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EBSCO Open Dissertations

EBSCO Open Dissertations makes electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) more accessible to researchers worldwide. The free portal is designed to benefit universities and their students and make ETDs more discoverable. 

Increasing Discovery & Usage of ETD Research

EBSCO Open Dissertations is a collaboration between EBSCO and BiblioLabs to increase traffic and discoverability of ETD research. You can join the movement and add your theses and dissertations to the database, making them freely available to researchers everywhere while increasing traffic to your institutional repository. 

EBSCO Open Dissertations extends the work started in 2014, when EBSCO and the H.W. Wilson Foundation created American Doctoral Dissertations which contained indexing from the H.W. Wilson print publication, Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities, 1933-1955. In 2015, the H.W. Wilson Foundation agreed to support the expansion of the scope of the American Doctoral Dissertations database to include records for dissertations and theses from 1955 to the present.

How Does EBSCO Open Dissertations Work?

Your ETD metadata is harvested via OAI and integrated into EBSCO’s platform, where pointers send traffic to your IR.

EBSCO integrates this data into their current subscriber environments and makes the data available on the open web via opendissertations.org .

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• Thesis Writing Guides
• Writing in Engineering and Science

Why search this literature?

It is crucial for graduate students to search the thesis and dissertation literature to make sure that an idea or hypothesis has not already been tested, explored, and published.  An additional reason to search this literature is that it is rich with ideas and information not found elsewhere.  If graduate students do not continue on as academics or if students that came after them in their programs did not continue their research, this literature may be the end of the line for scholarship on a topic.

ProQuest has published dissertation e-learning modules covering the usefulness of using dissertations as a research source.  See link below:

• Dissertation eLearning resources from ProQuest Uncover the value of dissertations.

Library Databases

All graduate students should, at minimum, search the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global database (PQDT) to see if the research they are proposing to do has already been done by a student at another institution/university.  RIT dissertations and theses have been included in PQDT since approximately 2006.

• Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window Identifies Ph.D. dissertations from U.S. & Canadian universities since 1861. Abstracts from 1980. Master's theses from 1988. Many with full-text.

RIT Digital Institutional Repository

• Digital Institutional Repository The digital institutional repository for the Rochester Institute of Technology, managed by RIT Libraries.
• ProQuest - Most Accessed Dissertations/Theses

Each month ProQuest updates this list of the top 25 Most-Accessed Dissertations and Theses across all subjects, based upon total PDF downloads. Find out what is trending.

The web sites below should also be consulted as appropriate to perform a full and thorough review of the dissertation and thesis literature beyond your introductory search of ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.  Consider whether a particular country or part of the world would have an interest in your potential research topic.

Only large-scale repositories of dissertations and theses are included here. You may also need to search individual university repositories directly.

• Ebsco Open Dissertations Search thousands of open dissertations and theses from over 50 participating libraries.
• EThOS (from the British Library) EThOS offers a 'single point of access' where researchers the world over can access ALL theses produced by UK Higher Education.
• Indian Institute of Science Dissertations and theses from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
• Indian Theses and Dissertations (Shodhganga) Over 130 participating Indian universities and over 8800 ETD documents.
• National ETD Portal (South Africa) South African theses and dissertations.
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). The NDLTD Union Catalog contains more than one million records of electronic theses and dissertations. Search the Union Catalog from here: http://thumper.vtls.com:6090/?theme=NDLTD
• OhioLINK ETD Center Electronic theses and dissertations from colleges and universities in the state of Ohio.
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations OATD aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 600 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes over 1.5 million theses and dissertations. RIT is included.
• Theses Canada Canadian universities voluntarily participate by submitting approved theses and dissertation to Theses Canada. Click on "Search Theses Canada" under the Introduction on the left hand side of the page to begin your search.
• TROVE From the National Library of Australia - Search Trove to explore amazing collections from Australian libraries, universities, museums, galleries and archives.
• Next: Thesis Writing Guides >>

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The top list of academic search engines

1. Google Scholar

4. science.gov, 5. semantic scholar, 6. baidu scholar, get the most out of academic search engines, frequently asked questions about academic search engines, related articles.

Academic search engines have become the number one resource to turn to in order to find research papers and other scholarly sources. While classic academic databases like Web of Science and Scopus are locked behind paywalls, Google Scholar and others can be accessed free of charge. In order to help you get your research done fast, we have compiled the top list of free academic search engines.

Google Scholar is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only lets you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free but also often provides links to full-text PDF files.

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles
• Abstracts: only a snippet of the abstract is available
• Related articles: ✔
• References: ✔
• Cited by: ✔
• Links to full text: ✔
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, RIS, BibTeX

BASE is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany. That is also where its name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles (contains duplicates)
• Abstracts: ✔
• Related articles: ✘
• References: ✘
• Cited by: ✘
• Export formats: RIS, BibTeX

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open-access research papers. For each search result, a link to the full-text PDF or full-text web page is provided.

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles
• Links to full text: ✔ (all articles in CORE are open access)
• Export formats: BibTeX

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need anymore to query all those resources separately!

