I have cited the image in the caption, figure list, and within the text.

For images that are copyrighted and where fair use does not apply, you will need to identify copyright holders and obtain permission to publish these images in your work.

Please note—even where you believe you have a defensible argument that you use of an image would qualify for “fair use”, you may still wish to pursue getting permission to publish images, for example, in order to maintain a good relationship with an artist or institution or where you are aware that a rights holder is especially aggressive in taking action against unlicensed use of its copyrighted material.

Requesting and Obtaining Permissions

There may be copyrighted images for which you need or want to request permission from the copyright holder to use the images in your Dissertation. You will want to send a written request for permission to the copyright holder or its representatives (such as ARS ). Make sure to include information requested by the press including print run, distribution, online access, etc. Save a copy of your correspondence to a central folder, and indicate in your permissions log when you contacted them for permission. Set a reminder to follow-up on your requests in 2 weeks if you have not yet heard back from them.

If you need to draft a letter or email to request permission, sample language can be found in Susan Bielstein’s Permissions, a Survival Guide (2006) .

Create a Shared Box Folder for Images

We recommend setting up a shared Box folder for your publication and sharing it with VRC staff. This will allow us to review your images, share new image files with you if necessary, and collaborate easily. 

Image Quality Assessment

Review the image quality and specifications of each image based on the guidelines from the press. For example, many press guidelines suggest the following:

• Color images: tiff files that are at least 300ppi and printable at 4x6” or larger
• Grayscale images may require higher ppi than color images
• Line drawings: may be required in vector format, such as .indd files from Adobe InDesign or .ai files from Adobe Illustrator. The VRC and/or Academic Technology Services may be able to assist with drawings. Please write to the VRC for more information.
• Film stills captured from DVD and Blu-Rays may need to be artificially upsampled in order to meet the press specifications, although if you can create them on a 27” desktop monitor rather than a laptop screen they may be sufficient size for publication.

VRC staff may be able to assess the quality of your images for you if you do not have access to Adobe Photoshop and depending on the size and scope of your project. 

If your images aren’t publication quality, they may still be sufficient for inclusion in your dissertation. For example, lower-resolution images, including jpegs or pngs, may look good in the PDF of the filed dissertation but may not be high enough quality to submit to an editor for a print run of a published book. Please write to the VRC to discuss requesting new images and/or help editing existing images. he VRC can also assist with creating custom digital images for your publication, including line drawings, image stitching, maps, and diagram creation.

Note: Resolution is a relative value. Image resolution and image size are inversely proportional. Knowing the output or print size required by the publisher will help assess whether your images are up to publication quality. We recommend reviewing image size in Adobe Photoshop. Their Image Size tool allows you to explore what size images can be printed at different resolutions by unchecking the “Resample” button. Downsampling (ie, making an image smaller) is acceptable, but we do not recommend upsampling (ie, adding arbitrary pixels to make an image larger). 

For use in a PDF, we typically look for at least 1500 pixels on the long edge of the image at at least 72 ppi. If you have access to Adobe Photoshop, this can be checked under Image Size, otherwise if you have the image saved to your computer you can find the dimensions under “Get Info” or “Properties.”

Add Your Images to LUNA

If the images you’re publishing are relevant to future teaching and research, but aren’t yet well-represented in the departmental image collection, we welcome the opportunity to collaborate and we invite you to contribute your images to the Art History Department Image Collection in our LUNA database. If you’re interested in pursuing this collaboration, we can embargo the images for up to 5 years before making them available in LUNA if you would like.

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Group Photo Gallery

• Publications

Congratulations to Ariana after her successful thesis defense. We really need to start graduating people in the summer! (2019)

Congratulations to Marvin for successfully defending his PhD thesis (2019)

The group gets together to wish Weiwei farewell after her successful PhD defense (2018)

Congratulations to Emily after her successful thesis defense (2018)

Congratulations to Abdallah after his successful thesis defense (2017)

The group celebrates with Ryan after his successful PhD defense (2017)

Congratulations to Mary Alice after her successful thesis defense (2016)

The group celebrates after Jordan successfully defends her thesis (2016)

The group celebrates after Ben Strick successfully defends his thesis (2014)

Reed Larson and group members following his Ph.D. thesis defense (2014).

Group Photo in April 2013.

Brian Jones and group members following his Ph.D. thesis defense (2013).

Kelly Lutz and the group after she successfully defends her Ph.D. thesis (2012).

Leah Konkol and the group celebrate her successful Ph.D. defense (2012).

The group with Devon Mundal after his successful Ph.D. defense (2011).

Mike Clift becomes the first Thomson Group Ph.D. (2010).

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Photographs and Images: Using Images in Theses and Dissertations

• What is Fair Use?

Using Images in Theses and Dissertations

• How to Cite an Image
• Copyright and Publishing an Image in a Book, Journal, Video, etc.
• Images of Albuquerque

Historically, images were reproduced in dissertations and theses without obtaining permissions from the copyright holders. Because of the clearly academic, non-commercial nature of theses and dissertations, and because access to theses and dissertations was typically confined to an academic, library setting, there seemed to be little dispute that the incorporation of such images into these or dissertations was a fair use.

