Hi all,

Has anyone read someone elses thesis and then felt theirs is totally rubbish? I have!

Buttercup

======= Date Modified 10 Nov 2009 22:45:04 =======
Totally normal - you know where the bodies are buried in your own thesis but it's less obvious in somebody else's!

Haha - yes, I have too!

Familiarity breeds contempt... we never like our own thesis.

What a good way of putting it! I've read four other theses, related to my work in some way, and I feel it makes my own thesis look like faeces too. Better chapters, better flow than I have at the moment, more interesting, nicer layout and so on. I'm sure everybody feels the same way, the comments on this thread testament to it. I think it's a case of too close to the wood to see the trees when it's your own thesis - they could be famous last words as far as I'm concerned though.

Looking at other people's strong theses sure is misery-inducing.. but there are also weaker theses which make me feel better about mine ;)

It's crossed my mind that printing out a few of said weak theses and taking them into the viva could assist with a defense; one could complain "hold on, how can i fail while these *plonk them on desk* passed!"

Definitley! It has made me feel like mine is completely rubbish. In quality, length, layout, everything, other theses seem better than mine. It also makes me feel guilty sometimes, I think that they have worked alot harder than me and therefore a studenship has been wasted on me instead of being given to someone more worthy. :$

Then I think that as no two theses will ever be the same, then of course mine will be different in length and how can I compare the quality when, although they are of similar topics to mine, they are different(otherwise I wouldn't have been researching this in the first place)?

Unfortunatley my first point occupies my thoughts more often than the second :-(. But I suppose it gives us the determination to work harder (up)
Good Luck!!

8-)

Thank you everybody that I has made me feel much better! :-s