As part of your thesis, you are required to produce an academic (scientific) paper. But what exactly does that mean?
My preferred definition is already contained in the term itself: “to create knowledge.” In other words, as part of your thesis you must create new knowledge (i.e., new insights). This is what fundamentally distinguishes a thesis from a term paper.
| Term Paper | Thesis | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | To compile existing knowledge on a topic according to academic standards | To generate new knowledge—usually (but not always) through data collection |
| Process | Read into a general topic and then work it out and summarize it | Develop and answer a concrete and answerable research question through reading and study |
It is important that you create this new knowledge yourself, and not have it created by others or take others’ knowledge and present it as your own.
Scientific work is ethical work. In academia, we often work in new areas for which no established rules exist. This provides great freedom. At the same time, such freedom can lead to misuse and result in work that is not beneficial—or even harmful. Because society often has not yet defined legal regulations for these new areas in which researchers operate, it is the responsibility of researchers to set their own boundaries to maximize benefits and minimize harm. This is what is meant by ethical conduct.
Since these situations are often so new that one cannot foresee all consequences of one's actions, critical and continuous self-reflection in all directions is necessary—before starting and throughout the entire research process. For example:
Because one may eventually “not see the forest for the trees” when working deeply on a topic, it is advisable to discuss the ethical aspects of your study with others (e.g., Ethics Review Board, supervisor, other students). It is also important to recognize that one rarely finds the perfect solution in a given situation. Therefore, the guiding principle should be to act—short- and long-term—according to your best knowledge and judgment, in a way that avoids harm and disadvantages and maximizes benefits.
However, ethics is not a cost-benefit calculation: if the costs for even a single person are high, the project should not be carried out until thoroughly re-evaluated.
If you work with me, you must follow the APA ethical code: https://www.apa.org/ethics/code. You are welcome to contact me—or the IU Ethics Committee (ethikkommission@iu.org)—at any time regarding ethical questions.
You may use chatbots such as ChatGPT during the creation of your thesis. At the beginning of your thesis (e.g., on the gender statement page), indicate how you used the chatbot to ensure transparency and avoid misunderstandings. In general, the use of chatbots as tools to facilitate specific work steps is permitted. If you use a chatbot like a screwdriver when assembling furniture, this is fine. If you use it like a robot that assembles the furniture (or parts of it) for you, this is not permitted.
When using chatbots, ensure that you uphold ethical principles of academic work, for example:
It is not permitted to replace your own thinking or intellectual abilities with the chatbot—for example, by having the chatbot conceptualize or write the entire text or text passages without deeply engaging with the results and adapting them according to your own reasoning. In other words: all text must be produced in such a way that it could not have been created without your cognitive contribution. If someone could write your thesis—or parts of it—without you, then you have violated the proper scientific use of chatbots.
Below are some do's and don'ts for using chatbots. The list is not exhaustive but highlights the key principles that help evaluate situations not explicitly mentioned here.
Always verify all information from chatbots. You are and remain responsible for the content of your thesis and the source of the ideas.
Discussion, critical questioning, and idea generation: Have discussions with ChatGPT about your ideas/texts/arguments. Be aware that chatbots may sometimes “tell you what you want to hear.”
Evaluation: You may ask chatbots to evaluate how academically your texts are written. Avoid, however, having large passages rewritten without thorough review and further revision.
Proofreading: After you have written your text yourself, you may use chatbots to proofread it (i.e., find grammatical and spelling errors). Make sure to give restrictive instructions during prompting, as chatbots may otherwise shorten passages containing important information, leaving gaps in your argumentation. The following prompt yields a corrected text with slight improvements while preserving the content:
Proofread the following academic text by checking it only for spelling and grammatical errors. Do not change the content.Programming: ChatGPT is excellent for solving programming problems. You can now even conduct your R analyses effectively using ChatGPT, even if you have never programmed in R before. You can also implement special functionalities in LimeSurvey—for example, videos or interactive elements in questionnaires—by inserting JavaScript code into your survey with the help of ChatGPT and your browser’s developer console (press F12 and reload the page if necessary). For prompting: