So here is my issue - I submitted my thesis 2 years ago and it was accepted and i was granted the M.S. degree (I am in the US, BTW). Now, when I opened it to read some portions, I found some missing references to data tables, and otherwise some typos. I am starting to freak out about this, because of the consequences. My question is this - can the university somehow "re-evaluate" my thesis and find it unacceptable? I am not sure about how it works in academia, any help would be appreciated. Edit: My question is bit different than the others, as it is asking whether the university has the power to "re-evaluate" my thesis based on typos and omissions.
79574
I've just defended my PhD in mathematics and started a postdoc. While working  on an improvement of one of the results of my thesis, I realized that there are several minor mistakes and a big bug in a proof that invalids a minor result in the thesis (about 3-4 pages out of 110). Unfortunately neither I nor my advisor or referees figured it out the mistake. Though the result is minor, it is announced in the introduction and the manuscript is on-line on an ArXiv-like server, so that I could publish a new version but not cancel the one on-line.   What is the best thing to do? Upload an errata? Upload a "revised" version of the thesis?  Publish a "revised version" of the thesis on my web-page?  Can this damage my future career, making me look not "reliable" as a researcher?
116758
Background: Five years ago, I obtained a Master's Degree from a top 10 American university in the Social Sciences.  I was a novice in academia, only one year post completing my Bachelor's degree, and simply not yet ready for the rigors of professional academia.  I had virtually no quantitative background from my Bachelor's degree, but after my first semester during my Master's program, I became interested in quantitative analysis, and registered for a doctoral level course in quantitative analysis.  I was simply not able to keep up with the course, and I received a C-, and my performance in my two remaining classes for the semester was negatively affected, and I earned a B- and B+.  For my final semester, I got my act together and earned three solid A's, including in two very quantitatively oriented courses.  I went on to pursue a second master's degree in a foreign school where, although by no means as prestigious as the first, I had a 4.0 GPA.  However, I am quite confident that my low GPA of a 3.33 from the first Master's will immediately kill any chance I have of receiving an admissions from American schools, which essentially means that one poor performance five years, at a time when I was an entirely different individual, will forever preclude me from pursuing my life's dreams.  I do not believe that it is in any way immoral to want send the transcript of my second master's degree, which I feel better represents who I am and what I am capable of, though obviously I am well aware that this is not allowed.    I am not trying to avoid responsibility for my academic performance, I am simply looking to pursue my life without being kept back by one poor performance five years ago.    Questions   Is it possible to request from my first university to have my degree revoked and registration cancelled in a legal, open, and transparent manner?  Is there any way that I can, once again, legally and by the book, not be forced to send in a transcript which will assuredly destroy my chances of being accepted or looked upon as series student?
99470
What I mean is to change mistakes/typos other than the proposed changes your reviewers pointed out to you.  As this article is based on a previous thesis (which had a very similar focus, only it was oriented towards a different cultural context) I've noticed a few paragraphs that could use a clean up (for example it would help to clarify that I use a certain term because it is related to the administrative divisions in my country,etc.).  I also noticed a typo on one of the results on the table that got carried over to the abstract. It doesn't change the results or findings or anything, basically it's just a decimal that should be lower.  My question is, would it be OK to change them now? And in case it was should I let the reviewers know I cleaned it up or go through each change, besides the ones they asked me to do, obviously.
102166
See . Someone other than the OP changed the code to address a substantial problem with the it that was addressed as part of my answer. The problem was admittedly peripheral to the core question, but it was a primary differentiator between my answer and another answer submitted at the same time.  Any suggestions on what to do in this situation? Leave it be? Edit it back? Something else?  Update: I just found , from the "Related Links" section on the right, which is pretty relevant. I have to keep remembering to check there rather than just searching for answers.
