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how-to-write-a-masters-thesis [2022/01/06 12:12]
strakova [Referencing, Plagiarism and These Things (Don't Skip Me!)] Plagiarism |
how-to-write-a-masters-thesis [2022/03/21 10:44]
lopatkova [Timeline] |
| ===== NLP Master's Thesis from Enrollment to Defense ===== | ===== NLP Master's Thesis from Enrollment to Defense ===== |
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| This tutorial could also be called ''"things I wish I had known when I was writing my diploma thesis"''. This guideline is intended to ease writing your master's thesis (and hopefully, to produce better theses and successful defenses, as a result) and what better way is there than provide you with a spectrum of information I gained being on both sides of the trench. I'm going to navigate you through the process of your master's thesis assignment, writing and defense. The guideline is mostly fitted to a typical experimental NLP master's thesis but I'm sure you can tweak it to other situation once you get the general idea. | This tutorial could also be called ''"things I wish I had known when I was writing my diploma thesis"''. This guideline is intended to ease writing your master's thesis (and hopefully, to produce better theses and successful defenses, as a result) and what better way is there than provide you with a spectrum of information I gained being on both sides of the trench. I'm going to navigate you through the process of your master's thesis assignment, writing and defense. The guideline is mostly fitted to a typical experimental NLP master's thesis (at [[https://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/|ÚFAL]]) but I'm sure you can tweak it to other situation once you get the general idea. |
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| I don't think I can emphasize enough: start EARLY. Seriously. You will make your life much easier if you start programming, measuring and writing (that especially!) in good time. Most opponents can recognize hasty writing hurriedly finished over the last week before deadline. As for the question ''what is the minimum time in which I can write a thesis'', let's pretend I never heard the question. | I don't think I can emphasize enough: start EARLY. Seriously. You will make your life much easier if you start programming, measuring and writing (that especially!) in good time. Most opponents can recognize hasty writing hurriedly finished over the last week before deadline. As for the question ''what is the minimum time in which I can write a thesis'', let's pretend I never heard the question. |
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| The exact dates of everything that happens at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, such as beginnings and ends of semesters, deadlines for courses and exams enrollments, deadlines for theses submissions and theses exams, is strictly bound by an official [[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|Academic Calendar]] of the faculty. Look out for the exact deadlines of the required actions in the current version. | The exact dates of everything that happens at the [[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/|Faculty of Mathematics and Physics]], such as beginnings and ends of semesters, deadlines for courses and exams enrollments, deadlines for theses submissions and theses exams, is strictly bound by an official [[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|Academic Calendar]] of the faculty. Look out for the exact deadlines of the required actions in the current version. |
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| With that in mind, let's say that a typical master's curriculum takes two academic years (four semesters). Master's thesis writing is officially a three-semester course, consisting of three subsequent (!) semesters each of which you must subscribe to in the [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|Study Information System (SIS)]], in the appointed deadline. | With that in mind, let's say that a typical master's curriculum takes two academic years (four semesters). Master's thesis writing is officially a three-semester course, consisting of three subsequent (!) semesters each of which you must subscribe to in the [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|Study Information System (SIS)]], in the appointed deadline. //ML: ALE to není oficiámní požadavek a často si studenti zapíší všechny tři kurzy až najednou na konci čtvrtého semestru (což je zejména důležité pro LCT studenty).// |
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| That generates roughly the following course of action: | That generates roughly the following course of action: |
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| * **1st year winter semester:** Starting your first semester as a master's student. Before the end of this semester, start looking around for a possible topic of your thesis. There are two ways to select your topic: | * **1st year winter semester:** Starting your first semester as a master's student. Before the end of this semester, start looking around for a possible topic of your thesis. There are //ML: <del>two</del> several// ways to **select your topic**: |