As theses and dissertations began to be posted to online repositories, the publishers of those repositories sometime required that graduate students posting theses to their repositories obtain copyright permissions for images. While UNM's Digital Respository   does not have an institutional policy on the use of images in theses and dissertations, the  UNM Office of Graduate Studies  stipulates that students should obtain copyright.

The Office of Graduate Studies at UNM offers the following guidelines:  

Registering Your Copyright

Registering your copyright in your thesis or dissertation is optional. Under current United States copyright Law, the moment you reduce a work to a tangible medium (i.e., write it on paper, save on hard drive or other storage device, take the photograph, record the music, etc.) your thesis or dissertation is copyrighted. This applies to unpublished manuscripts as well. There is no longer the need to register your work for copyright to attach. Furthermore, there is no longer the requirement of putting a copyright notice on a work for it to be copyrighted. You may register your copyright either by having ProQuest do so (see above) or on your own by submitting a registration form, which you can pick-up at Zimmerman Library Government Publications or download from US Copyright Office's web page, with a check for thirty five ($35) dollars, and two copies of your thesis or dissertation. Additional information can be obtained by calling 202-287-8700 or going to the web site of the  United States Copyright Office .

Including Copyrighted Material in Your Manuscript

You should remember that if you quote or otherwise reproduce in your thesis or dissertation material previously copyrighted by another author, beyond brief excerpts, you must obtain written permission from the copyright owner. Keep in mind that if a work was created in or after 1989, there is no requirement that it have a copyright notice to be copyrighted This includes foreign works and foreign works for which the copyright has been reinstated pursuant to international treaty.

Copyright law is extremely complex and it can be difficult to determine what action you need to take and where to begin looking for permissions. The Office of Graduate Studies  Publishing  web site contains a great deal of information and has been helpful to students. The Office of Graduate Studies does not provide copyright advisement.

Pictorial Archivist

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• Last Updated: May 5, 2020 2:46 PM
• URL: https://libguides.unm.edu/images

Another Word

From the writing center at the university of wisconsin-madison.

Using Peer Writing Groups For the Senior Thesis and Beyond

By rebecca steffy –.

This year, I have the privilege of coordinating the UW-Madison Writing Center’s Senior Thesis Writing Groups, small peer-led writing groups that meet weekly or bi-weekly throughout the daunting semester- or year-long process of writing a senior thesis. I help spread the word that senior thesis writing groups are forming at the beginning of each term, lead orientation meetings to better inform interested students about how the groups work, and facilitate the first meeting of each group to guide them in establishing a set of shared expectations for working together. Then I keep in touch throughout the semester by email or a shared check-in document, and by dropping by another meeting later in the semester. Our model aims at maximizing the rich benefits of writing groups for senior thesis writers with a minimum of direct instructional hours from our staff.

Readers of this blog may remember this 2013 post about the senior thesis writing group’s inaugural year, written by my colleagues Stephanie White and Elisabeth Miller and recently revised and published in The Writing Lab Newsletter . They use the memorable phrase “Putting Students in the Driver’s Seat” to capture the idea that the Writing Center’s role is to be a catalyst, to make these groups possible and then allow the writers themselves to coach and support one another through the thesis process. And for good reason: as White and Miller emphasize, the theoretical foundations for writing groups within composition studies suggest that peer-led groups offer “generative opportunities for collaboration” and “[develop] students’ autonomy and ownership over the writing” (1). Empowering these students—next year’s newest cohort of working professionals—gives them an opportunity to further develop their intellectual and social skills in engaging deeply and fruitfully with others about work in progress.

My goal in this post is to follow White and Miller’s metaphor to a new question: now that students are in the driver’s seat of their writing group, where do they go? In other words, to what different uses do students put their writing group and why? Are these uses that we have anticipated when we promise “encouragement, feedback, and support from your peers” in our publicity ? Or are they redefining and inventing other uses that perhaps we didn’t expect? And what might these uses, both for the thesis and beyond the thesis, imply for how we continue to facilitate and critically evaluate these groups in the future?

By the Numbers

First, a few numbers. This year, 26 senior thesis writers expressed interest in a writing group, either by completing an online survey to RSVP for an orientation meeting or by contacting me directly by email. Of those, 17 students participated regularly for one or two semesters. Five students began working with a group but did not continue, three students decided around the time of the orientation meeting not to pursue participation after all, and one student was unable to join a group because they expressed interest too late in the process.

I, along with my spring co-coordinator Stephanie Larson, took care to organize participating students into groups that took their timeline to graduation and their division within the university into account. In the end, four different writing groups worked together for at least one semester this year.

For the Thesis: Accountability, Peer Support, and Strong, Effective Writing

So how do students want to use their writing group for their thesis? In the survey students complete to RSVP for an orientation meeting, we ask, “What are you particularly hoping this group can help with?” This year, students responded with a wide range of desires for the groups, from “how to write it” to “smiles and laughs.” The single-most repeated hope had to do with accountability and motivation; phrases like “I hope this group can help me stay on track” and “timely progress” reflect a consistent theme. But students also expressed hopes that specifically had to do with writing—with developing their knowledge of the structure and genre conventions of a thesis (or effective writing within their field more generally), improving clarity for non-specialist readers, evaluating significance, and practicing revision. Taken together, these writing-centered hopes outnumbered those having to do with accountability and peer support two to one.

