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Library Guides

Psychology

Your guide to effectively using information for your Psychology studies

Theses are available to help support you with your dissertations. Dissertations are a much longer and in-depth form of assignment than your previous assignments. You will complete your own research, use many more resources, focusing in a specific area of study and possibly writing in a way that you are not so familiar with.

Don't forget that you can also contact Emily Smart to arrange a 1-2-1 appointment to discuss searching and finding resources. 1-2-1 appointments can be in person or by video using Zoom.

Guide to Theses

Thesis in the UK refers normally to Doctoral/ PhD level research work, while a dissertation refers to Undergraduate/Postgraduate level original work of a shorter length. It is important to note that the US these terms are reversed and you normally hear PhD/ Doctoral work referred to as a dissertation, while work at a lower level is normally a dissertation.

Theses and dissertations are not peer-reviewed but a PhD Thesis or Dissertation will be a very high-level piece of in-depth work and would have passed after a difficult defense against a panel of academics. If you find a useful PhD thesis I would still recommend seeing if the author has published any articles from it, as this is normal in the sciences.

The links below will help you find theses and possibly dissertations too. Check the qualification of the work you find- even the best postgraduate work may not be rigorous enough and may require a discussion with a supervisor to decide whether it should be used or not.

If you don't have Open Access to an item, it may be worth placing an Inter Library Loan if you really need the thesis. Do bear in mind you will only be able to place these for items found via ETHoS as the British Library supply our Inter Library Loans.

University of Plymouth Theses

Electronic full text PhD theses and some masters dissertations are stored in PEARL and they can be searched and accessed via PRIMO:
1.    Make your search in Primo selecting Plymouth research outputs and theses from the drop down menu.

2.    The results  list will contain details of both PhD theses and masters dissertations. To narrow down the results to just PhD theses or masters dissertation, use the Refine My Results options on the left of the screen

3.    The Details tab provides the abstract and the View Online tab or the title will link to the full text.

Some theses can be subject to embargos on grounds of confidentiality or other ethical reasons

UK Theses

The British Library runs a service called EThOS, which enables individuals to register online at http://ethos.bl.uk and access UK PhD theses. EThOS currently provides details of more than 250,000 theses, many of which are available electronically and can be downloaded from EThOS including all Plymouth PhD theses. 

Plymouth theses can also be accessed from PEARL (the university repository) via Primo along with a selection of Masters theses. If you are a PhD student you can find out about depositing your thesis from our Library Research Support & Services library guide

Global Theses

You may discover theses referenced in scholarly work, but it is worth nothing that there are limits on discoverability due to lack of metadata and archiving in many regions or institutions. However, you may find the following links useful:

Proquest Digital Theses Open
Find Open Access theses from international institutions. You should be able to access these via a link.

Open Access Theses and Dissertations
Attempts to collate records for Open Access graduate Theses and Dissertations from around the world.