A while ago Jan asked whether doctoral dissertations should be written as monographs or a collection of articles, criticising article compendia as “mainstream” (i.e. “not challenging” and “not provoking”). There are many pros and cons of each types, monographs as well as article compendia. But to be fair, this is not the only distinction between different types of dissertations. Here are some other distinguishing features:
- The purpose of the dissertation. Some countries have so-called “industrial PhDs” which may follow different tracks (see courses, obligations, even length of dissertation) than research-oriented PhDs.
- The composition of the content. There are not only article compendia and monographs but a lot of different versions in between. Some universities accept “essay theses” (ie unpublished articles), others might debate what qualifies as an “article” (to the extent that work might qualify that could have been but has not been published in conference proceedings – don’t ask). What should be there in any case is a contribution 
- The review process and dissertation defence. This can range from external (other university and country-origin) peer review to “only” facing a committee in the end. It also differs how many “opponents” there are, and whether they are university-internal, -external, or a mixture of both. (The internal-only committees giving rise to the Mike Slackenernies of this world.) Some countries let you make amendments before the defence, others afterwards…
- The grading scheme. (Yes, there may be grades at some universities.)
- Other obligations throughout the process. These pretty much depend on the status (employee or student) and financing (salary, project or scholarship) of a doctoral student. Obligations include coursework, teaching, and project work.
- The admission to doctoral studies. Not to forget, there are also differences as to the prior qualifications of students, ranging from an MSc in the given major plus comps, language tests and GMAT, to an “any major and degree qualifies” as long as the student can be supervised.
In essence, a PhD is not a PhD. It’s important to have some quality control, though, and articles published from a PhD (whether prior or after defending) are used for exactly that, showing that the work is good enough beyond the own university. But back to the notion of the novelty of monographs (vs. article dissertations); this depends on the people accepting a PhD at a university not being too conservative themselves.
In any case, there are many pros and cons related to monographs and article compendia. This discussion will continue – the latest at the next NORDLOG workshop in 2008 (Jun 4, 2008), which title is “The process of writing a doctoral thesis in logistics – are there best practices?“
Gyöngyi
