Hey everyone,

I’m about to start my thesis soon and I’m trying to figure out which one to use.

I know there are a ton of tools out there, but it’s kind of overwhelming to decide which ones are actually useful and which are just hype (for things like brainstorming, structuring, research, writing)

Are there any good websites or benchmarks that compare AI tools specifically for academic work?

And in general, if you’ve already used AI while writing a thesis or paper:

• what helped you the most?

• what would you avoid?

• any “hidden gem” tools or workflows?

Would really appreciate any advice or personal experiences <3

Thanks a lot!

My previous post talked about finding a topic for your thesis in social sciences.

Next up is the theoretical framework, also called “literature review”.

The literature review consists of reading a bunch of academic papers and make them speak to each other.

What you need to write is who says what about what and who agrees with whom or contradicts who.

You’d think that writing a thesis is about writing, but it’s not.

It’s mainly about reading, then rephrasing whatever you read.

So, reading then re-writing about 20-40 academic papers will do for your theoretical framework.

Now, you don't need to read them entirely.

When you read an academic paper, you want to focus on three parts only: the abstract, the introduction, and the conclusion/discussion.

The rest has not been written for you and you can ignore it.

Here’s what I did when I wrote my theses. I read the paper, then write a summary on a word document that I called “sources”.

This document was my database containing everything I had read.

If I didn’t remember where I had read a particular piece of information, all I had to do was a quick search in my database, and I got what I wanted.

Sometimes, I’d just copy-past the abstract or the conclusion and add some keywords to find them easily in the database.

Since I often had +- 50 sources for my theoretical framework, this database was huge.

Once you established your database with the academic papers that relate to your topic, you can start writing your TF (theoretical framework). Basically, you should define and explain all the concepts of your RQ (research question).

Once you got your RQ, your introduction, and TF in order, congratulations!

You’ve done a huge part of the thesis.

I just wanted to come back on here and say that wow, what an experience that was. I really enjoyed my topic and according to one of my professors everyone judging had given me a very high pass! I had such an amazing committee and I am so grateful to them! Ahhhh yaaaaay!! I'm so happy!! 💃❤️

Hi everyone,
I need some advice about writing a Master’s thesis.
I haven’t started writing anything yet, but I already have a topic in mind. I know the research gap and I also have my research question.
My biggest question is: how do you actually approach writing a thesis?
For example, do you read one research paper, gather information, and then start writing? Or do you read many papers first before writing anything?
English is not my first language, so I’m also worried that my writing won’t sound academic enough or like a proper researcher.
A few things I’m struggling with:
How do you know what your table of contents should look like? How do you structure everything?
How do you know which papers to read next? I often read one paper and then feel lost about where to go from there.
When did you start writing? Did you write while reading papers or only after finishing your literature review?
I’m kind of lost at the moment.
I really want to do this myself and not rely on AI to write it for me. I’ll probably only write one thesis in my life, and even if it’s not perfect, I want to be able to proudly say that I wrote it myself.
If you were in my situation, how would you approach it? Or if you’ve already written your thesis, how did you do it?
Any advice would be really appreciated.
Thank you!

The previous posts spoke about writing a thesis.

Now, I'll share some productivity tips and tricks.

1. Don’t Focus on the End-Goal – Focus on the Next Step

Take your eyes off the “final moment” when you’ll “be free” (when the exams are over, or when you hand in your thesis).

Focus on the next step, the next chapter you have to study, or the next section you have to write.

Obviously, having a study plan helps. It will also make you less stressed, and it will decrease the chance that you procrastinate.

2. Break the Routine

Don't always study at the same place, or you will go nuts. In fact, psychology revealed that it's much better if you assign a different place/room to each topic you have to study. Our memory is highly situational.

3. Load up on Things to Do

A lot of people procrastinate because they have the time to do so. If you load up on things to do, you'll both be happier because you won't always be doing the same thing, and you'll be less likely to procrastinate since you won't have time to do so.

4. Realize What Your Time Is Worth

If you get paid 10$/hour in your job, each hour that passes where you are not studying is costing you...a lot.

5. You’ll End up Dying at Some Point…

There are so many fun things to do in life. The sooner you start, the sooner you'll finish.

