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General FAQs

What is the difference between a 'thesis' and a 'dissertation'?

Strictly speaking, a thesis is a hypothesis, a conjecture, proposition or a statement that can be tested or rationally argued. A dissertation is an academic work, a treatise that offers new insight as the result of structured research.

In other words, a thesis is investigated in a dissertation. But often (in South Africa and elsewhere), the word dissertation is used to describe a Master's degree dissertation, while the word thesis is used to describe the Ph.D. dissertation.

On Exactica's pages, thesis = Ph.D. dissertation and dissertation = Master's or Ph.D. dissertation. A 'thesis statement' of course, is a very different kettle of fish, which is discussed in depth in the workshops.

Do you recommend study groups?

I believe that whether or not to join study groups is a personal choice, based on your own assessment of your need for academic or psychological support.

Study groups do offer advantages but, if not properly managed, the disadvantages can easily outweigh the advantages. The workshop and Constructing a Good Dissertation discuss both the pros and the cons, and offer recommendations for the effective utilisation of study groups, should you choose to join or form one.

You can form or join a virtual study group using the forums, which I do think is a good idea. The advantage of an online study group is that you can interact as if all members of the group were present, even though they may be in different corners of the country or, indeed, the world. Also you don't all have to be online at the same time to have a 'conversation'. Click here to access the service.

I see you offer several free services and downloads on your website. Why?

Yes, I like it that way. There really is a need for this type of thing in South Africa. I also want to support the graduates of the Thesis and Dissertation workshops and readers of Constructing a Good Dissertation in any way I can.

And of course, I'm not entirely insensible to the fact that if the website is a valuable resource for Master's and Ph.D. candidates, word about Exactica's other services will spread.

Is there a difference between 'usergroups' and online study groups'?

No, they are the same thing. They are called online study groups on this website so as to make it clear what their function is.

Why is the backup service only for workshop graduates?

There are a lot of postgraduate students out there. They should all be backing up their work regularly.

However, if they all did it with Exactica, there would be gigabytes of information sent daily and there is no way that we can handle that kind of bandwidth pressure. I would probably also have to employ a team of people full-time to look after the administration. And the service would be open to abuse: we couldn't possibly check for the legitimacy of all the users.

In short, much as I'd like to, I just can't.