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles and reports
• Links to full text: ✔ (available for some databases)
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX (available for some databases)

Semantic Scholar is the new kid on the block. Its mission is to provide more relevant and impactful search results using AI-powered algorithms that find hidden connections and links between research topics.

• Coverage: approx. 40 million articles
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX

Although Baidu Scholar's interface is in Chinese, its index contains research papers in English as well as Chinese.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 100 million articles
• Abstracts: only snippets of the abstract are available
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX

RefSeek searches more than one billion documents from academic and organizational websites. Its clean interface makes it especially easy to use for students and new researchers.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 1 billion documents
• Abstracts: only snippets of the article are available
• Export formats: not available

Consider using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with Google Scholar and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Google Scholar is an academic search engine, and it is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only let's you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free, but also often provides links to full text PDF file.

Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature developed at the Allen Institute for AI. Sematic Scholar was publicly released in 2015 and uses advances in natural language processing to provide summaries for scholarly papers.

BASE , as its name suggest is an academic search engine. It is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany and that's where it name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers. For each search result a link to the full text PDF or full text web page is provided.

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need any more to query all those resources separately!

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). We support electronic publishing and open access to scholarship in order to enhance the sharing of knowledge worldwide.

The call for papers for etd2024 is now open.

27th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations *Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Visibility at a Global Scale* /Join us, along with global leaders, from Wednesday, October 30th to Friday, November 1st, in Livingstone, Zambia./ The theme for ETD 2024 is “Electronic Thesis …

ETD 2024 Announcement

We are thrilled to announce that the 27th International Symposium on Electronic #Theses and #Dissertations (#ETD2024) will take place on October 30th to November 1st in Livingstone, Zambia. Hosted by The University Of Zambia (UNZA), Higher Education Authority of Zambia and Zambia Research and Education Network together with …

We are thrilled to announce that the 27th International Symposium on Electronic #Theses and #Dissertations (#ETD2024) will take place on October 30th to November 1st in Livingstone, Zambia.  Hosted by The University Of Zambia (UNZA), Higher Education Authority of Zambia and Zambia Research and Education Network together with NDLTD.  …

USETDA 2024 Conference September 25-27, 2024 in Provo, Utah

  The USETDA 2024 Conference will be held September 25-27, 2024 as a hybrid event in Provo, Utah on the campus of Brigham Young University and the Provo Marriott Hotel. For details visit https://www.usetda.org/usetda-conferences/usetda-2024/. Call for proposals. Important Dates Call for proposals …

USETDA 2024 Conference: Call for Proposals now open

The United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association (USETDA) will hold its 14th annual conference USETDA 2024 from September 25-27, 2024 on the campus of Brigham Young University (BYU), in Provo, Utah and online as a hybrid event via Zoom. The conference …

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Dissertations and Theses

• EBSCO Open Dissertations
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations Provides free access to thousands of dissertation and thesis abstracts from universities around the world, and links to full text when freely available.

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• Last Updated: Apr 18, 2024 2:48 PM
• URL: https://csulb.libguides.com/freedatabases

Think of yourself as a member of a jury, listening to a lawyer who is presenting an opening argument. You'll want to know very soon whether the lawyer believes the accused to be guilty or not guilty, and how the lawyer plans to convince you. Readers of academic essays are like jury members: before they have read too far, they want to know what the essay argues as well as how the writer plans to make the argument. After reading your thesis statement, the reader should think, "This essay is going to try to convince me of something. I'm not convinced yet, but I'm interested to see how I might be."

An effective thesis cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." A thesis is not a topic; nor is it a fact; nor is it an opinion. "Reasons for the fall of communism" is a topic. "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" is a fact known by educated people. "The fall of communism is the best thing that ever happened in Europe" is an opinion. (Superlatives like "the best" almost always lead to trouble. It's impossible to weigh every "thing" that ever happened in Europe. And what about the fall of Hitler? Couldn't that be "the best thing"?)

A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should "telegraph" how you plan to argue—that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay.

Steps in Constructing a Thesis

First, analyze your primary sources.  Look for tension, interest, ambiguity, controversy, and/or complication. Does the author contradict himself or herself? Is a point made and later reversed? What are the deeper implications of the author's argument? Figuring out the why to one or more of these questions, or to related questions, will put you on the path to developing a working thesis. (Without the why, you probably have only come up with an observation—that there are, for instance, many different metaphors in such-and-such a poem—which is not a thesis.)

Once you have a working thesis, write it down.  There is nothing as frustrating as hitting on a great idea for a thesis, then forgetting it when you lose concentration. And by writing down your thesis you will be forced to think of it clearly, logically, and concisely. You probably will not be able to write out a final-draft version of your thesis the first time you try, but you'll get yourself on the right track by writing down what you have.

Keep your thesis prominent in your introduction.  A good, standard place for your thesis statement is at the end of an introductory paragraph, especially in shorter (5-15 page) essays. Readers are used to finding theses there, so they automatically pay more attention when they read the last sentence of your introduction. Although this is not required in all academic essays, it is a good rule of thumb.

Anticipate the counterarguments.  Once you have a working thesis, you should think about what might be said against it. This will help you to refine your thesis, and it will also make you think of the arguments that you'll need to refute later on in your essay. (Every argument has a counterargument. If yours doesn't, then it's not an argument—it may be a fact, or an opinion, but it is not an argument.)

