Your thesis will be marked by at least two reviewers. Every reviewer is relatively free in the marking process. However, we ask ourselves the following questions when marking a thesis:
- How significant is the research problem, i.e. how big is the potential impact on society if the problem will be solved?
- How original is the proposed solution? “Original” in terms of novel and innovative.
- How deep is your knowledge of the topic? This is typically demonstrated through a thorough literature review, i.e. related-work section.
- How thorough is the implementation, and how sound is the evaluation?
- How plausible, critical, and logical are the analysis and conclusions that you draw?
- How well is the work presented?
- How independently have you conducted the work, i.e. how many of the ideas in the thesis were coming actually from you?
- Have you published something based on your work? Be sure to read and understand our expectations regarding publications. Without a publication, it is highly unlikely that you will receive a 1.x for your thesis (regardless of whether it’s a “Studienarbeit”, Bachelor’s, or Master’s thesis). While we do not necessarily expect a ‘real’ publication acceptance at a workshop or conference, we expect at least a publishable manuscript on arXiv or similar.
Keep all these questions in mind when writing, and make it as easy as possible for the reviewers, to answer them.