Based on my conversations with participating students and my observations of group meetings, I believe these are expectations that the senior thesis writing groups can meet and even exceed. As White and Miller show, peer-led senior thesis groups produce empathy, lead to deep learning, and generate accountability (3). This year, two groups have maintained a Google doc shared among members and with me; they use it to record plans for each meeting, next steps for drafting or revision, or their most important take-aways from discussion. After a recent meeting, Calla Buttke, a triple major in German, Chinese, and East Asian Studies, wrote, “[Everyone] gave me useful feedback, especially in terms of organization. I am going to move a few paragraphs [of my introduction] around as well as embellish on why this project is important. Also, I’m going to work on ‘showing instead of telling’ as my groupmates always say!”

Benefiting from Interdisciplinary Readers

Another significant pay-off for participants in these groups is learning from interdisciplinary perspectives. Elizabeth Bigelow, an Art History major who graduated in December 2015, valued this aspect of her writing group experience in particular: “One thing I loved about my group was that we (pretty much) came from different disciplines. In the end, we had a Chemistry major, a Psychology/Human Development and Family Studies major, and two Art History majors. For me particularly, I benefited from this diverse range of opinions because everyone was reading my work from a completely different perspective. Even within our Art History department, the two of us wrote in such different styles and had vastly different ideas that we were able to contribute valued opinions to one another.” Her fellow group member, Diane Hsieh (the Psychology/Human Development and Family Studies major), reinforced the benefits of an interdisciplinary group as well: “Knowing that people outside of my major will be reading my writing also makes me re-think about the flow and diction of my writing.”

Of course, feedback from readers with discipline-specific knowledge can be really useful, too. This year, we had enough interest from students in Psychology and closely allied disciplines on track to graduate in May that we organized them into one group. When I dropped by one of their group meetings last November, I noticed how seamlessly their conversation moved between their research projects, issues of methodology, and discussion of shared coursework.

Beyond the Thesis

Last semester, I also began to notice ways that participants were using their writing groups to address other exigencies beyond the thesis, most notably to get feedback on other writing projects or thesis-related presentations. While still collecting data or reading literature, some students solicited feedback on personal statements that they were writing for graduate school applications. Students have given mock talks to their groups to practice for the oral presentation of their thesis to faculty in their department. And one group has made an open invitation to its members to submit symposia materials for feedback. Expanding the kinds of writing being shared and examined helps to further build trust and rapport among group members, and it keeps the writing group relevant during the long research process, when students may not feel ready to dig into drafting.

Writing groups also afford an opportunity to gain institutional knowledge, like information about departmental advising norms and university resources. At a pizza party that I hosted in January for returning writing group participants, students talked, for example, about how they manage relationships with advisors. Frequency of meetings and the initiative required by students vary widely in these relationships. Some students meet weekly or bi-weekly with their advisors. For others, it’s more common to meet with a graduate student mentor in their lab than with faculty. Students also shared information about presenting opportunities, such as the Undergraduate Research Symposium and the Senior Honors Thesis Symposium coming up later this spring. In other words, while students share knowledge and ideas about writing with one another in these groups, they also have the opportunity to exchange information about related resources that can help students connect their projects to a broader audience and navigate the process they are all going through.

Senior Thesis Writing Groups and the World After College

In this final section, I want to share with you some of the research findings by my colleague Mike Passint, an English and History double major and an undergraduate Writing Fellow here at UW-Madison. Last semester, Mike completed an independent research project that he called “Cap or Bridge: The Senior Thesis and The Senior Year Experience.” To guide his research, he asked two central questions: “What is the connection between senior thesis writing and the transition to the world after college? How can students who are writing senior thesis papers, or students who are considering writing a senior thesis, understand the larger role that a thesis plays in the senior year experience?”

Sensitive to the many pressures that attend the threshold of college graduation—not least the economic burden of student debt, competitive job markets, and general anxiety about next steps and the value of their college degree— Mike felt “compelled to study the transition from college to whatever is after it.” Given this interest, it made a lot of sense to turn to the senior thesis as a window into that transition. It’s uniquely positioned, as Mike writes, “right in the middle of the change from being a student to a professional – or in other words, it is in the center of what some scholars call the ‘senior year experience.’ This is the experience of living in a transition out of college and having to figure out what your education actually means for you.”

I found out about Mike’s project because I helped connect him to folks he could interview for his research—participants in the senior thesis writing groups. And here’s what Mike found based on his interviews. First, the role of the senior thesis varies from person to person: for some it worked more like a cap, offering students a sense of closure and like they had “something to show for the degree”; for others, it worked more like a bridge, helping to prepare them for their next steps and build graduate school applications. Mike adapted his names for these two approaches to the senior thesis, the “cap-emphasis” and “bridge-emphasis,” from the two main streams of thought regarding the role of capstone courses. Second, Mike discovered that no matter the role of the senior thesis in the student’s transition away from college, the student is really in control of their thesis process: “They decide their topic, how they want to write it, what it’s for. Whether a student wants a sense of accomplishment from their degree, or a leg up on their grad school application, they can use their thesis in a way that lets them pursue their own ends.”

It’s this second finding that I want to pause on because – as Mike has pointed out to me – it has important implications for how we structure our senior thesis writing groups model. With these writing groups, we have an opportunity to foster discussion that would help students reflect on and become more conscious about why they are pursuing a senior thesis and how they want to put it to use. As Mike notes, “Once students are aware of what their thesis is doing for them in the short and long term, then anxiety about graduation will decrease.”