26697
During the process of writing my PhD thesis, I was close to falling out with my adviser, the advice I received from other staff at the lab (including the director) was unhelpful at best. I have since made up with my adviser and have successfully defended the thesis. I now have to publish my thesis.  The department says that one can include acknowledgements. All of the theses I have seen in my lab and in my department feature acknowledgements. Due to this special situation,  I don't quite feel that acknowledgements are called for. Yes, my adviser helped during the first half of the project but then almost completely reverted his stance. In terms of contribution, it is my opinion that he comes out at 0%.  I do not want to address any of the issues in the acknowledgements. I do not think that this is the right place. Likewise, I do not feel like thanking any of the involved people. Therefore, I would just leave out the acknowledgements completely. In academia, is this considered worse than lukewarm acknowledgements? Should I actually care about the acknowledgement, because others do?
69388
I am not happy with my PhD program, and after several years I am graduating with a master's this month. I earned the M.S. along the way as a PhD student, but have never formally requested it before this semester. What is the best way to indicate this situation on a CV or resume? I don't want to put just M.S. because then it looks like it took me a really long time to get a master's and I can't put that I am a PhD student because I no longer am.  Right now, I am thinking something like  M.S. in &lt;field&gt;, &lt;University&gt;, May 2016 PhD student in &lt;field&gt;, &lt;University&gt;, Aug. 2011 - May 2016 B.S. in &lt;field&gt;, &lt;Undergrad University&gt;, Aug. 2007 - May 2011   Would that be clear what's going on? Alternatively, should I list PhD above M.S. even though I didn't complete it? Should I list both M.S. and PhD in same line since it is the same university and span of time?
36477
My PhD thesis consisted of two published papers and one submitted paper embedded in some additional framing. For completion of my PhD, I had to upload my thesis to the servers of our academic library, where it is now publicly available. However, afterwards, the third paper from the thesis was rejected after peer review. I performed substantial changes and submitted the manuscript to another journal. They returned it back to me, stating that I exceeded by far the allowed index of similarity (40 % similarity with 35 % similarity of a single source). I spent $100 for a plagiarism check only to find out that the source from which I was accused to have copied a majority of my work, was my own publicly available thesis. As my thesis contains my third (unpublished) manuscript, it naturally has a high similarity with the version I was about to submit. How can I solve this?
9764
Jane is doing a PhD and is supervised by Professor Mary. Mary asked Jane to put together a review article for a book based on a draft chapter from Jane’s thesis with additional suggestions from Mary. The book article was submitted with the authors listed as Jane and Mary (corresponding author). I am unsure whether this has actually been published, though it was submitted well before the now-published review by Mary.  Sometime later, Mary submitted a broader review article online which used large chunks of text and figures from the book article which were directly written/generated by Jane. Whole paragraphs were copied verbatim from the first article to Mary’s article, and many more paragraphs were slightly rewritten but contained exactly the same references and phrases from the first article. Mary’s paper did not cite the book review. Mary was listed as the sole author. Jane was not informed this review was being written, and was not asked for permission to include her figures or content from the book article, which were originally written by her for her thesis.   Did Jane ‘hand over’ the rights to her written material to Mary by agreeing to submit the book article under both of their names? Should Mary have credited Jane in the article as a second author because she used exact sentences from the book article which were written by Jane? Will Jane still be able to use these (her) phrases and figures in her thesis despite not being credited on Mary’s online article?
86489
I'm wondering whether dismissal / withdrawal from a PhD program should be listed as disciplinary action on subsequent applications. A Master's program application usually asks questions like:     Have you ever been found responsible for a disciplinary violation at any post-secondary institution you have attended, whether related to academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct, that resulted in a disciplinary action?   I was academically dismissed from a PhD program after four semesters for not being able to maintain the minimum GPA. I plan to fully include this information in my application (e.g. through transcripts from the institution from which I was dismissed), and address why I was dismissed (and what steps I have taken to address academic concerns) in my Statement of Purpose.    Q: However, I am not sure if my dismissal counts as one that is due to "disciplinary violation" related to "academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct". I was simply dismissed due to not being able to maintain the required grades. Should I answer the above question in the negative?