| - You can go to the module Thesis (Selection of subject) in the [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|Study Information System (SIS)]] which lists an offer of yet unsubscribed theses. If any of them catches your eye, contact the supervisor by e-mail. | - You can go to the module Thesis (Selection of subject) in the [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|Study Information System (SIS)]] which lists an offer of yet unsubscribed theses. If any of them catches your eye, contact the supervisor by e-mail. |
| | - //ML: You can also check the [[https://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/teaching/thesis|UFAL webpage listing possible topics for a bachelor or master thesis]] or UFAL webpage in general.// |
| - If you have a cool topic in mind, you can also approach a prospective supervisor with your idea and ask if they would be willing to supervise you. | - If you have a cool topic in mind, you can also approach a prospective supervisor with your idea and ask if they would be willing to supervise you. |
| - You can also approach a prospective advisor if they would be willing to supervise you and then discuss a potential topic. | - You can also approach a prospective advisor if they would be willing to supervise you and then discuss a potential topic. |
| * **1st year summer semester:** Having agreed with you supervisor, enrol to the first of the three master's thesis courses in the [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|Study Information System (SIS)]]. Most of the communication with your supervisor is conveyed via email, with preferably regular, but sometimes occassional meetings in person (replace person by zoom in covid times). In this semester, you will likely get acquainted with the topic: You will be assigned some scientific papers to read, probably learn new technologies, get access to computation grid, etc. At the end of this semester, your supervisor will grant you credit for the first master's thesis course. | - //ML: You can simply send an email to the email conference thesis@ufal.mff.cuni.cz with a short list of (broad) areas you are interested in.// |
| * **2nd year winter semester**: Again, don't forget to enrol for the second of the master's thesis courses. In this semester, some serious coding usually happens. If you haven't started in the previous semester, you will probably design experiments, guided by your supervisor. You will implement code for these experiments, run it on the computational grid. If your thesis is more practical one, you may implement an application. This semester is very busy and if your topic was chosen well, it is usually (at least mildly) fun :) At the end of semester, you will be granted credit for the course. | * **1st year summer semester:** Having agreed with you supervisor, enroll to the first of the three master's thesis courses in the [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|Study Information System (SIS)]]. Most of the communication with your supervisor is conveyed via email, with preferably regular, but sometimes occasional meetings in person (replace person by zoom in covid times). In this semester, you will likely get acquainted with the topic: You will be assigned some scientific papers to read, probably learn new technologies, get access to computation grid, etc. At the end of this semester, your supervisor will grant you credit for the first master's thesis course. |
| | * **2nd year winter semester**: Again, don't forget to enroll for the second of the master's thesis courses. In this semester, some serious coding usually happens. If you haven't started in the previous semester, you will probably design experiments, guided by your supervisor. You will implement code for these experiments, run it on the computational grid. If your thesis is more practical one, you may implement an application. This semester is very busy and if your topic was chosen well, it is usually (at least mildly) fun :) At the end of semester, you will be granted credit for the course. |
| * **2nd year summer semester**: Finishing the experiments, polishing your application. But mostly, the writing. I will say more about the actual writing later in the following sections. Again, hopefully, you will be credited and will pass the third and last of the master's thesis courses at the end of this semester. | * **2nd year summer semester**: Finishing the experiments, polishing your application. But mostly, the writing. I will say more about the actual writing later in the following sections. Again, hopefully, you will be credited and will pass the third and last of the master's thesis courses at the end of this semester. |
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| | //ML: However, this ideal timetable is not applicable in all case, especially, e.g., for LCT students who spend one year abroad - LCT students typically select the topic **at the beginning of their second year**, i.e. during October (note that those doing their second year at another university still must find a co-supervisor from Prague.// |
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| * **End of study**: Prior to being admitted to final exams, one has to have successfully cleared any other pending duties of the master's study, such as passed the mandatory exams and collected credits in sufficient amount, according to the specifications of your study programme. The master's programme is finished by taking a final exam, which consists of two parts: | * **End of study**: Prior to being admitted to final exams, one has to have successfully cleared any other pending duties of the master's study, such as passed the mandatory exams and collected credits in sufficient amount, according to the specifications of your study programme. The master's programme is finished by taking a final exam, which consists of two parts: |