Oh The Places Senior Thesis Writing Groups Will Go!

On the whole, I like our current working model for senior thesis writing groups and the balance it strikes between writing group autonomy and support from the Writing Center. It’s not perfect—we could do more to reach out to potential participants, for one thing—but I think it works well, for the students who commit and for the coordinators. Lest we rest on our laurels, however, I’m going to hazard two tentative suggestions for ways that we could further augment this structure.

1) At least two students originally hoped their writing group would provide time and space to write, perhaps akin to what the Writing Center offers in the graduate student writing groups and our Writer’s Retreats . Would it be possible to add a monthly “Senior Thesis Writing Jam” to our calendar, inviting all senior thesis writing group participants to come as a core group of attendees and further opening it up to any other interested thesis writers? This way, the writing sessions don’t replace a discussion session in which writers can give one another feedback and updates on their projects, but participants also get to benefit from the structure and energy of a focused group of writers working alongside one another.

2) How can we foster thoughtful reflection on students’ short and long term goals for what they would like to get out of doing a senior thesis? Here, I lean again on Mike’s recommendations. In one reflection session, perhaps we could use a short series of prompts for writing and discussion, alongside a brief introduction to the cap and bridge theories of the senior year experience. Prompts could address purpose, connections to personal values, and connections to career aspirations. In a follow-up professionalization workshop, we could discuss with students how they can represent their thesis accomplishments to others. Or perhaps, the coordinator could work with each group to dedicate one of their meetings to addressing both of these concerns, and this could be the second meeting that the coordinator attends as they stay in touch with the groups throughout the semester.

I’d love to hear from readers of this blog other ideas, comments, or questions you have about ways to use senior thesis writing groups to maximum effect—for the thesis and beyond the thesis.

Thanks so much for reading, and props to all our senior thesis writers! You’re doing super smart and fascinating work and we’re lucky to have you as part of our university community!

Bigelow, Elizabeth. “Re: Seeking your follow-up thoughts on senior thesis writing group.” Message to the author. 4 March 2016. Email.

Buttke, Calla. “Senior Thesis Writing Group.” Shared Google Doc Entry. 31 January 2016.

Hsieh, Diane. “Re: Seeking your follow-up thoughts on senior thesis writing group.” Message to the author. 1 March 2016. Email.

Passint, Mike. “Re: Cancelling our meeting this afternoon.” Message to the author. 2 March 2016. Email.

9 Replies to “Using Peer Writing Groups For the Senior Thesis and Beyond”

Thanks for sharing an update about the work around the senior thesis writing groups, Rebecca. I really appreciate learning what students get out of these groups as well as how to use digital tools to foster group cohesion and collaboration!

Thanks so much for your post, Rebecca! I’ve learned so much from you about a programmatic perspective to writing center work beyond the actual writing center space itself, and I’ve loved working closely with both you and such a motivated group of writers.

Your post brings up something I’ve thought a lot about this semester—balancing the roles of autonomy and support when facilitating student writers. In the beginning of the semester, I worried that I didn’t model enough how to offer feedback for these writers. However, when I bumped into a writer who came into the writing center and she told me the conversation she and her peers had about her thesis introduction at their last session, I realized that the level of dedication and commitment this unique group of writers has must inform (and simultaneously put us at ease) when considering how to facilitate these groups.

In particular, I like your call to include more space for reflection about the purpose of a senior thesis. One writer in the group I facilitate has reached out for advice on a personal statement for graduate school, and he reminded me of the kinds of professional demands these writers face given where they are in their undergraduate trajectory. It’s hard enough trying to complete a senior thesis let alone considering what the future holds and how that thesis connects these moments. I love the idea of offering prompts to probe how to translate the work of a thesis to their next prospective audience, and when asked if my group would want help with professional documents, all looked wide-eyed while nodding their heads, “YES!” As you mention, because thesis writers have varying levels of communication with their advisors, this seems like an area where we as writing instructors and thesis group facilitators can step in and help students with the kind of bridge work Mike highlights.

Thanks again for your post!

Thanks for your great post, Rebecca! I think these writing groups are a great way to help people working on longer projects. I was in one of these groups for graduate students over the summer, and ever since, I’ve been recommending them to everyone I know who’s working on a longer project. I even think these kinds of regular writing groups can be helpful for people not necessarily working on longer projects but just managing many writing tasks during a semester, and I have find myself recommending writer’s retreats to even more students recently.

From another angle, I really enjoyed reading about how seniors conceptualize the senior theses. I remember fondly writing my own senior thesis. However, for me, I don’t think I saw it as either a cap or a bridge. I remember it as a time when I said, “Hey, there’s some pretty big questions I still want to try to answer before I’m done being a college student.” Although I didn’t plan to go to grad school when I was a senior, perhaps that’s why I ultimately decided to do so – to keep investigating those still-unanswered questions.

I’m glad to learn more about these peer writing groups and the Writing Center’s sponsorship. I especially enjoyed hearing about Mike Passint’s Writing Fellow research project into goals and uses of the senior thesis project. Thanks, Rebecca, for this post about a less visible area of the Writing Center’s work!