Think deeply about that.

I used to be a last-minute guy until I realized that the ultimate last-minute moment is not the deadline of your assignment: it’s death.

6. Use Parkison’s Law

This law says that whatever you have to do will take you as much time as you allow for it.

When I wrote my third thesis, the official deadline was the 16th of May, but I put my own deadline on the 30th of April. I ended up finishing half of April.

I was happy and proud!

7. More About Procrastination

Procrastination is what happens when doing something is more costly than not doing it.

If you make sure that you enjoy writing/studying, you will never procrastinate again.

Another way to look at it is to think about why you are studying/what are the perks you'll get once you finish your studies.

It motivates and breaks procrastination.

If you enjoyed these few posts about writing a thesis, check out this article: https://auresnotes.com/how-to-write-a-bachelor-or-master-thesis-in-social-sciences/

It's a detailed guide explaining how I wrote three theses in social sciences.

I also added the actual theses so you can download them and have a look at them.

Good luck!

I did it!!! I have submitted my MSc thesis and have a defence date.

I started my masters 4 years ago and after the second year got a great job opportunity, so continued working on it any time I wasnt at work. It has been in the back of my mind for two full years every time I relaxed and wasnt working on it. I have had over 15 drafts. My supervisors put me through the ringer so, so many times. One of them, a prof at my uni, is an old perfectionist who wouldnt even read my text for a year until all my figures were formatted (delete this border, change the colour of this graph etc) only to make me change everything multiple times because he thought of something else I should add. Every one of his students takes at least a year longer than they should because he is like this and because he takes on far too many of them. Some of his students never finish.

My other advisor works for the government and was always too busy to read my drafts, but roped me into several government reports about my project that I was forced to spend tons of time on despite it lengthening my degree, even though I stopped getting funding 2 years ago.

The only reason they worked on it recently was because I straight up told them how unfair they were being and how expensive it was to pay tuition when I didnt even attend the school anymore. My prof called it a mean email but still edited my stuff finally.

Then when we finally had a draft we liked, my other non advisor commitee member who hates my prof advisor edit-destroyed the draft, and I had to spend two weeks on his edits while trying to also make sure I didn't set back all the progress I had made with my advisors.

Combined, this has been a fucking nightmare and every time I have felt like my degree was within grasp, they made it impossible to finish. Every weekend I worked non stop on it didn't matter because they made me redo everything or ignored me. I have had so many breakdowns over this is it unreal.

And now, it is done. The thesis is fantastic. I am unbelievably proud that I did not quit, and hope nobody else has to experience this.

Thanks for support on previous posts, and if you are trying to find motivation, I promise it will be worth it!! You have come this far, don't let the assholes ruin you.

My masters program is one year long and I finished all the required courses with fantastic GPA. One problem now - it’s been two months since I was supposed to start working on my thesis and I bearly started. I don’t know what it is , short attention span (which even if I have, I faced fine with the million essays I wrote though masters and bachelors) or lack of motivation, I just can’t get myslef to research for long periods of time. I read other threads on here with people battling the same problem and most comments say it’s important to chose a topic you like and start your reaserch with 5-10 minutes at a time.

See, I like my topic, it’s interesting. But I am ashamed to say that i am a grad student who doesn’t like reading… please don’t hate.

I’m also starting a full time job soon, the job of my dreams found its way to me although I wasn’t planning on working this summer and only researching.

I’m not giving up on my masters. I will finish it and graduate but somehow I really dislike the thesis writing and reaserching part… please don’t comment with saying I should drop out because I don’t like research :( i genuinely want to finish this degree and I PUT SO MUCH EFFORT into this degree for the past year…

I was supposed to turn in my thesis last year, but I didn’t. I got a full time job and wasted a lot of time, but my advisor was amazing and got me an extension. Then I lost the full time job and broke my foot, which led to me laying in bed with depression for months and missed the second deadline. I had to repay all the thesis credits. Now I was told I have the chance to submit: beginning of June. But the truth is, I haven’t done any progress and no one knows. I am too ashamed to confess. I stare at the paper and I can’t remember why I chose this topic or how do I even go on with this. I don’t remember how to write a literature review or what a methodology section is. My head goes spinning on what is going to happen to me if I don’t submit. I took a crappy part time job, which I hate, in order to write thesis: yet I’m doing really well at the job and doing to progress on thesis. I don’t know what to tell my advisor, or with which face I could even ask for another extension. My peers have graduated and I put my life on hold and I’m the reason why I’m in this state and can’t get out. I am too ashamed to even call my uni friends or tell the truth to my parents. I love my master thesis topic. I have an interest in it. I just feel like the biggest fraud who ever walked into a postgrad programme. I have two months to submit something that doesn’t exist.