This statement is on its way to being a thesis. However, it is too easy to imagine possible counterarguments. For example, a political observer might believe that Dukakis lost because he suffered from a "soft-on-crime" image. If you complicate your thesis by anticipating the counterargument, you'll strengthen your argument, as shown in the sentence below.

Some Caveats and Some Examples

A thesis is never a question.  Readers of academic essays expect to have questions discussed, explored, or even answered. A question ("Why did communism collapse in Eastern Europe?") is not an argument, and without an argument, a thesis is dead in the water.

A thesis is never a list.  "For political, economic, social and cultural reasons, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" does a good job of "telegraphing" the reader what to expect in the essay—a section about political reasons, a section about economic reasons, a section about social reasons, and a section about cultural reasons. However, political, economic, social and cultural reasons are pretty much the only possible reasons why communism could collapse. This sentence lacks tension and doesn't advance an argument. Everyone knows that politics, economics, and culture are important.

A thesis should never be vague, combative or confrontational.  An ineffective thesis would be, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because communism is evil." This is hard to argue (evil from whose perspective? what does evil mean?) and it is likely to mark you as moralistic and judgmental rather than rational and thorough. It also may spark a defensive reaction from readers sympathetic to communism. If readers strongly disagree with you right off the bat, they may stop reading.

An effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim.  "While cultural forces contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of economies played the key role in driving its decline" is an effective thesis sentence that "telegraphs," so that the reader expects the essay to have a section about cultural forces and another about the disintegration of economies. This thesis makes a definite, arguable claim: that the disintegration of economies played a more important role than cultural forces in defeating communism in Eastern Europe. The reader would react to this statement by thinking, "Perhaps what the author says is true, but I am not convinced. I want to read further to see how the author argues this claim."

A thesis should be as clear and specific as possible.  Avoid overused, general terms and abstractions. For example, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because of the ruling elite's inability to address the economic concerns of the people" is more powerful than "Communism collapsed due to societal discontent."

Copyright 1999, Maxine Rodburg and The Tutors of the Writing Center at Harvard University

Thesis Help: 95 Best Online Tools for Thesis Writing

Writing a thesis is like being sentenced to life and hard labor in libraries. Forget regular working hours or your natural right to sleep and rest. Only successful defense of your project will break you free.

• Word Processing and Taking Notes
• Knowledge Management
• Student Planners
• Bibliography Helpers
• Academic Research Tools
• Productivity Apps
• Vocabulary Builders
• Dictionaries
• Plagiarism Check
• Grammar and Style Check

The following free tools, however, provide a ray of hope. Draconian time management and supernatural self-organization can help you cope with your thesis faster. Optimize the process and enjoy the time you save.

📝 Word Processing and Taking Notes

Although you may be used to Microsoft Word, the following free alternatives can be of much help for thesis writing:

• LaTeX is a high-quality system equipped with special features for technical and scientific documentation. A great tool for thesis help due to its user-friendly interface and dozens of helpful features. For example, the tool automatically generates bibliographies and indexes.
• LyX is a free document processor that emphasizes the importance of document structure.
• Scrivener is a popular text-editing tool for Windows users. Use one of several templates to construct your document. There are also labeling options available during the working process.
• XMind is an easy-to-use text-editing and mind-mapping tool. Develop essay maps with this paper editor you can use on an iPhone or iPad for creating, editing, and storing your files.
• OpenOffice is free and intuitive editing software popular with students. Try this excellent writing tool you can easily use instead of Microsoft Word. It gives similar functions for typing, formatting, and revising.
• AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word and suitable for a wide range of academic tasks.
• Jarte is a free word processor that is based on Windows WordPad and fully compatible with Windows Word.
• Google Docs is Google’s awesome service that allows you to create, format, store, and share documents online.
• ThinkFree is a free Java-based word processor that is fully compatible with Word.

• Etherpad is an open source text editor that allows real-time collaborative editing online. You and your mentor can use this tool for online revision of your thesis.

🧠 Knowledge Management

Here’s the kicker:

While doing research for your dissertation, you will need to dig through an incredible amount of literature. Maybe even look at some free college essays examples.

To make your job easier without getting lost or wasting time, consider the following knowledge management tools — they are great for dissertation help.

• KeepNote is a particularly effective note-taking application that can help you use full-text search and store your findings and notes.
• TomBoy is a free and easy-to-use note-taking and mind-mapping application. When making an analysis of sources or gathering articles in one place, it’s easy to get lost in dozens of links. Tomboy allows you to store every link carefully and have access to them anytime from your desktop.
• TiddlyWiki is a knowledge management app with a number of helpful features of much help for your thesis.
• Mindnote is an effective mind-mapping tool that can help you organize your thoughts intuitively.
• Mendeley is a tool that allows you to create your own easily searchable library of your research findings and accessible from any device.
• VUE stands for Visual Understanding Environment. This tool can be used for structuring and sharing information.
• EyePlorer is a convenient tool for creating charts and mind maps online. You can just drag in your thesis statement’s keywords and get the results.
• Zotero is a valuable academic research and knowledge management tool that combines functionality of a citation maker and knowledge management.
• Endnote can help you find, save, and share the information you need. You can work on a document with your team, see the history of changes, and get your sources cited in one of 6,000 styles.
• Cam scanner is probably one of the easiest ways to save bibliographic information by simply “scanning” a resource with your phone or any other device.

