Important items for theses and papers 

(with a couple of points emphasized about theses and papers in a mathematics department)

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[by Mason A. Porter, Department of Mathematics, UCLA, 8/15/22)

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(1) It needs to be explicit and very clear what papers are associated with the work in a PhD thesis. The student who writes the thesis needs to indicate explicitly who their coauthors are and what their specific contributions are. (As a note, I would not be willing to approve any thesis that does not present such crucial information with the utmost care.)

(2) Data sets, figures, and other items from other sources need both explicit attribution and explicit permission acknowledged. This needs to be done very carefully. Like point (1), this is also an issue of ethics.

(3) PhD theses, papers, and any other scientific or technical or other scholarly documents must be written with utmost care and proofread with utmost care. This needs to be done with respect to scientific and mathematical content, notation (which must be defined explicitly and must be consistent throughout a document), grammar and English (e.g., consistent spelling, correct use of past versus present tense, correct use of singular versus plural, etc.), and so on.

(4) Mathematical, computational, and other methods need to be explained with sufficient precision. How they work mathematically should be stated, including their definitions. There is some judgement call with respect to this item, but empathy towards readers is crucial. They are less expert on a topic than the authors of a paper or thesis, and they need to be able to carefully follow the presented work (including seemingly small details, given that they may seek to duplicate the presented work).

(5) Be very careful about scientific claims. Do not overclaim. It is also usually best not to editorialize when it comes to claims. For example, if the 'recall' of your method is 0.47 but it is 0.45 for a baseline method, you can simply say that the discussed method "has a higher recall score", rather than making any comments about your method being "significantly better".

(6) Be aware of different emphases in different fields. What may be acceptable for a PhD thesis in computer science may not be acceptable for a thesis in applied mathematics, and vice versa. Different subjects emphasize different things. If you are earning a PhD in a department of mathematics, your PhD mentor and committee members are likely to place more emphasis on mathematics-oriented values.