With the start of the bachelor’s or master’s thesis, the search for sources and literature begins. You will usually be asked by the supervisor to use academic sources and to cite them correctly. But what are academic sources and may I not use sources from practice and if so, how do I cite them correctly? I am writing the article because I have noticed for hours in the last consultation hours that a large number of students think that practice sources must not be used. I want to clear that up. What are academic sources? The supervisor must have told you to use academic literature. But what is academic? Of the VHB-JOURQUAL3 is a ranking of economically relevant journals based on the judgments of the VHB members. The VHB4 should also come soon. Over 1,100 members of the VHB have made a total of 64,113 reviews of magazines in the…

A discussion is a discussion about a specific topic. It examines a specific topic and an academic work is an important part. In the thesis, the discussion critically examines the facts previously considered and interprets them. Wikipedia says: The author puts himself in the position of possible discussants and combines them into a coherent consideration. As a rule, you present results and research methods neutrally and show what you have found without commenting too much. For example, you list the content of literature or statements from interviews that you have done. Now it is important to discuss these results and to show the reader what can be hidden behind the data and which statements in current literature are the same which contradict which and which limitations there may be. example : You walk into a room with 5 people and 2 pictures. In the results, they describe what these people…

Plagiarism is the fear of many students in their thesis. After various scandals about Gutenberg and other politicians like Schavan or Steffen, the fear is greater than before. I am writing the article because lately numerous students have asked me about plagiarism in my office hours and I felt a real fear. First to definition: a plagiarism is the presumption of other people’s intellectual achievements. This can include the adoption of foreign texts or other representations (e.g. newspaper, magazine articles, photos, films, sound recordings, music), foreign ideas (source: Wikipedia ). It applies, among other things, to the adoption of ideas, texts, quotes and images. Plagiarism is really about deliberately stealing and displaying other people’s texts as your own. For example, adopting the definition from Wikipedia without citing the source is plagiarism. If I do not give a source, one could assume that I developed this definition, although it is copied…

I have been offering a telephone consultation for 3 years and exchange ideas with students on a regular basis, sometimes up to 12 students call me a month and ask me their questions. I think that’s very good and I’m happy to help. Since I can only help a limited number of students per month, I pour the most common questions into blog articles. In this article I would like to address a very frequently asked question: “I plan to XY, can I do it like that?”. Examples are: I want to include non-academic sources in my workI would like to do expert interviews before the literature analysisI would like to include a study that has limited relevance to the topic First of all, the good answer: You can basically do anything if you meet two criteria: You justify it sufficiently in the workYou coordinate it with the supervisor I…

It’s the big moment before graduation: submitting your bachelor’s or master’s thesis. Many students want to gild their grade again with it or they just want to see what they can do and get the best possible grade. Lately I have received numerous calls about what to look for in an assessment and how a bachelor’s or master’s thesis is actually rated. I want to show my experience in this article. In my opinion, there are formal and informal criteria. Formal criteria The criteria of the formal evaluation are often precisely documented and you can find them on the respective pages of the university. In my case, for example: structuringReasoningContent clarityLiterature processingComplexity and novelty of the topicCorrectness of the statementsQuotes and formattingspelling, orthographyStyle / linguistic expressionContent (this is the largest block and is explained by me in the non-formal criteria) You can actually meet these criteria yourself very well. Make…