⌚ Student Planners

In being preoccupied with your thesis, you may easily forget something. The following free tools will help you be better organized:

• Any do can synchronize your personal tasks and help you achieve maximum potential.
• Trello can help you see everything about your project in one place.
• Exam Countdown is a free and easy-to-use app to keep track of all your deadlines. Thesis development consists of many parts. Don’t miss any of them with this helpful and vivid tool.
• Wunderlist is a tool for ticking off all your personal and academic goals.
• Todoist is a free online task manager that will kindly remind you of approaching deadlines.
• Tomsplanner is an online chart to help you get things done.
• HabitRPG is a free productivity app that treats your life like an exciting game. Habitica is an RPG game that not only motivates you to start a thesis but also helps with everyday routines like cleaning your room or getting enough sleep.
• Todokyo is a simple way to create to-do lists online.
• Ta-da Lists will help you reach those amazing “ta-da” moments with all your daily and weekly tasks.

🙋 Bibliography Helpers

Collecting resources and formatting citations is important for your dissertation writing, but imagine letting free citation tools do that work for you! Make this academic dream come true with our past list of the top 25 free online best citation generators , or check out the following collection of free tools:

• BibDesk will help you edit and manage your bibliography. This tool can help you keep track of not only bibliographic information but also related links and files.
• BiblioExpress will help you find, manage, and edit bibliographic records.
• Docear is a free academic literature management suite that helps you discover, organize, and cite your resources.
• Recipes4Success is an open source bibliography maker that formats citations in MLA and APA. It works as a rewording generator—you fill in the fields, and the tool gives you a full sentence in one of the most popular citation styles.
• Ottobib is a free, easy, and fast bibliography maker that allows formatting citations using only ISBN. If you use ISBN for your referencing, you can save a lot of time.
• Citavi is a free reference management and knowledge organization tool that can help to not only create citations but also organize and highlight text.
• Cite This for Me is an open source and easy-to-use citation maker that is compatible with a wide range of citation styles.
• GoBiblio is a free online citation maker that generates citations in MLA and APA.

🔬 Academic Research Tools

One more thing you will appreciate is an academic full-text research environment free of commercial links:

• Google Scholar is the place to start your online research that will help you with your thesis.
• ContentMine is a tool that extracts scientific facts from around a billion academic resources.
• Data Elixir is a twice-monthly digest of the latest scientific discoveries.
• Labii is a template-based electronic notebook. Keep all your data organized into categories like protocols, results, samples, and so on.
• LazyScholar is a free Chrome or Mozilla extension that will do an automatic full-text search and create fast citations.
• Scientific Journal Finder can help you access the latest and most relevant resources in your field.
• Scizzle is a fast and easy way to discover new papers on a topic of your choice.
• MyScienceWork is a platform for making your research papers visible to anyone on the web or getting access to research of others.
• Sparrho is a collection of scientific channels and an easily navigated search engine. It contains more than 60 million scientific articles, and the best universities in the world use it.

Working with sources and doing research may be rather exhausting.

Here’s the deal:

You have to work on your performance and productivity.

🏃‍♀️ Productivity Apps

Another important routine change that can save hours and days of your life is blocking or minimizing distractions:

• TimeDoctor is an easy to use time-tracking app that will prevent you from distractions and increase your productivity.
• Online timer by TimeCamp is a free and simple solution for measuring your work time divided by separate tasks.

• Freedom can help you block the most distractions
• SelfControl is a Mac app that will help you avoid distracting websites. Just block social media or news feeds that interfere with your work.
• Write or Die is a web-based app designed to boost your productivity by reaching a target word count within a chosen time frame.
• Focus Time is a combination of an activity tracker and a Pomodoro timer.
• Rescue Time promises to help you block all distractions. Control the choice of blocked resources or use the default list.
• Leechblock NG is a Firefox add-on that can block time-wasting sites.
• StayFocusd politely questions if you shouldn’t be working and helps you achieve that.
• Write Monkey is software that can create a distraction-free interface for simply writing.
• Nirvana will help you prioritize your tasks and get the most important ones done on time.
• Tomato Timer is a minimalist timer that will help you work according to the well-known Pomodoro technique (working 25 minutes before taking a 5-minute break).

