Psychology

So why would you want to read someone else's doctoral dissertation or master's thesis? Because they often contain a wealth of useful information. Students often overlook this valuable type of resource when conducting research. Dissertations can offer the following benefits:

• Just like journal articles, conference proceedings, and other forms of literature, they present original research. Recently completed theses can provide "sneak previews" of ideas and findings that have yet to reach the public via other publication formats.
• They may be the only publicly-available work by authors who do not otherwise publish for general audiences or through commercial publishers.
• They contain extensive bibliographies.
• They provide inspiration for the formatting and presentation of ideas, graphs, charts, and other components of a document.
• They provide insight into the early work of a particular person and have value for historical and biographical purposes.

Credit: Adapted from the Tufts Libraries Graduate Dissertations and Theses Guide