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:

  1. How significant is the research problem, i.e. how big is the potential impact on society if the problem will be solved?
  2. How original is the proposed solution? “Original” in terms of novel and innovative.
  3. How deep is your knowledge of the topic? This is typically demonstrated through a thorough literature review, i.e. related-work section.
  4. How thorough is the implementation, and how sound is the evaluation?
  5. How plausible, critical, and logical are the analysis and conclusions that you draw?
  6. How well is the work presented?
  7. How independently have you conducted the work, i.e. how many of the ideas in the thesis were coming actually from you?
  8. 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.