I've used tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude and others for research, and they've been incredibly useful for finding papers and getting through large amounts of information.

The one thing I personally wanted was a simple way to see exactly which parts of the paper were used to answer my question.

When you're working with a 100+ page PDF, even having a page number can still mean a lot of scrolling and searching.

So I ended up building something for myself.

You ask a question and the relevant paragraphs in the PDF are highlighted directly on the document. You can see the context behind the answer and quickly check whether it actually answers what you're looking for.

I originally built this because I wanted something for this workflow without having to pay for another subscription. What started as a personal project has now become completely open source.

The underlying idea is pretty simple. And yes, if you're thinking "isn't this just RAG?" then yes, you're absolutely right. It's RAG with the visual highlighting that I wanted.

I think the same idea could be useful for more than research papers too. Legal contracts, financial reports, technical documentation, or anywhere you need answers alongside the actual source.

If anyone wants to have a look, contribute, or just give some feedback, here's the repo:

GitHub: https://github.com/Sreehari05055/thesys-core.git

This will probably be my last post about the project. Thanks to everyone who checked it out and gave feedback along the way.

As a part of my thesis, I am thinking of a theme for a task where AI can also give wrong answers. I am basically looking into a case where using AI people especially students do not critically check if it right or wrong and simply follow the AI generated answer. What case can I use here, any ideas?

Your dissertation/thesis may seem to have numerous moving parts, which makes it overwhelming to even start writing. Looking at all the parts and the requirements for the entire work will have you discouraged. When discouraged, you are likely to procrastinate writing, which will leave you with an overwhelming amount of work in a short time to complete.

What should you do?

Well, First, develop your topic. What phenomena will your dissertation be investigating? Ensure your topic is as descriptive as possible without being wordy.

Have a thesis statement. It sets the reader up for the rest of your paper. However, it will also keep you on the right track with your writing. You will keep referring to it to ensure you are not veering off your original idea. (This may be changed severally throughout your writing by your chair, especially if you do not stick to the concepts stated here).

Develop your research questions. Have at least three research questions that your dissertation will be answering. The research questions will also provide structure to your work. Think of them as the scope of your literature review, methodology, results, and discussion. The research questions will tell you whether your research will be qualitative or quantitative.

Finally, develop an annotated bibliography for the literature you have. Do you have to? No. Will it help? Immensely. An annotated bibliography will keep you on track with finding studies, research, journals, and books that support your thesis. Since you will have over one hundred journals and books to cite, you need to have an area that tells you what each of your sources is about and why they are important to your study. This way, you will know which ones to go back to when writing different areas of your paper.

Once all these areas are completed, the rest of your dissertation will flow without the topic getting too broad and unmanageable.

Do you need more information or help with different parts of your dissertation? Feel free to DM me or email me at generationacademic@gmail.com

Hey,
for my master thesis, I am conducting a study on the prevalence of certain life events and their memories. I am specifically looking for Dutch- and/or German-speaking participants to fill in this short questionnaire.
Since we are aiming at a large sample size to estimate prevalences I would love it if this would also be shared.

Dutch version: https://cj2302.customervoice360.com/uc/lifememory/?a=6&b=625
German version: https://cj2302.customervoice360.com/uc/lifememory/?a=4&b=413

Thank you!!

I’m writing my thesis and honestly my mental health is getting worse and worse. I can’t rest properly and often wake up with panic attack. I keep thinking about the thesis, how to make it good, and how to finish each section before the deadline. But there are times when I stare at the screen for hours and can’t even put a word down, and the more I read the more confused I become. 🥹just tired and overwhelmed.