📖 Vocabulary Builders

By the time you finish your project, you can undoubtedly boast of having a rich and diverse academic vocabulary. You may want to boost your vocabulary even further with the following tools:

• IntensiveVocab is a free tool designed to help you improve your vocabulary, score higher on standardized tests, and thus improve your dissertation’s language.
• WhichWord is an iOS app designed to help you better understand the difference between frequently confused words.
• Just the Word is an online tool to help you better combine words in a sentence. You enter “just the word” into a search line and receive examples of how that word can be used and other students’ errors.
• Lexipedia is a tool that creates semantic differences for a word of your choice. This tool organizes the results in a mind map. It’s available in English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian.
• Wordnik is a free tool that will give you several definitions for a word of your choice.
• Wordhippo is an easy and quick way to find synonyms and antonyms for a certain word. You can also find rhymes, scrabble options, words with specific letters, and so on.
• SAT Vocab by MindSnacks is a free app that can help you learn SAT vocabulary and formulate more difficult sentences by simply playing games.
• Vocabulary Builder from Magoosh is a free app to quickly boost your vocabulary.
• Visual Vocab SAT is a free but effective app for building your vocabulary.

📚 Dictionaries

This collection of sources will make you thesis writing process easy and professional.

• Abbreviations is a huge directory of all abbreviations imaginable. It’s a vast library of acronyms and abbreviations in various fields like science, medicine, government, business, and more.
• Cambridge Dictionaries is a collection of free online English dictionaries and thesauruses including bilingual and semi-bilingual resources.
• Definitions is a multilingual dictionary that provides definitions from many reputable resources. It knows every word in many narrow fields like trees, dinosaurs, and ancient history.
• Macmillan Dictionary is an open source tool with activities and word lists to not only find the words you need but also learn them.
• Merriam Webster is a free dictionary with a variety of online quizzes and tests. It’s one of the most valuable online dictionaries.
• Thesaurus is an open source dictionary offering synonyms and definitions.
• Urban Dictionary is the go-to place for synonyms and definitions. This is the best place to search for slang words.
• Ozdic is a free online collocation dictionary. You can get a full analysis of a particular word you need to learn.
• YourDictionary provides simple definitions that anyone can understand.

✅ Plagiarism Check

• PlagScan will compare your documents with billions of others.
• Article Checker is a free online plagiarism-checking tool that can search for copies of your text on the web.
• Duplichecker is a free plagiarism detection tool restricted to 1,000 words per search.
• PlagiarismCheck.org generates plagiarism reports and offers an unlimited number of free attempts.
• Plagium is a free, quick search that helps you detect instances of occasional plagiarism in your paper.
• Dustball is a free plagiarism detection tool that will easily find plagiarized parts in your text.
• ThePensters is free plagiarism-checking software for students and beyond. It analyzes the percentage of plagiarized text from web pages. Also, with the help of this tool, you can create a bibliography by ISBN code.
• PlagTracker is a convenient online plagiarism detection tool.
• Plagiarisma is another free online plagiarism checker. It supports about 200 languages, and you can switch between Google and Bing search engines when checking your documents.
• Copyscape will help you scan your thesis for any copies on the web.

✍️ Grammar and Style Check

Grammar and style checking of large amounts of text can last forever if you do it manually. The following free tools will make a world of difference for you:

• Ginger is a quick and quality online grammar checker. This is a perfect tool to eliminate misspellings.
• Grammarly with its grammar, style, and plagiarism check is a must-have for students.
• AftertheDeadline is a spell, style, and grammar checker that promises intelligent editing.
• Spellchecker is a spell check solution with a 300-day free trial. Along with grammar mistakes, it shows misused words and syntax errors.
• Online Correction is a tool for detecting style, spelling, and grammar mistakes in writing.
• Spell Check Online is a website for quick spell check online.
• Paper Rater is a free tool that offers online proofreading and does not require download.
• Grammar Check.me is a way to check and correct style, grammar, and spelling of your text online.
• Language Tool is an open source tool for style and grammar check.

Would you like to add some tool to this list? Which free apps and websites help you with your thesis?

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I got 64 % similarity for my assignment. is it bad or good? if it’s bad please tell me how to fix it?

Thanks for these helpful Tools.

Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated.

Wow good bro

Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for the feedback, Abderrahmane!

Hi, I would like to ask you about the thesis for Diploma

Hello! Sure, please do not hesitate to ask our experts ivypanda.com .

I’m glad, your message via Twitter brought me here and I really found your blog so helpful. Cheers!

Thank you for your kind words! 🙂

Wow right time, thanks for such a great article. Helpful.

Melik, I’m glad the article was helpful to you 🙂

If you are going for ‘fancy stuff’ you might mention markdown, rmarkdown/knitr etc. This will replace latex imho.

And if you mention Latex you should mention Overleaf (an online version and a way to learn it).

Overall though, a very interesting list. Do you rate/rank these tools?

Thank you for the feedback, David!

OUTSTANDING!!!

Thank you for putting this together.

Thank you very much, Michele 🙂

Thanks regarding furnishing this kind of well put together content.

Thanks for your feedback, Mandila! Glad you liked it!

That’s an apt answer to an interesting question.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope these tools are really helpful to you. Good luck!

• Queen's University Library
• Research Guides

Finding Theses and Dissertations

• International Theses
• Queen's University Theses
• Canadian Theses
• United States Theses
• Borrowing & Purchasing Copies of Theses

International Theses: Search Tools

Proquest dissertations and theses.

A comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world from 1861-present. Full text  since 1997. Abstracts  since 1980 for doctoral dissertations and 1988 for masters' theses. Citations  since 1861.

Citations are indexed in Web of Science in the  ProQuest ™ Dissertations & Theses Citation Index  collection. 