74664
I'm finishing up the first year of my master's program, heading into the second starting September. I had proposed a topic to my (then potential, since confirmed) supervisor in October and we agreed to work together. I changed this topic a month ago for various reasons (mostly lack of available data).  My supervisor was supportive of my topic change and throughout this process has been really helpful, responsive, and critical. But he is not really knowledgeable about the topic or the theoretical framework I am using - his helpfulness has come more from his knowledge of the discipline I'm working in (to which I am new) and his commentary on how I present and support my ideas. I feel that a co-supervisor would help focus my ideas and point out possible gaps, flaws, or inconsistencies in my analysis of the data based on their knowledge of the topic.  Is it too late to ask for a co-supervisor at the end of first year? I have a professor in mind who I'd like to ask, and he is someone I already know, but since it's quite late in the year I am wondering if it is appropriate to even ask. (And I'd definitely consult my current supervisor first. He'd probably be ok with it).
50646
Is it possible at all to do a PhD without a Master or a Bachelor's degree?   Every now and then I meet someone who claims he knows someone who knows someone who was able to do a PhD without previous degrees (maybe only with high-school).  Is that true, was it true in some specific cases?
80175
On ResearchGate, if you upload something like a thesis, and then it says publish resources, does this mean the thesis becomes properly published in the sense of the usual requirements of journals that there be no prior publication of the submitted work?   I ask because I’m drafting thesis chapters into journal articles and did not choose to publish the thesis as a whole work in order to do so, so I want to make sure that by clicking publish resources I am not actually publishing the copy I’ve uploaded, I’m just making it publicly available? Does this mean it becomes published despite it not technically being a published work? (If so, I’ll just remove the copy I uploaded).
18154
Can I add some music bands in the acknowledgement section of my bachelor thesis? I used to listen these bands during all my 3-year long studies and during all the writing of my thesis, so I think they helped me quite a lot.
81478
Here is my case, before I studied my master´s degree I managed to write a research paper jointly with a Professor (not from my university) on databases. After that I pursue my master´s degree in CS, but on neural networks rather than databases. The thing is that I would like to do my PhD in databases with the professor I wrote the research paper with. Do you think that I can have problems with the admission committee? I would not like to go to study a PhD without any financial support at all.
108213
Is it possible for someone to get into a Ph.D. without a thesis at Masters-level?  If someone doesn't have a thesis at his Masters-level, what other criteria can he fill in order to approach a potential supervisor?
113014
I was awarded a degree from a reputable college or university. For what reasons could my degree be revoked after the fact? Should I be worried? Note to readers: This is a special community wiki 'canonical' question that aggregates advice on a frequently-asked question. See . Please feel free to edit this question to improve it. Each answer here relates to a different criterion which may (or may not) lead to degree revocation. If you have a new possible criterion, please add an answer. If you have more information about an existing criterion, please edit the existing answer.
105145
I applied for a graduate program and I was rejected, but there is evidence suggesting that there was a mistake in reviewing my application. Now the school seems reluctant to reconsider the application. What should I do? Is there any real chance of being reconsidered?  Here are some details about the story:  The reason for rejection was mentioned in my rejection letter, and apparently, it was a very objective and quantifiable admission requirement that they thought I don't meet. But that was simply wrong, and they seem to have misunderstood (or even completely missed) one of my documents. It is a university in a different country, and apparently, they misinterpreted the document, which was issued by my undergrad school, and missed important information. I explained the document to them and they responded with a change in the reason, but the new reason in a way contradicts the previous one and it again seems to be about missing the exact same information related to that document. The new reason is also even more objective and almost purely bureaucratic, so I explained the policy of my undergrad university to them and what the information in the document means, but then I did not hear back from them anymore.   What should I do in this situation? So far I've just been explaining to them how there might have been some confusions, but with their most recent response, it seems to me that most probably, they misunderstood my documents, and might have even completely missed one of them! I'm afraid of pursuing this more seriously and directly because the department is one of my favorite departments and I like to keep the option of going there later in my academic career open.