Thanks for this wonderful post on senior thesis writing groups! The way you’ve integrated Mike Passint’s Writing Fellow research project into your thinking about and recommendations for senior thesis writing groups shows (not tells) how undergraduate researchers can offer useful, vital, and fresh perspectives.

As someone who struggled to keep the Writing Center’s senior thesis writing group program going after Stephanie White and Elisabeth Miller’s awesome inaugural year, I know how hard it is put groups together given students’ very busy schedules and to keep them going without intervening too much or taking over. Clearly you’ve done a fantastic job! Your January pizza party is an especially good idea — I found that some groups that met during the first semester crumbled in the second, after UW’s long winter break, and a pizza party for all the groups sounds like a great way to check in and re-launch. Writing retreats linked to the senior thesis writing groups could function the same way, I think.

I’m glad to hear that the senior thesis groups are alive, well, and growing!

[…] Steffy, R. (2016, March 8). Using Peer Writing Groups for the Senior Thesis and Beyond. Retrieved April 06, 2016, from http://writing.wisc.edu/blog/?p=6526 ​ […]

Just finally had a chance to read this! So glad to hear that the Senior-Thesis Writing Groups are alive and thriving. Working with such smart, engaged, motivated, and fun undergrads was one of the highlights of my time at Wisconsin. It sounds like the program is continuing to reshape itself in small ways to best serve these students–and to help them better serve themselves. Kudos!

Stephanie White (Instructional Developer, TA Training and Writing Support, Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo)

[…] The value of these groups is apparent in the words of the graduate writers themselves. And, although we’re very proud to offer this kind of programming in our Writing Center, they mark just one of many possible models. We are always experimenting with new elements, fine-tuning existing practices and aiming to reach and support more graduate and undergraduate writers. If you’re interested in other models we use for writing groups, see a description of our dissertation writing camps in a recent post on this blog by Rick Ness. And for a description of our senior-thesis writing workshops, see a recent post by Rebecca Steffy. […]

[…] and helping to manage day-to-day operations of the Center as part of team. My blog post, “Using Peer Writing Groups for the Senior Thesis and Beyond” reflects on one aspect of my coordinator […]

Comments are closed.

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• What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

Published on September 14, 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on November 21, 2023.

A thesis is a type of research paper based on your original research. It is usually submitted as the final step of a master’s program or a capstone to a bachelor’s degree.

Writing a thesis can be a daunting experience. Other than a dissertation , it is one of the longest pieces of writing students typically complete. It relies on your ability to conduct research from start to finish: choosing a relevant topic , crafting a proposal , designing your research , collecting data , developing a robust analysis, drawing strong conclusions , and writing concisely .

Thesis template

You can also download our full thesis template in the format of your choice below. Our template includes a ready-made table of contents , as well as guidance for what each chapter should include. It’s easy to make it your own, and can help you get started.

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Table of contents

Thesis vs. thesis statement, how to structure a thesis, acknowledgements or preface, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review, methodology, reference list, proofreading and editing, defending your thesis, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about theses.

You may have heard the word thesis as a standalone term or as a component of academic writing called a thesis statement . Keep in mind that these are two very different things.

• A thesis statement is a very common component of an essay, particularly in the humanities. It usually comprises 1 or 2 sentences in the introduction of your essay , and should clearly and concisely summarize the central points of your academic essay .
• A thesis is a long-form piece of academic writing, often taking more than a full semester to complete. It is generally a degree requirement for Master’s programs, and is also sometimes required to complete a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts colleges.
• In the US, a dissertation is generally written as a final step toward obtaining a PhD.
• In other countries (particularly the UK), a dissertation is generally written at the bachelor’s or master’s level.

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The final structure of your thesis depends on a variety of components, such as:

• Your discipline
• Your theoretical approach

Humanities theses are often structured more like a longer-form essay . Just like in an essay, you build an argument to support a central thesis.

In both hard and social sciences, theses typically include an introduction , literature review , methodology section ,  results section , discussion section , and conclusion section . These are each presented in their own dedicated section or chapter. In some cases, you might want to add an appendix .

Thesis examples

We’ve compiled a short list of thesis examples to help you get started.

• Example thesis #1:   “Abolition, Africans, and Abstraction: the Influence of the ‘Noble Savage’ on British and French Antislavery Thought, 1787-1807” by Suchait Kahlon.
• Example thesis #2: “’A Starving Man Helping Another Starving Man’: UNRRA, India, and the Genesis of Global Relief, 1943-1947″ by Julian Saint Reiman.

The very first page of your thesis contains all necessary identifying information, including:

• Your full title
• Your full name
• Your department
• Your institution and degree program
• Your submission date.

Sometimes the title page also includes your student ID, the name of your supervisor, or the university’s logo. Check out your university’s guidelines if you’re not sure.

Read more about title pages

The acknowledgements section is usually optional. Its main point is to allow you to thank everyone who helped you in your thesis journey, such as supervisors, friends, or family. You can also choose to write a preface , but it’s typically one or the other, not both.

Read more about acknowledgements Read more about prefaces

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
• Style consistency

See an example

An abstract is a short summary of your thesis. Usually a maximum of 300 words long, it’s should include brief descriptions of your research objectives , methods, results, and conclusions. Though it may seem short, it introduces your work to your audience, serving as a first impression of your thesis.