Center for Research Libraries

CRL holds more than 800,000 doctoral dissertations outside of the U.S. and Canada. Search dissertations in the dissertations section of the CRL catalogue. Digitized dissertations can be searched in the catalogue's e-resources section.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations

A collection of more than 800,000 international full text theses and dissertations.

Google Scholar

Try searching Google Scholar for theses posted on institutional digital repositories or on personal web pages.

ScienceDirect

A web search engine devoted to Science and Technology.

Search for dissertations, theses and published material based on theses catalogued in WorldCat by OCLC member libraries worldwide. In Advanced Search, you can search by author, title, subject, year, and keyword. Under Subtype Limits, select Theses/Dissertation from the Any Content menu

International Theses: By Country

Österreichische Dissertationsdatenbank

The Austrian dissertation database contains the bibliographical data of dissertations approved in Austria from 1990 on, and in most cases the relevant abstracts. (This website is hosted by the National Library of Austria).

National Library of Australia’s Trove Service

Search for full text digital theses from Australian universities.  On the Advanced search screen under Format, select Thesis.

DART-Europe :  Access to full text theses and dissertations from many countries in Europe.

Europeana : Additional electronic dissertations from other European libraries.

Système universitaire de documentation  (Sudoc): Provides access to records and some electronic theses and dissertations published at French research institutions.

Fichier central des thèses

DissOnline provides information on the subject of electronic university publications. It can be used to find out directly all about online dissertations and post-doctoral theses. Sample documents can be downloaded to provide help in the creation of electronic university publications. For more information about the portal, please go to  German National Library  website  (DNB) .

México

TESIUNAM: Tesis del Sistema Bibliotecario de la Unam

(Theses from the National University of Mexico / Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). To search for electronic theses, click on “tesis electrónicas (REDUNAM).”

Middle East

The Center for Research Libraries and the British Library have made available online 400 UK doctoral theses focusing on the Middle East, Islamic studies, and related subjects.  More information .

The Netherlands

Some Dutch e-theses are available through NARCIS.

South America 

• Some electronic theses from Bolivia, Brasil, Chile and Peru can be found at  Cybertesis.NET , a portal created by the University of Chile (Information Services & Library System) that provides an easily accessible tool to full text electronic theses published in different universities of the world.

For more university/national library catalogues, search for the word University/Universidad and the country (Argentina, Peru, etc.) in Google. Find the link to the library ( biblioteca ) and search the catalogue for theses ( tesis ). You may need to click on the advanced search function ( búsqueda guíada  or  búsqueda avanzada ) and select tesis as a format or type. ​

There are several portals/catalogues in Spain for theses and dissertations. Here are some examples listed on Spain’s  National Library  website:

Spain’s Ministry of Education thesis database (TESEO)

Biblioteca Virtual del Español (on the Biblioteca Virtual, Miguel de Cervantes website)

Universidad Complutense de Madrid’s catalogue

TDX (Tesis Doctorals en Xarxa)

This is a cooperative repository of digital theses from the University of Cataluña and other autonomous communities (such as Murcia, Cantabria, Barcelona, and Oviedo)

Switzerland

For print and electronic dissertations, please consult the  Swiss National Library  website.

• NDLTD: National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan is an open full-text permanent archive of scholarly research in Taiwan.

EThOS : Access to doctoral dissertations (paper and electronic) from UK institutions of higher education.

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• Next: Borrowing & Purchasing Copies of Theses >>
• Last Updated: Oct 18, 2023 3:58 PM

• Note-Taking/Study

43 Helpful Websites And Tools For Thesis Writing

Welcome to a compilation post on 43 helpful websites and tools for thesis writing, as well as any academic papers, including final year project thesis or dissertation and journal article.

Hi everyone!

My name is Nurul, a part-time master student from Master of Language Studies program that just passed her oral examination for Master Project .

Edit: I got my result last month. I’m happy to announce that I’ve completed my master study!

Congratulations to me!

To celebrate my success completing my master degree, I present to you all the website and tools that have helped me in writing my master thesis and academic writing paper.

1. Finding Journal Articles and Thesis

There are many websites to find peer reviewed journal articles and thesis, but for many students, it can be difficult to judge the journal trust worthiness and ensure that the journal that we’re going to cite in our paper or the journal article that we chose for article review assignment does not fall into the predatory journal category.

You can check the journal you visit and cross-check it with the list of Beall’s List of Predatory Journals , but who got the time to do that every single time you’re looking for an academic paper?

Your best bet is to search the keywords or topics in these following websites, as they’ve a reliable reputation in academic world. If you’re a student, the chance is your universities have already subscribed to some of these journals, which means you can access to these sites for free.

For UiTM students, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, Taylor and Francis Online and Emerald can be accessed using our student Email ID.

p/s: Google Scholar is good in terms of QUANTITY, but the QUALITY of certain websites are questionable , so keep it in mind.

• ScienceDirect
• Taylor and Francis Online
• Emerald Publishing
• SAGE Journals
• Atlantis Press
• Project MUSE
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD)
• Research Gate
• Academia.edu
• Google Scholar
• CiNii – Japanese Journal Articles and Theses

2. Malaysian University Thesis and Dissertation Repository

3. reference manager.

