What is the difference between thesis and dissertation?

Finding about the difference between thesis and dissertation is a most frequent question asked by students, especially the non-native English students. Therefore, they are really interested in knowing the difference between dissertation and thesis. There are some factors through which you can discover the difference between thesis and dissertation such as word counts, format, etc.

There is not a big difference between thesis and dissertation and their names are sometimes interchangeable with each other; however, they are not exactly the same either and the following factors determine the difference between the two.

For a thesis, you have conduct original research, while for a dissertation you have to synthesise already existing literature.

In North America, most of the universities call the final writing assignment of PhD as dissertation and of masters as thesis; on the other hand, in UK, most of the universities call final writing assignment of PhD as thesis and of masters as dissertation.

The length of thesis and dissertation varies according to the departments and staff. The approximate length of dissertation is 80,000-100,000 words and thesis 10,000 and 30,000 words. So, comparatively, dissertation is lengthier than thesis.

A master’s thesis includes analysis of the information and theoretical contents. It is generally believed that master’s thesis is based on the research of others. PhD dissertation is mostly written in form of book than a long piece of academic paper writing. It demands for original research, theory and arguments.