| - Master's study defence (''obhajoba'' in Czech): requires submitting the electronic (PDF) and the paper (hardcover) version of the thesis in the appointed [[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|deadline]], enrolling for the exam in the [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|Study Information System (SIS)]] (again, the in the official [[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|deadline]]) and obviously, showing up for the defence. More about the actual thesis defence later. | - Master's study defense (''obhajoba'' in Czech): requires submitting the electronic (PDF) and the paper (hardcover) version of the thesis in the appointed [[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|deadline]], enrolling for the exam in the [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|Study Information System (SIS)]] (again, the in the official [[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|deadline]]) and obviously, showing up for the defence. More about the actual thesis defense later. |
| - Master's state final examinations (''státnice'' in Czech): requires [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|registering]] for the examination in the required [[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|deadline]] and showing up for the examination. Also more on the examination later. | - Master's state final examinations (''státnice'' in Czech): requires [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|registering]] for the examination in the required [[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|deadline]] and showing up for the examination. Also more on the examination later. |
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| So each of both parts is offered separately in the [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|Study Information System (SIS)]], each of them must be enrolled in the required [[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|deadline]] and they can be taken jointly or separately in three possible terms throughout the year: ''summer'' (June), ''autumn'' (September) and ''winter'' (February). Please note that the deadline for registration differs for each of the terms. There is a preferred way, when everything went well, and that is the summer final examination after the 2nd year's summer semester, taking both the defence and examination, which places the registration for both examinations and the submission of the thesis somewhere to **[[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|May]]**. | So each of both parts is offered separately in the [[https://is.mff.cuni.cz/|Study Information System (SIS)]], each of them must be enrolled in the required [[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|deadline]] and they can be taken jointly or separately in three possible terms throughout the year: ''summer'' (June), ''autumn'' (September) and ''winter'' (February). Please note that the deadline for registration differs for each of the terms. There is a preferred way, when everything went well, and that is the summer final examination after the 2nd year's summer semester, taking both the defense and examination, which places the registration for both examinations and the submission of the thesis somewhere to **[[https://www.mff.cuni.cz/en/students/academic-calendar/|May]]**. |
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| ==== Survivor Advice: ==== | ==== Survivor Advice: ==== |
| * Read my [[how-to-write-a-masters-thesis-typesetting|advice on typesetting]], with good practices and frequent errors. | * Read my [[how-to-write-a-masters-thesis-typesetting|advice on typesetting]], with good practices and frequent errors. |
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| | {{:courses:masters-thesis:beautiful_typesetting_joke.png?300|}} |
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| | (Petricek, 2016)((Tomas Petricek [@tomaspetricek]. (2016, May 11). //Making silly #latex jokes is much more fun than doing final tweaks in my thesis on #coeffects...//. Twitter. [[https://twitter.com/tomaspetricek/status/730442442827304961|URL]])) |
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| ==== Referencing, Plagiarism and These Things (Don't Skip Me!) ==== | ==== Referencing, Plagiarism and These Things (Don't Skip Me!) ==== |
| Generally, plagiarism is presenting someone else's work/idea/text/source code as your own. Specifically, anything that appears in your thesis and is not referenced or is not general knowledge, is being presented by you as your work/idea/text/source code, unless properly referenced. Some very obvious examples of things that should be referenced are: | Generally, plagiarism is presenting someone else's work/idea/text/source code as your own. Specifically, anything that appears in your thesis and is not referenced or is not general knowledge, is being presented by you as your work/idea/text/source code, unless properly referenced. Some very obvious examples of things that should be referenced are: |