For reference manager, I’ve tried EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley and EasyBib and so far I found that Zotero works the best for me. It is open source, free and offers many plugins that will help you to manage your citations better.

Connected Papers is also a cool website as it showed you a graph of related research papers with the paper you’re searching for.

• Connected Papers
• Research Rabbit
• APA Citation Machine

4. Other Useful Sites to Summarize, Paraphrase and Grammar

• ProWritingAid
• Academic Phrasebank (a lifesaver)

5. Analyzing Qualitative and Quantitative Data

• SPSS (Quantitative)
• Atlas.ti (Qualitative)
• Nvivo (Qualitative)

6. Writing and Organization Tools

I use Notion to create my literature review matrix because I found that building it on Excel didn’t fit my aesthetic.

GoodNotes is where I annotated my papers on iPad and Obsidian, a fairly new software that I tried on, is for documenting website articles or any Reddit or Twitter posts that I found interesting for my research.

Important reminder, please BACK UP your writings and journal/thesis PDFs . I’ve heard a plethora of horror stories from other postgrads losing their data.

• Google Doc (backup)
• Microsoft Word (for writing drafts, mostly written on iCloud)
• Obsidian (Available on Mac, iPad and iPhone)
• Notion (Available on Mac, iPad and iPhone)
• GoodNotes (Available on Mac, iPad and iPhone)
• Notability (Available on Mac, iPad and iPhone)

That’s all from me, and I hope that this post will be helpful for your thesis writing journey. If you’ve any sites or tools to recommend, please do so in the comment section!

For other postgrads or students writing your thesis, good luck! If I, a student with tonnes of grammatical error, can pass my dissertation, you can do it too!

Related Tags

• Academic Writing
• Postgraduate

Blog on lifestyle, Japanese language study tips, digital note-taking, stationery haul and books. Also love Korean Webtoon and Chinese web novels.

I noticed the fascinating color design on Obsidian and it inspired me to update my own color design. Could you please tell us where you found the color scheme or what influenced you in choosing the colors?

Hi! I used a pre-built theme called Bubble Space and set it to dark theme.

Congrats dear for your very fine achievement! All the best in your future endeavours. I will definitely have a look at the above list when I have mustered enough courage to pursue a masters degree.

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7 Must-Have Thesis Writing Tools in 2021

Writing tools like Grammarly, Mendeley online, Thesaurus, BibMe, Evernote, Plagiarism checker, Hemingway Editor, Stay Focused and Dissertation authors have significant importance in thesis writing.  

Traditionally, writing a thesis for either PhD or dissertation was a tougher task, needing huge manual writing, Proofreading, correction, re-writing, and editing things manually. 

So, it was tedious, time-consuming and depressive and therefore no one wants to go for a doctorate. However, the recent scenario is totally different, now we have computers, mobile phones and a lot of apps. 

Things can be done at a fingertip, with one click and all done! Thanks to high-power computers and apps. “Useful” apps make tasks, work and everyday life easy for us. 

We now have apps for writing, proofreading, arranging documents, taking instant and important notes, doing citation & referencing and other stuff during your research. This article explains how a PhD student can utilize apps that are useful. I will also explain how you can use it. 

Features of Mendeley:

How to use mendeley , how to cite the work , features of evernote , how to use evernote , features of bibme are: , how to use bibme, how to use thesaurus , how to use dissertationauthers , features of grammarly: .

• How to use Grammarly? 

Features of Hemingway Editor: 

Wrapping up: , 7 must-have thesis writing tools in 2021, mendeley: .

Citing articles and enlisting references orderly isn’t an easy task; it’s time-consuming and tiresome. But what if a tool can do all this work seamlessly, effectively and precisely? Mendeley is that one tool you need.

Every PhD must have Mendeley- a reference manager tool. This app or web portal is exclusively designed to manage bibliography and citations therefore it must be there on every PhD students’ laptop. 

Four amazing features of Mendeley are, 

• You can store articles, PhD, journal reads on your Mendeley. 
• It automatically creates a reference format. 
• It can cite every bit of information seamlessly and precisely when integrated. 

Meaning just read the article from Mendeley, write your content in MS word and just do insert a citation. It automatically inserts the related citation and reference at the end of the page. 

Besides, several other features are, 

• It automatically generates a bibliography 
• You can import a pdf and research papers from other sources 
• You can find the relevant articles to what you are reading 
• You can collab with other researchers online 
• You can access all your article libraries from anywhere by logging in to your account. 

The Mendeley is developed by Elsevier Publication available on Windows, macOS and Linux. 

• Go to www.mendeley.com from your computer 
• Click on “create a free account”. 
• Enter your email address and continue your work. 
• Download the ‘Mendeley for desktop’ software 
• Start adding reading materials, pdfs and research articles or create your own library. 
• To use Mendeley for citation and referencing, first from your Mendeley app for tools and click on ‘Install MS word Plugin’. 
• Go to MS word>> referencing and insert citation using the Mendeley.

Now you are ready to use, write literature from the article and just click on insert citation and your work is ready. 