Read more about abstracts

A table of contents lists all of your sections, plus their corresponding page numbers and subheadings if you have them. This helps your reader seamlessly navigate your document.

Your table of contents should include all the major parts of your thesis. In particular, don’t forget the the appendices. If you used heading styles, it’s easy to generate an automatic table Microsoft Word.

Read more about tables of contents

While not mandatory, if you used a lot of tables and/or figures, it’s nice to include a list of them to help guide your reader. It’s also easy to generate one of these in Word: just use the “Insert Caption” feature.

Read more about lists of figures and tables

If you have used a lot of industry- or field-specific abbreviations in your thesis, you should include them in an alphabetized list of abbreviations . This way, your readers can easily look up any meanings they aren’t familiar with.

Read more about lists of abbreviations

Relatedly, if you find yourself using a lot of very specialized or field-specific terms that may not be familiar to your reader, consider including a glossary . Alphabetize the terms you want to include with a brief definition.

Read more about glossaries

An introduction sets up the topic, purpose, and relevance of your thesis, as well as expectations for your reader. This should:

• Ground your research topic , sharing any background information your reader may need
• Define the scope of your work
• Introduce any existing research on your topic, situating your work within a broader problem or debate
• State your research question(s)
• Outline (briefly) how the remainder of your work will proceed

In other words, your introduction should clearly and concisely show your reader the “what, why, and how” of your research.

Read more about introductions

A literature review helps you gain a robust understanding of any extant academic work on your topic, encompassing:

• Selecting relevant sources
• Determining the credibility of your sources
• Critically evaluating each of your sources
• Drawing connections between sources, including any themes, patterns, conflicts, or gaps

A literature review is not merely a summary of existing work. Rather, your literature review should ultimately lead to a clear justification for your own research, perhaps via:

• Addressing a gap in the literature
• Building on existing knowledge to draw new conclusions
• Exploring a new theoretical or methodological approach
• Introducing a new solution to an unresolved problem
• Definitively advocating for one side of a theoretical debate

Read more about literature reviews

Theoretical framework

Your literature review can often form the basis for your theoretical framework, but these are not the same thing. A theoretical framework defines and analyzes the concepts and theories that your research hinges on.

Read more about theoretical frameworks

Your methodology chapter shows your reader how you conducted your research. It should be written clearly and methodically, easily allowing your reader to critically assess the credibility of your argument. Furthermore, your methods section should convince your reader that your method was the best way to answer your research question.

A methodology section should generally include:

• Your overall approach ( quantitative vs. qualitative )
• Your research methods (e.g., a longitudinal study )
• Your data collection methods (e.g., interviews or a controlled experiment
• Any tools or materials you used (e.g., computer software)
• The data analysis methods you chose (e.g., statistical analysis , discourse analysis )
• A strong, but not defensive justification of your methods

Read more about methodology sections

Your results section should highlight what your methodology discovered. These two sections work in tandem, but shouldn’t repeat each other. While your results section can include hypotheses or themes, don’t include any speculation or new arguments here.

Your results section should:

• State each (relevant) result with any (relevant) descriptive statistics (e.g., mean , standard deviation ) and inferential statistics (e.g., test statistics , p values )
• Explain how each result relates to the research question
• Determine whether the hypothesis was supported

Additional data (like raw numbers or interview transcripts ) can be included as an appendix . You can include tables and figures, but only if they help the reader better understand your results.

Read more about results sections

Your discussion section is where you can interpret your results in detail. Did they meet your expectations? How well do they fit within the framework that you built? You can refer back to any relevant source material to situate your results within your field, but leave most of that analysis in your literature review.

For any unexpected results, offer explanations or alternative interpretations of your data.

Read more about discussion sections

Your thesis conclusion should concisely answer your main research question. It should leave your reader with an ultra-clear understanding of your central argument, and emphasize what your research specifically has contributed to your field.

Why does your research matter? What recommendations for future research do you have? Lastly, wrap up your work with any concluding remarks.

Read more about conclusions

In order to avoid plagiarism , don’t forget to include a full reference list at the end of your thesis, citing the sources that you used. Choose one citation style and follow it consistently throughout your thesis, taking note of the formatting requirements of each style.

Which style you choose is often set by your department or your field, but common styles include MLA , Chicago , and APA.

Create APA citations Create MLA citations

In order to stay clear and concise, your thesis should include the most essential information needed to answer your research question. However, chances are you have many contributing documents, like interview transcripts or survey questions . These can be added as appendices , to save space in the main body.

Read more about appendices

Once you’re done writing, the next part of your editing process begins. Leave plenty of time for proofreading and editing prior to submission. Nothing looks worse than grammar mistakes or sloppy spelling errors!

Consider using a professional thesis editing service or grammar checker to make sure your final project is perfect.

Once you’ve submitted your final product, it’s common practice to have a thesis defense, an oral component of your finished work. This is scheduled by your advisor or committee, and usually entails a presentation and Q&A session.

After your defense , your committee will meet to determine if you deserve any departmental honors or accolades. However, keep in mind that defenses are usually just a formality. If there are any serious issues with your work, these should be resolved with your advisor way before a defense.