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| - **big inventions with names:** People who invented them should get credit. The first time you mention HMM, NNs, RNNs, LSTM, word embeddings (word2vec, FastText), contextualized word embeddings (BERT, ...), etc. | * **big inventions with names:** People who invented them should get credit. The first time you mention anything with a name, you should consider adding a reference. E.g., HMM, NNs, RNNs, LSTM, word embeddings (word2vec, FastText), contextualized word embeddings (BERT, ...), etc. |
| - **general ideas without names:** The first attempts at solving some problem in a way which is similar to yours, or not similar, but was simply the first. | * **general ideas without names:** The first attempts at solving some problem in a way which is similar to yours, or not similar, but was simply the first. |
| - **copied material**: Any time you copy anything more than a sentence, it should be referenced. Also **definitions**, adopted **figures**, **tables**. | * **copied material**: Any time you copy anything more than a sentence, it should be referenced. Also **definitions**, adopted **figures** and **tables**. |
| - **related publications**: publications closely related to your work. Many master theses are incremental changes to one influential publication - which, obviously, must be referenced. | * **related publications**: publications closely related to your work. Many master theses are incremental changes to one influential publication - which, obviously, must be referenced. |
| - **source code**: Give credit to those who implemented source code you use or build on. It is not necessary to reference Python, but one should reference specialized software (like TensorFlow) and especially the source code you modified. Most source code authors give exact instructions in README about how they wish to be referenced. Usually, by citing a publication. | * **source code**: Give credit to those who implemented source code you use or build on. It is not necessary to reference Python, but one should reference specialized software (like TensorFlow) and especially the source code you modified. Most source code authors give exact instructions in README about how they wish to be referenced. Usually, by citing a publication. |
| - **data**: It is highly unlikely you did not need any data for your thesis. If you did, the data must be referenced. Most datasets are described in an accompanying publication. Some (older ones) are not, then at least give the url in footnote. | * **data**: It is highly unlikely you did not need any data for your thesis. If you did, the data must be referenced. Most datasets are described in an accompanying publication. Some (older ones) are not, then at least give the url in footnote. |
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| Every time you copy/reproduce a sentence/definition/figure/table, the reference must be repeated. It is not OK to state in the beginning of the section "And from now on, I shall draw from publication XY" and then go on three pages freely mixing your text and sentences from XY. With some exceptions, it is also not OK to copy entire paragraphs or pages, even if they are properly referenced, as you are supposed to write you own thesis, not copy someone else's work. It is however allright if you introduce/explain an idea with a proper reference and then discuss the idea in the next three paragraphs without referencing it again and again. If your discussion, however, replicates someone else's opinion, you should reference it, e.g. "Our data support hypothesis ABC, as well as results of REF-to-XY." | Every time you copy/reproduce a sentence/definition/figure/table, the reference must be repeated. It is not OK to state in the beginning of the section "And from now on, I shall draw from publication XY" and then go on three pages freely mixing your text and sentences from XY. With some exceptions, it is also not OK to copy entire paragraphs or pages, even if they are properly referenced, as you are supposed to write you own thesis, not copy someone else's work. It is however allright if you introduce/explain an idea with a proper reference and then discuss the idea in the next three paragraphs without referencing it again and again. If your discussion, however, replicates someone else's opinion, you should reference it, e.g. "Our data support hypothesis ABC, as well as results of REF-to-XY." |
| Less obvious and not always necessary references may be required by: | Less obvious and not always necessary references may be required by: |
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| - sentences like ''It is (generally) considered that ...'', ''It is (generally) thought that ...'' are always tricky and will attract ttention. By whom it is considered? Ideally they would be supported by references to publications. | * statements like ''"It is (generally) considered that ..."'', ''"It is (generally) thought that ..."'' are tricky. By whom it is considered? Ideally they would be supported by references to publications. |
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| | In scientific writing, there is a rigid, accustomed way of proper referencing. TODO write about reference norms. |
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| ===== Submitting the Thesis ==== | ===== Submitting the Thesis ==== |
| ==== Thesis Defence === | ==== Thesis Defence === |
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| | {{ https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/thesis_defense.png?400}} |
| ==== Final State Examination === | ==== Final State Examination === |
