Thesis Submission

General
A doctoral thesis is a test of the student's ability to compose a large and well-ordered scientific presentation that describes in a clear and concise manner the study that was performed by the writer. The thesis must comprise a complete entity and be self-contained. It must convey to the reader, clearly and unambiguously, the main line of thought which led the investigator to his/her conclusions, as well as all the data required for the reader to judge for himself/herself the reliability of the work and conclusions reached. Side issues that are not connected to the central theme of the thesis (even if they involved considerable expenditure of time) may be included as appendices in order not to disrupt the natural flow of the thesis. The writing should be of the highest scientific caliber, although the writer should bear in mind that some of the readers, possibly including some of the referees, might not be intimately familiar with the particular field that the thesis describes.

Below you will find detailed instructions concerning the format of your thesis. Please keep in mind that a doctoral dissertation is not just another report. It is actually a book that will be placed on your shelf, on your advisor’s shelf, used by your advisor's future students and/or by your own future students, and may be placed in your family library. As such it should be both well written, informative and aesthetic.

Deadline
Students in the Regular PhD Track must submit their theses by the 54th month of their studies. Students in the Direct PhD Track or in the PhD for MDs Tracks must submit their theses by the 42nd week of their studies. The relevant Board of Studies and the FGS Dean may change these deadlines in individual cases. Failing to submit the thesis on time might result in the termination of the student's studies. Current information concerning the thesis submission deadline may be viewed by FGS students at a special online service.

Thesis Format
In the past two thesis formats existed: the "Regular Format" and the "Published Papers Format". Approval for submission of a "Published Papers Format" thesis, in which published papers replaced parts of the Results section of the thesis, depended on the number of the papers the student had published, as first author, in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Inclusion of papers in a thesis is merely a technical means of presenting results that have been published in the scientific literature and does not replace other parts of the thesis, such as the Introduction and Discussion. Therefore, it has been decided to introduce a new unified format for theses that will replace the two formats that used to exist.
 
The new format allows the student to choose between two alternative ways to present his results in the Results section of the thesis:

(a)

To present the results in the standard manner (text, figures, schemes, tables, etc).

(b)

To replace the presentation of some or all of the results with published paper(s) that describe these results. There is no minimal number of papers that may be included in a thesis in this manner, so long as each of these papers fulfills all of the following criteria:   1. The paper is a primary research paper (not a review, review-style book chapter, or meeting abstract), and was published in a peer-reviewed journal [or as a peer-reviewed abstract in a scientific conference – as is customary in Mathematics and Computer Science).  2. The paper must be at the “published”, “in press” or “accepted” stage. That is - the student (or mentor) is in a possession of a formal, final acceptance letter or E-mail from the journal. The following stages do not fulfill these threshold requirements: "in preparation", "submitted", or "in revision". 3. The student is either sole first author or one of two equally-contributing first authors. Papers in which the student is one of three or more equally-contributing first authors will not be considered for this purpose. In case of scientific disciplines where a different order of author listing is customary (e.g. alphabetical order), the student's advisor and examiners will determine if indeed the paper abides by the spirit of the above-mentioned requirements.

Thesis structure
The following structure of the thesis is mandatory:
 