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Research bias

• Survivorship bias
• Self-serving bias
• Availability heuristic
• Halo effect
• Hindsight bias
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

 (AI) Tools

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The conclusion of your thesis or dissertation shouldn’t take up more than 5–7% of your overall word count.

If you only used a few abbreviations in your thesis or dissertation , you don’t necessarily need to include a list of abbreviations .

If your abbreviations are numerous, or if you think they won’t be known to your audience, it’s never a bad idea to add one. They can also improve readability, minimizing confusion about abbreviations unfamiliar to your reader.

When you mention different chapters within your text, it’s considered best to use Roman numerals for most citation styles. However, the most important thing here is to remain consistent whenever using numbers in your dissertation .

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical first steps in your writing process. It helps you to lay out and organize your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding what kind of research you’d like to undertake.

Generally, an outline contains information on the different sections included in your thesis or dissertation , such as:

• Your anticipated title
• Your abstract
• Your chapters (sometimes subdivided into further topics like literature review , research methods , avenues for future research, etc.)

A thesis is typically written by students finishing up a bachelor’s or Master’s degree. Some educational institutions, particularly in the liberal arts, have mandatory theses, but they are often not mandatory to graduate from bachelor’s degrees. It is more common for a thesis to be a graduation requirement from a Master’s degree.

Even if not mandatory, you may want to consider writing a thesis if you:

• Plan to attend graduate school soon
• Have a particular topic you’d like to study more in-depth
• Are considering a career in research
• Would like a capstone experience to tie up your academic experience

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• Why and what is UTUGradu?
• How does UTUGradu work?
• Before initiating UTUGradu process: Preliminary Examination of a Thesis and Moodle Assignments
• 1. Initiating the Examination and Publication Process (UTUGradu)
• 2. Turnitin Originality Check and Filling in the Examination Information on the Thesis Form
• Following the Process in the List View
• 1. Completing the Thesis
• 2. PDF/A Converting and Validation of the Thesis File
• 3. Turnitin Originality Check
• 4. Filling in the UTUGradu Thesis Form
• 5. Commenting on the Evaluation Statements
• Head of Department/Dean
• Student Administration
• Master's thesis copyright
• Public availability and publication of master's theses
• Use of quotations in master's theses

Use of images in master's theses

• Further information
• Turnitin Originality Check
• Accessibility
• In Finnish This link opens in a new window

Copyrighted material may not be used in master's theses without permission. Such material are for example different kinds of pictures, drawings, maps and photographs ( Copyright Act, Section 1 )

However, works of art made public and permanently placed at a public place may be reproduced in pictorial form with a text in a critical or scientific presentation ( Section 25 ), when the picture has a material connection with the text and it is used to illustrate or clarify the text.

Acquiring permissions

Begin the acquisition of permissions in good time, preferably immediately when you find a picture that you want to use in your thesis. If you get no reply to your permission request or if the reply is negative, do not include the picture in your thesis.

Requesting permissions

You can usually begin requesting a permission by contacting the publisher.

Most publishers offer a service with which you can request a permission and it is granted immediately, for example RightsLink. If such a service is available, you are advised to use it. For online images with no copyright information available contact the webmaster in question.

Use of images in master's theses FAQ

Can students include in their master's theses images, tables or diagrams from different sources without asking for permission?

When using photographs or other images or descriptive drawings that are regarded literary or artistic works, permission must be requested from the photographer, maker or publisher of the image and the image must have a mention that it is published with the maker's permission.

If the maker of a work has been dead for more than 70 years, the copyright is no longer valid and the image can be used without separate permission.

Diagrams or tables that are not regarded literary or artistic works can be used when the original maker and source are mentioned.

What are regarded literary or artistic works?

Copyright protects the original expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves. Generally the criteria applied when determining whether something is regarded a literary or artistic work are the independence, originality and creativity of the expression. Even though a  work does not meet these criteria, it may be protected by copyright-related rights, for example in the case of photographs.

In general technical drawings, tables and diagrams are not regarded works, but it in accordance with good scientific practice it is customary to ask for permission even in these cases. The original maker and source must be mentioned even if the image does not meet the criteria for literary or artistic works.

For further information see opinion 2012:1 of the Copyright Council.

Is permission required for using maps?

Permission is required when maps are used in a master's thesis. For example the National Land Survey of Finland publishes on its website the terms of use for its maps. Even if the terms of use state that the maps are freely usable, the source must still be mentioned.

If I draw a similar picture/diagram myself, do I need permission from the maker of the original?

Yes you do, if an original picture or diagram is regarded literary or artistic work, since drawing a picture that is similar to the original is considered creating a work, for which you need permission. If you draw a totally new picture that cannot be connected with the original permision is not required.

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Thesis Writing in a Group

Doing thesis writing in a group can be a great advantage if you have picked the right partner or group to work with. On the contrary, it can be quite challenging if you pick the wrong one. We are here to help you reaching the right decision.

This is “Thesis Writing in a Group”, which is part two of how to write a thesis alone . In that article, you could read about some of the pros and cons of doing thesis writing alone. However, there is also the option of doing thesis writing in a group! As a result, we’ve also stated the pros and cons of writing your thesis with more than just yourself.

