Q: What is a paper-based thesis?
What you say a thesis is going to be paper based, do you only mean the thesis is going to be furnished into paper publications?
Doctoral theses or dissertations are usually of two kinds: monographic thesis and cumulative or paper-based thesis.
A monograph is a long unified text written by a single author, the PhD candidate on his/her topic of specialization. It is detailed and descriptive and is structured into several chapters. Traditionally, this has been the format for a thesis, and is still preferred in some fields.
A cumulative or paper-based thesis is a collection of inter-related articles on a specialized topic authored by the PhD candidate, which have either been published or accepted for publication by a journal. Some of these articles can be co-authored, but the PhD candidate has to be the first author for most or all of them, depending on the university's requirements. This type of thesis is becoming increasingly popular in many fields as this gives researchers a head start, and they already have a few publications to their credit by the time they graduate. However, note that there are strict requirements for this type of thesis in each field and university, so make sure you find out about these in advance.
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This content belongs to the Conducting Research Stage