XH:Welcome to Round Table’s word after week. This week we’re talking about 畢業論文, but exactly how do you say 畢業論文？

John:Well, actually it’s a very good question, and you know I was under the impression that thesis could apply to high school or you know undergraduate, but as it turns out actually thesis or dissertation these two words are, in fact in many cases, interchangeable.

XH:OK. 我一直以為thesis和dissertation 一個是指本科的畢業論文，而一個是指那種更長的比如博士生的畢業論文。

John:Yeah, so the thing is usually the word thesis is going to be used for part of getting a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree, or dissertation is usually applied when you get a doctor’s so a PHD, but really the only difference between the two is actually going to be length. Thesis is going to be shorter or dissertation is going to be longer.

XH:I see. Thesis 比較短, dissertation比較長. That kind of explains, because sometimes when you’re graduating from an undergraduate degree you usually don’t need to write pages after pages of

paper. But a doctor graduate has to write much longer.

John: Exactly, and also because a lot of it about dissertation is about original research, so dissertation is actually normally report on a research project or study, and so the structure again of a thesis or a dissertation actually explains the purpose, the previous research literature which changes of the topic of the study, the methods used and findings of that project.

XH:Also let’s talk a little bit about quotes. So exactly how much quoting is allowed or excepted when you’re writing a thesis or a dissertation?

John: So the thing about quotations, the most important thing is actually going to be citations. Usually, you want to have as few direct quotes as possible. You’re going to use quotes in certain block formations perhaps or fairly small quotes. But in general, for research paper which is a thesis or dissertation. You want it to be your own actual ideas.

XH:論文里面雖然可以出現引用，也就是quotation，但是呢，直接引用最好還是比較少出現為好。

John: It also depends on what exactly we’re talking about. On a technical research paper, a technical thesis or dissertation like for chemistry, or physics, mathematics. You want no quotes whatsoever, whereas papers on philosophy, psychology and things like that a lot of the actual paper and research is going to be based on what other people have done.

XH: I see. 還一個詞在中文里經常被翻譯成論文，那就是essay.

John: Right. So we’re all looking at forms of writing. But usually thesis and dissertations they include some form of actual research whether they’re secondary or original research, whereas essays, No.1 are going to be much shorter, so a thesis maybe ten pages whereas an essay is going to be two pages. Also it’s going to be usually comes from an author’s personal point of view, so really no research involved whatsoever.

XH: I see. 也許可以把essay翻譯成小論文or just a longer homework.

John: Another word that I want to mention really quickly before we finish this week has the word thesis in it, but it doesn’t necessarily relate to a thesis, that is a thesis statement. And so the thesis statement is one of the very first sentences in a paper whether it’s a thesis or dissertation or an essay, or the very first sentence in a paragraph that basically it offers a concise idea of what the rest of the paper or the rest of the paragraph is actually going to be about.

XH: I see. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s an essay or a thesis or a dissertation.

John: Right. Thesis statement is going to be an all of those.

XH: And that’s all we have for Round Table’s word of the week.