Before we get started, we would like to offer you a great tip before choosing to write your thesis in a group; avoid writing with someone you’ve not worked with before unless you’ve really talked the situation through. It’s VITAL to align your expectations and remember that communication is key! Being afraid of confrontations may lead to a lot of unspoken things piling up, which can get kinda uncomfortable for both of you.

The Overview

The pros of writing thesis in a group, increased creativity and immediate feedback.

With a thesis group, you have the opportunity to share your good ideas, approaches, and knowledge with each other. You can do this through the entire thesis process, which can be of great help. No one thinks in the exact same way as you and thank god for that! Hence, you can align both of your brilliant minds and come up with solutions you’d not have found out by yourself. 

Also, if you feel like you’re stuck with something you can easily ask for immediate feedback from your partner. You don’t have to wait on getting feedback from somewhere else. 

Someone to Talk to

In a thesis group, you can also share your thoughts and feelings about something else than just your thesis, which can be kinda nice, and relieving to do before getting down to business. And in between work as well. Let’s be real, no one works intensively for 6 hours straight – you’ll need breaks to clear your mind. Sharing other than academic thoughts with your thesis group makes the process a lot more fun!

Distribution of Work Tasks

Writing a thesis is quite a big fisk to fry. Although you should be able to write every single paragraph on your own, it’s quite nice having the option of distributing work tasks. Within your thesis group, you all most likely possess different skills and competencies in different areas. Therefore, it’s convenient to distribute tasks accordingly. That is one of the great advantages of doing thesis writing in a group.

You Can Push and Challenge Each Other

When writing on, what feels like a thesis that never ends, you might lack motivation or even write some paragraphs that were obviously not your best work. Then it’s important that your thesis group can motivate you and tell you how to improve.

How you’re being motivated, pushed, or challenged is something you can talk to your thesis group about. Supporting each other is of utmost importance when doing thesis writing in a group.

The cons of writing thesis in a group

Different work methods.

Are you a morning person or a night owl? Or more productive when sitting intensively for many hours in a row, or when taking lots of breaks while working? Are you ahead of time or do you often procrastinate things? Only you know for sure, who you are. 

Nevertheless, it can be quite challenging if you work with someone who works entirely different from you. Somehow, it can even feel like you work in different time zones . Also, people take on issues in millions of different ways, which for sure can clash with your ways of working.

Solution: Meet Halfway

Before really getting down to business with your thesis, you ought to have a discussion about the terms of your partnership with your thesis group. There is nothing wrong with doing things differently from each other, you just have to say it out loud. Thus, you can arrange when you’re available to each other. Also, you can make arrangements for when you work independently.

Sometimes you’ve to accept compromises and get yourself around with the fact that people don’t necessarily work at the same pace as you. Neither do they necessarily take in or deal with assignments in the same way as you. Be open-minded and flexible.

You Are Getting Tired of Your Thesis Partner

So you thought that you couldn’t get tired of your thesis group or partner? Think twice. Because maybe you will. You will spend many hours together and you’ll probably start noticing all the weird habits and sounds that your partner makes. Apple-chewing sounds that your partner makes may even start to bother you. For now, let’s not hope it comes to that. 

Solution: Be Patient and Conscious

If your thesis group or partner truly starts to annoy you, cool down, and think about all the weird stuff that you might be doing yourself. We’re all human beings with flaws and everything will work out for the better if you’re not being too sensitive. Nobody’s perfect. Not even you, whatever your mom tells you. And you’re not going to spend the rest of your life with your thesis group. “Just” 4-5 months.  

Mismatching Calendars

Perhaps all members of the thesis group possess jobs and will be working on different days. Additionally, you might have overlapping social calendars or you’re just not available at the same time. What a fuss. It might start to stress you because both of you’ll actually need to talk matters through in person in order to make a coherent thesis at the end of the day.

Solution: Create a Schedule

The very best option for the both of you is to create a shared calendar, for instance, a Google Calendar. Agree on which dates you’re going to sit together and work on the thesis. Plan one month ahead of time and be transparent about your plans. If you’re going on a holiday at some point tell your partner in advance. Remember, it’s okay to have a life outside the thesis writing. 

Your Partner Does not Honor Agreements

If any members of your thesis group start to develop bad habits of canceling meetings, show up late and don’t finish tasks as agreed – you’ll get tired and annoyed. You keep the promises and the agreements you’ve made with your partner and it saddens you that your thesis group doesn’t do likewise. It’s quite demotivating. In particular, because to you, the thesis is of first priority. Or at least very high on your list.  

Solution: Communication

First of all, it’s all right to make some mistakes every now and then – showing up late can happen to everybody. However, if it turns out to be a habit, it’s not cool. If it becomes a habit that one in your thesis group does not honor agreements there is maybe a reason. It doesn’t necessarily involve you or the thesis. Put it in words! Instead of blaming them at first, ask them if something is bothering them. Maybe they deal with some stuff outside the thesis writing that takes a lot of their energy. Talk it through and mention that it simply does not work for you. Hence, you can find a solution to the problem. 

If you are considering doing thesis writing in a group, we hope that this overview and these tips can get you closer to reach the right decision of your thesis writing. If still in doubt, read or reread “How to Write a Thesis Alone” to get a better overview. Remember that you and your thesis group can sign up on Excelerate to find thesis collaboration with companies . It’s the best way to get hands-on experience, as a student, with a company.

We wish you all the best of luck!

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