We are planning to write a whole article on the present topic, how to use it and how helpful it is, that article’s we will provide you later.

In summary, the very first software or app or tool every PhD student is required is Mendeley to write a thesis. It’s a citation and reference manager tool. 

 “Notes” as writing, images, pdf, article, news paragraph is an everyday part of a PhD student . Whatever you read, whenever you find things related to your PhD topic, you have to keep a note. 

And trust me keeping notes isn’t so easy. If you fail to make it up, you will forget it the next morning. Evernote- is a tool that keeps your notes from desktop, mobile or any other device and syncs them. 

• You can scan and save documents, label them, make important sentences underline and create pdf. 
• You can even save rich notes, save images, record audio, capture ideas. 
• You even can save entire or partial web pages. 
• You can mark, highlight, underline, and pinpoint every note you capture. 
•  And guess what you can excess it from anywhere. 

Go to www.evernote.com and click on sign in. 

Now click on ‘create account’ and create one using your email address. 

Or you can download the desktop apps. 

In summary, to keep notes seamlessly and organized, the Evernote tool is required. Moreover, users can create keyboard shortcuts, note links, anchor notes to remember and share notes. 

BibMe: 

BibMe- The online writing center is the tool or service developed by Chegg. It has many features to improve your academic writing and PhD work. 

One of the best features it has is it cites your work using different styles, even using their recent version of the style. 

• You can create accurate citations in multiple styles 
• Insert citation and references in your article or paper 
• Improve your writing by improving sentence structure, grammar and spelling 
• It can also detect plagiarism and can correct it. 

Go to www.bibme.org .

Click on ‘Create account’. Create your account using your email address and use their features. 

In summary, a BibMe app is an excellent tool, however, it isn’t available as a plugin for MS Word. You can use the free version or can use the paid version to explore more features. 

Thesaurus: 

Academic writing should be professional and precise, one needs to choose the correct word as per the sentence requirement. Using Thesaurus you can find synonyms of various words. 

Besides, You can find antonyms and choose acronyms and abbreviations. 

Go to www.thesaurus.com . 

Click on synonyms and type your word in the search box.  

In summary, Thesaurus makes your writing impressive when you use synonyms and transient words. 

Disserationauthors:  

Writing a research paper, review article or thesis is quite hard for a novice, you may feel helpless sometimes when your writeup is rejected multiple times. Even if you don’t understand what is wrong with your part. 

 If you feel so, don’t worry you can hire writers, experts or writing assistance who helps you. Dissertationauthors hire expert writers for you basically from the USA and UK. 

• Go to www.dissertationauthors.com . 
• Fill the order form 
• Pay for your write up or paper 
• Reach your personal writer 
• Download your completed work

In summary, students have to write their own stuff, however, if your writing isn’t of that level you can use this service. 

Grammarly: 

Grammar, spelling and synonyms are common problems every research student faces, specifically those who aren’t from a pure English background. Imagine, what if some software or tool can do all stuff automatically!

Grammarly is exactly that one tool. They have free and paid plans available, however, the free version is enough for most students. 

It has many services in which the Google chrome “add on” extension is the best. When activated it automatically detects and corrects English problems to all documents. 

Related article: Grammarly: Your PhD writing assistant

• Correct spelling and Grammer 
• Correct wordy sentences 
• Suggest punctuations 
• Structurize the sentence 
• Check plagiarism 
• Adds more transient words and synonyms 
• And a lot more… 

Read more: How to Check Plagiarism for PhD Thesis?- Top 10 Plagiarism Checkers

How to use Grammarly?  

• Go to www.grammarly.com  
• Sign in or sign up for your account. 
• Go to the Google chrome extension search for Grammarly. 
• Add Grammarly to your chrome extension. 
• Do a quick setting as per your requirement. 

In summary, Grammarly is the one tool or software that must be present on every PhD fellow’s laptop. Its technology is based on AI, meaning as you write more, it understands your style more and suggests accordingly. 

Moreover, it also mails you your performances, common problems and how you can improve.  

Hemingway Editor 

This software is somehow similar to Grammarly, however, it has something unique in it. It’s an online editor you can use to quickly edit your article. It finds common errors, sentence structure, and grammatical mistakes. 

It corrects it precisely. Several common features are enlisted here, 

• Highlight lengthy and complex sentences, and corrections 
• Finds common writing errors 
• Finds active or passive voices. 
• It denotes each error with a different color quote. 
• It can also add headings, count the number of words and other things. 

In summary, It’s not that impressive software for the students but can help especially to correct complex sentences. It is useful for bloggers. 

Apps and Softwares make your everyday life easy and when you are in PhD, it becomes so important to make things easy. You should visit and use all this Softwares and its tools. 

However, as per my opinion research candidates should have at least Grammarly, Mendeley and Evernote. These three are enough to do a lot of work. 

Use Mendeley for citation, bibliography generation and other PhD stuff, Grammarly for writing assistance and Evernote for keeping notes and important things. 

Dr. Tushar Chauhan is a Scientist, Blogger and Scientific-writer. He has completed PhD in Genetics. Dr. Chauhan is a PhD coach and tutor.

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Dr Tushar Chauhan

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