	Title page: The title page (both in Hebrew and English) should include the subject title followed by the sentence “Thesis For the degree of Ph.D. presented to the Scientific Council of the Weizmann Institute of Science”, and the date presented, as well as the name/s of the supervisor/s of the research.
1.	Table of Contents
2.	List of abbreviations
3.	Abstract: In English and in Hebrew, one page limit. The abstract will briefly summarize the background, results, and conclusions of the thesis.
4.	Introduction: Will describe the scientific background and define the open questions in the field. The Introduction will review and summarize the current state of knowledge in the field in the scientific literature and will raise questions and note mistakes or possible gaps in this knowledge. At the end of this chapter the hypothesis behind the study, its goals, and its scientific importance will be emphasized. It is stressed that the thesis Introduction must be broader and more inclusive than the typical introduction to a scientific journal paper, hence the Introductions to papers included in the thesis cannot substitute for this chapter of the thesis. However, ideas and concepts that appear in these introductions, may, of course, be included in the thesis Introduction Chapter.
5.	Methods: This chapter will include descriptions of all the techniques that were used. Procedures that were described previously in the literature and which were used as such without any modifications may be described in brief (one-two sentences that explain the basic principle of the method) and the relevant reference provided. Methods that were developed during the thesis work, methods that were based on published protocols that were modified in the course of this work, or methods that do not appear in the literature at all (e.g. obtained from a collaborator) will be described in full. Methods that are described in sufficient detail in a paper that is part of the Results section may be described only briefly in this section provided that a reference to this paper is provided. In Mathematics, the intermediate steps of proofs must be presented in greater detail than normally done in the scientific literature. Full description of derivatives should be included as an appendix.
6.	Results: This chapter will include the full description of the results obtained in the thesis work. Whenever possible, the results should be presented in the form of graphs or tables with the appropriate statistical analysis. This chapter may also include a short discussion that emphasizes the connections between the various experiments and which explains the order in which the results are presented. In addition:   (a) The writer may include in this section paper(s) which he has published and which describe some or all of his results, instead of describing these results anew.  (b) There is no minimal number of papers that may be added in this manner, provided each paper abides by the criteria defined above. (c) A paper that is added to this section will be added in its entirety – Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, References, supplementary materials (text and figures), etc. (d) A short explanation of the contribution of each added paper to the thesis must be included. If the paper lists authors in addition to the thesis writer and mentor (this includes cases where the paper also includes one or more “non-first” authors), the work done by the thesis writer in this paper must be identified. (e) Results that were not published in papers or which were included in papers that do not abide by the criteria for inclusion in the thesis will be presented in the standard manner. Consequently, the Results chapter in the thesis may include both published papers and results presented in the standard way.
7.	Discussion: The discussion will form an independent chapter summarizing the results as a whole. The results obtained and the proof of the basic hypothesis will be compared with results and conclusions of other investigations that appear in the scientific literature. It is desirable to end this chapter with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the research. This chapter should provide a wide view of the subject matter of the thesis, its conclusions, implications, and potential future developments. This chapter should be broader and wider than the Discussion chapters of paper(s) included in the Results section and should not be merely a collation of these chapters. However, since the paper(s) and the thesis discuss the same research, the ideas and interpretations of the individual papers may be included in the broader Discussion of the thesis.
8.	Literature: The literature cited in the thesis must be presented as is customary in scientific publications; titles of articles must be presented in full.  At the end of this chapter, the student will include a list of his (her) publications derived from the doctoral research.
9.	Declaration: The student must declare that the thesis summarizes his/her independent research. If a portion of the research was performed in collaboration with another investigator(s) and/or students, the collaboration should be explained as clearly as possible. This includes specifying which parts of the thesis describe results from this collaboration, and what had been the role of the student in the collaboration.
10.	Supervisor's Letter: In cases where a thesis includes one (or more) published papers in which the student submitting the thesis is one of two equally-contributing first authors, the mentor must add a letter explaining the respective roles of each of the two first authors in this paper. The mentor must also declare that the paper will not be included in another PhD thesis, except for cases in which the contributions of the two first authors are entirely distinct and separable.

 
Acknowledgements page
It is both customary and appropriate to add to the thesis an acknowledgementa page.

Language
The thesis is to be written in English (except in the field of Science Teaching).

Scope
The thesis should not exceed 100 pages (excluding pictures, graphs, and bibliography). The preferred font is "Times New Roman", size 12, 1.5 line-spacing, with margins of no less than 1.5 cm.

Supervisor's Approval
The student's supervisor must approve the submission of the thesis in an email sent to the PhD Studies Coordinator at FGS.
 