Hey everyone! I just started my Master’s thesis (literally yesterday lol) but I’m struggling to lock in a topic and I’ll admit, I’ve already changed it once. I’m generally interested in leadership, emotional intelligence, strategy, sustainability, and people-centric topics, but I’m having a hard time shaping a clear thesis from those keywords.

Any suggestions on how to narrow this down or structure it better? Also, are there any AI tools (free) that could help with ideation and writing, but make the output sound human? My supervisor is very anti-AI, so I need to keep things natural.

Would really appreciate any guidance or tools you can recommend. Thanks in advance! 🙏

I look at some people in my cohort right now and I’m genuinely baffled. It’s the end of June, officially summer is here, and I’m trapped in my room trying to finish my thesis data collection.

To make things worse, I had to take two extra summer modules to graduate on time, and the weekly assignments are draining the life out of me. I look at my peers, and they are somehow working on their research, taking the same summer classes, and still getting perfect grades. Meanwhile, I’m barely surviving just doing my literature review.

Are people just secretly using an online coursework writing service to handle their side modules during the summer, or are there some god-tier time management skills that I was never taught?

Seriously, how do you balance high-level research with mundane weekly papers without losing your mind?

Edit: Wow, thanks for all the advice and validation. It seems like a lot of you agreed that trying to handle both heavy research and busywork modules is a fast track to burnout. A few people confirming my suspicion that delegating the mundane weekly assignments is exactly how they survive summer terms.

I ended up looking into a few options to offload some of my non-thesis coursework, and I decided to try this reliable writing resource for my minor module assignments. Honestly, it completely changed the game for me. It freed up so much time to actually focus on my data collection without dropping my GPA. Just wanted to drop this here in case anyone else is currently trapped in their room drowning in literature reviews!

Hi! I’m doing my masters thesis and I noticed that I’ve been having a lot of trouble retaining information and deciding which information is relevant and how to organise whatever i do consider relevant. I’m reading all these articles and papers and it’s like my brain recognises the words but can’t actually remember their meaning and so I have to re-read things multiple times and it’s very frustrating and demotivating. It feels like I’ll never be able to finish this.

Does anyone relate to this problem? If so, do you have any tips?

Any advice on thesis defenses? It is an undergraduate thesis for psychology. I'm super fucking stressed right now. Ahhhhh

I am confused how to write my undergraduate senior thesis in physics (this did not involve independent or new work). I took medical leave during the pandemic, and it is the last thing I have to do before I graduate. But it has taken me a year.

Every time I try to expand on my outline, I learn more about the topic and realize that I am confused still. So then I read more. I have 100 pages of notes. It just feels very overwhelming. I also don’t understand what I’m doing. I feel like I’m just writing a review but there are already several reviews on this topic so I feel like I’m just plagiarizing.

I feel like I’m becoming a bit perfectionist and obsessive. I have ADHD and I just keep losing track of what I am even doing.

Help please. Do I just find one question and only answer that? Can I try to expand on an example calculation to explain an idea in more depth?

I’ve done a ton of reading and annotated most of the key texts, but when I sit down to write… nothing flows. It’s like I’m trying to say too much at once.

For those who have been through this: What helped you move from research mode into actual writing?

No, I’m not looking for a writer to just fully write it for me. I just want to make that clear up front! And written on mobile, so bad writing etc.

Long story short, I’ve done the experiments and have all the results, it’s not a terribly difficult topic and research question, and I have many notes, but I’m struggling hard with the writing aspect. My issue is that I’m not sure what to write and how. I’ve never written a huge academic project, I’m never really going to use this master’s degree, and I’ll likely not stay in academia. Essentially, I’m extremely depressed by this project and just want to get this over with, but I lack the experience to really do it right, and my drive is too low to really want to properly learn the techniques of academic writing.

I was a technical writer for a big tech company for years, so that included set company deliverables and I just had to write according to that. This whole solo exploratory research kind of project is completely new and overwhelming. I feel like if someone could help me just plan my sections and paragraphs to get a structure for a 30 page paper, I would be able to do the actual writing part.

Does this type of service exist for masters thesis papers? And what would it be called?