Thesis Assistant

How to use Thesis Assistant

What it is. A research plan for a thesis: candidate topics against your interest and region, a research gap framed, a literature review structure, citation styles, and real papers related to your topic — with no invented citations, ever.

When to open it. At the start, when the topic is still open. A research plan produced after the topic is fixed is a justification rather than a plan.

Have ready.

• A research interest, however broad.
• Optionally your degree level, your specialisation and your country or research region.

Step by step.

1. Describe your research interest. Broad is fine at this stage; that is what the tool is for.
2. Add your degree level and specialisation if you know them. An MSc plan and a PhD plan are not the same shape.
3. Add your country or research region. Research resources and relevance are both regional.
4. Press 'Build my research plan'.
5. Read the research gap framing before the topic list. The gap is what makes a topic a thesis rather than a summary.
6. Check every paper it gives you. They are real, and you should still open them — reading a citation is not reading a paper.
7. Download the PDF to take to your supervisor.

What it will not do. It plans; it does not supervise, and it does not write your thesis. It cannot know your department's requirements, your supervisor's interests, what data you can actually get, or what an ethics committee will allow.

Every setting in Thesis Assistant, explained

Research interest

What you want to work on. How to choose: Say it in your own words, as broadly as you actually feel. A narrow statement at this stage forecloses options you have not considered. If it is wrong: Too narrow and the candidate topics are variations on a decision you have already made.

Degree level

MSc, PhD, or whatever applies. How to choose: It changes the scope of what is proposed. A PhD-scale question in an MSc year is the commonest way a thesis fails. If it is wrong: You get a plan of the wrong size, and size is the thing supervisors correct most often.

Specialisation or focus

The sub-field. How to choose: If you have one. If you do not, leave it out and let the candidate topics suggest one. If it is wrong: Nothing. It narrows, and narrowing early is only good once you are sure.

Country or research region

Where the research would be done. How to choose: Worth filling in. Relevance, data availability and the resources that exist are all regional. If it is wrong: You get a globally framed plan and then discover the data does not exist where you are.

A worked example

An MSc student with an interest in soil carbon and no fixed topic.

What goes in:

• Research interest: soil carbon
• Degree level: MSc
• Region entered

What comes out:

• Candidate thesis topics, at MSc scope.
• A research gap framing for each — what is not yet known.
• A literature review structure.
• Real papers related to the topic, with citation styles.
• Regional research resources.

Take this to the supervisor, not away from them. Its value is that the first conversation starts from three framed options and a reading list instead of from 'I'm interested in soil carbon'.

How to read what it gives you

• Citations are real. The tool does not invent them, which is a low bar that a great many tools fail — and a fabricated citation in a thesis proposal is a very expensive discovery.
• A real citation is still not a read paper. Open every one before it goes in a document with your name on it.
• The research gap is the load-bearing part. A topic without a gap is a literature review.
• Scope follows degree level, and getting the scope wrong is the most common structural problem with a thesis proposal.

What usually goes wrong

• Citing a paper you have not opened.
• Taking a PhD-sized question into an MSc year.
• Skipping the gap framing and going straight to the topic list.
• Treating the plan as the proposal. It is the material for a conversation with a supervisor.

Questions people ask about Thesis Assistant

How do I choose a thesis topic?

Start from an interest and a gap, not from a title. A topic is a thesis when there is something genuinely not yet known that you could find out at the scale of your degree and with data you can actually obtain. The plan gives you candidate topics with the gap stated for each, which is the form a supervisor can respond to.

Will it invent citations?

No. It returns real papers related to your topic, and not inventing citations is treated as an absolute rule rather than a preference — a fabricated reference discovered in a thesis proposal is a serious matter. You should still open every one: a real citation is not a read paper.

What is a research gap?

Something that is not yet known, stated clearly enough that finding it out would be a contribution. It is the difference between a thesis and a literature review, and it is the part supervisors push back on hardest, which is why the plan frames it first.

Can it write my thesis?

No, and it does not try to. It produces the plan: candidate topics, the gap, a literature review structure, citation styles and real related papers. The work and the writing are yours, which is the only version in which the degree means anything.