Online Submission of the Thesis

1.	The thesis must be submitted through a dedicated online service
2.	It should be uploaded as a single  PDF file only
3.	The English and Hebrew titles of the thesis should be typed in exactly as they appear of the title page.
4.	There is an option to type in a number of keywords relevant to the research area and thesis.
5.	In addition, two hard copies (duplex printing is obligatory), and one copy on a CD must be submitted to FGS.

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Thesis Defense

Thesis Defense Tracks
There are two thesis defense tracks: A regular track and an internal track. The default is the regular track. Both tracks are identical, except that in the regular track the PhD approval committee includes a non-WIS member.

Selection of a Thesis Defense Track
The recommendation of which track to approve will be made by the student's supervisor and by the student's PhD advisory committee (examiners) at the time of the Final Report exam. The recommendation will reflect the status of the project at that time. This recommendation is subject to approval by the Board of Studies and by the FGS Dean. Therefore, regardless of their recommendation, the advisor and the examiners still need to propose external referees.

Criteria for Recommending the Internal Track
The mentor and the members of the student’s PhD advisory committee may recommend that a thesis be reviewed in the internal track if at least two-thirds of the material in the thesis were previously published in papers defined in the section "Thesis Format" above (regardless of their number).

Request to Change Tracks
Students may submit a request to switch to the internal defense track up to two months prior to the approved deadline of the thesis.

Members of the PhD Approval Committee
In both tracks, a professor from WIS who did not have any formal association with the student and/or his/her research will chair the PhD Approval Committee. Other members will be the student's advisor(s) and one of the student's examiners. In the regular track, the PhD Approval Committee will also include a non-WIS Faculty member.

Scheduling the Thesis Defense

1.	Following the submission of the thesis, the student will receive an email message listing the names of the referees who have been appointed as the student's PhD Approval Committee.
2.	Immediately following receipt of the abovementioned message, the student will contact all members of his/her PhD Approval Committee to schedule a date for the thesis defense (preferably within 6 weeks of the submission of the thesis).
3.	As soon as the date is set, the student must forward this date to the PhD Studies Coordinator at FGS.

Defending the Thesis
The appointed PhD Approval Committee will convene to meet with the student.

PhD Approval Committee Recommendations
Following the exam, members of the PhD Approval Committee may recommend one of the four options listed below:

(a)	Approve the thesis as is
(b)	Approve the thesis after minor corrections are applied
(c)	Approve the thesis only after major changes are applied
(d)	Reject the thesis

Typical Comments Made by Referees

1.	Errors of spelling and style. This is particularly prominent in dissertations that include published material in which a large gap exists between the quality of the English in the articles and the connecting sections written by the student.  Some of the referees prepare a list of errors to be corrected, but most of them note the fact and request that editing and proofreading be carried out.
2.	Incomplete chapters or incorrect chapter order.
3.	The corrections need to be approved by the supervisor.
4.	In rare cases, major corrections, even including repeating experiments, may be requested.

Applying the Corrections

	Should the PhD Approval Committee decide that corrections are necessary before it can approve the thesis, the student will be notified in writing (including comments made by the referees and a list of the required corrections).
	The student must submit, within two weeks, a corrected version of the thesis along with a list of all the corrections that were made. This should be done through the FGS online service. If major corrections are required then the WIS Institutional Theses Committee will decide on the timetable for completing the corrections.
	The corrections need to be approved by the supervisor.
	If not satisfied with the corrections performed by the student, the WIS Thesis committee may decide not to approve the thesis. Since approval of the thesis is a pre-condition for approval of the PhD degree, this will prevent approval of the PhD degree.

Grades and Distinctions
PhD Theses at the Weizmann Institute of Science are not assigned grades of any sort. The Scientific Council of the Weizmann Institute of Science does not award degrees with distinctions such as Cum Laude or Magna Cum Laude.

Approval of the Degree

	Following the approval of the thesis and by the WIS Institutional Theses Committee, the FGS will ask the Scientific Council of the Weizmann Institute of Science to approve the degree (Such requests are sent to the Council regularly).
	Following the Council's approval the student must submit to the FGS one corrected printed and bound copy (duplex printing is obligatory), and one copy on a CD.