I'm not exactly up on university lingo, but I didn't know what a dissertation was until I started chatting with Americans, heh. I've always heard it referred to as a doctoral thesis.
So I guess "doctoral thesis" is probably a more broadly Canadian thing and not just a U of T thing. Yet there's enough bleed-over between Canadian and American academic circles that no one looks at you oddly if you call it a "dissertation," either.
I can only definitively speak for the Scottish University system, but I think the rest of Britain is pretty much the same: my dissertation was what I think you'd call an 'undergrad thesis' - it was for my undergrad masters, and was 6000-7000 words, although that was because it was half-length due to the fact I did joint honours History of Art/English lit. A single honours dissertation for a Scottish undergrad masters or a bachelors degree is around 15,000 words in length, at least at my university. :) We'd tend to use the word 'thesis' or 'doctoral thesis' for postgrad Masters or PhDs. :)
I think you were actually the first person I noticed using it in a way I wasn't familiar with--and then I've since noticed other people doing the same thing, but I've never bothered to ask till now, for some reason.
It sounds like American usage is almost opposite of Scottish in this case: "dissertation" is exclusively a PhD term, and "thesis" tends to apply to a big research paper for a bachelor's or master's. Silly language! ;)
My weirdness, I guess, is that Americans don't use the same word all the way through. A "thesis" is something you write for a BA or MA, and then once you make it to a PhD you write a "dissertation"--so I always feel like my American pals don't quite get the weight of what I'm doing when I call it a "thesis." Of course, most of them don't get it anyway, because it's kind of impossible to understand the enormity of the thing till you're doing it, but whatever.
I don't remember analogies on the GRE. I remember analogies on the SAT and ACT, but maybe I learned them then and didn't pay that much attention to them if they figured on the GRE. Of course I didn't actually study for the GRE in any systematic way--especially the vocab part, for which I didn't study at all--so I probably didn't really know what I was looking at. Analogies have to do with the likeness of words? Try just doing sample questions and don't overthink it. But possibly my advice here is bad. *shrugs*
It turns out that I was far too tired to contemplate enjoying the weather in an active way, and it's still too cold just to sit on the deck--so Farscape it was! That show just shatters me! I'm all weepy and sniffly now.
Congrats! And I'm horribly jealous of your 'afternoon dilemma', since both of those options are at the top of my wish list yet I have been stuck inside working. Woe is me.;)
And dissertation in the UK refers to your undergrad thesis, your Masters thesis or your PHD thesis. They're all disserations, just of different levels/lengths.
I was too tired to do anything active outside, so I stayed in and watched DMD-SAL and both SIW. And now I'm a mess, of course. Oh, show!
I think my confusion with the terminology results from the fact that in the US, a "thesis" is something you write for a BA or MA, and then when you get to a PhD you write a "dissertation," which is somehow this other beast entirely. So the continuity of terminology, whether it's "thesis" or "dissertation," throws me.
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Somehow it just doesn't sound important enough when I call it a thesis. And I want it to sound important because it's causing me all kinds of hell! ;)
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It sounds like American usage is almost opposite of Scottish in this case: "dissertation" is exclusively a PhD term, and "thesis" tends to apply to a big research paper for a bachelor's or master's. Silly language! ;)
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I don't remember analogies on the GRE. I remember analogies on the SAT and ACT, but maybe I learned them then and didn't pay that much attention to them if they figured on the GRE. Of course I didn't actually study for the GRE in any systematic way--especially the vocab part, for which I didn't study at all--so I probably didn't really know what I was looking at. Analogies have to do with the likeness of words? Try just doing sample questions and don't overthink it. But possibly my advice here is bad. *shrugs*
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And now, enjoy the rest of your afternoon, whatever you decide to do.
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And dissertation in the UK refers to your undergrad thesis, your Masters thesis or your PHD thesis. They're all disserations, just of different levels/lengths.
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I think my confusion with the terminology results from the fact that in the US, a "thesis" is something you write for a BA or MA, and then when you get to a PhD you write a "dissertation," which is somehow this other beast entirely. So the continuity of terminology, whether it's "thesis" or "dissertation," throws me.
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