Dissertations are long and detailed researched papers that are assigned to students by their teachers at the end of their academic years. The main aim of the teachers for assigning these dissertations is to check the intellect and the skills of the students and to see how much and what the students have learned during their academic years and whether they are ready to join the professional world and take the pressure. They assign a particular topic related to their field of study and expect students to submit top-quality and brilliantly written dissertations on the given deadlines.

Peer Review Journals:

On the other hand, a peer review is a scholarly form of review for journal articles published by top academic writers. After an article is written and done with, it is sent to an academic journal, where the editor sends it to several reviewers, who are scholars of their field, for evaluation and remarks. These reviewers or scholars read the paper and check it out from every angle, examine the paper’s methodology, literature review, and conclusions and note the existence of errors in facts or other flaws. The peer reviewers may accept the article, require rewrites from the authors, or reject the article.

When we ask if dissertations are peer reviews, the answer in most of cases would be no. It is because dissertations are assigned by teachers to their students, and it is the teachers themselves who check out these papers and award marks accordingly. The students usually do not on such a higher level that their papers are sent for peer review by the teacher as it takes a lot of time to read, understand, analyze and check out the paper for facts and figures and other data.

Are Dissertations Peer Reviewed?

One class has hundreds of students, and getting every dissertation reviewed by a peer scholar means a lot of time which the students and teachers do not have. Thus, when it is the classic case of teachers’ assigning dissertations to their students, the dissertations are not peer-reviewed. The teacher or the supervisor checks the dissertations and awards grades accordingly.

There are a few exceptions, however, that if teachers find a certain or one paper which is exceptional in research and findings and provides some very unusual information, the teacher might be tempted to have that paper reviewed by peer scholars to get the research and information checked and approved by others too before marking it.

Final Words:

There are many students who are really brilliant and manage to come up with the best dissertation papers when they are assigned topics, as they want to excel in their studies and do well in the future. Such students’ papers might be peer-reviewed as the teachers might find them worthy enough to be read by other scholars and send them for peer review. However, when we talk in general terms and overall assessment, it would not be wrong to say that dissertations are not peer-reviewed, and they are checked and assessed by teachers who assign them.