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Note: Most of this page is in German. Future additions should be done in English. At some point, some good soul might translate the German "legacy documentation" to English as well.

Interaction With Your

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Adviser(s)

A good interaction with your advisoradviser(s) is key to success. Unless you happen to have substantial work experience and to be already an expert in your field, your advisor adviser is ahead of you in terms of experience and expertise. Take advantage of this to improve your own work.

Advisors Advisers are humans. They like to help you with your thesis topic; they don't like to have to "drive" it, or to get the feeling that their advice (including the hints on this page) is ignored. You, and not your advisoradviser, should be the one who is pushing your work, asking questions, intiiating initiating discussions, and handing over thesis/chapter drafts without having to be explicitly asked for it. In short, your advisor adviser should be convinced that your work is on track.

Even in the age of modern communication devices, the basis of a good communication with your advisor adviser is regular physical presence. Most of the time, we are in the fortunate position that we can provide you with a full-time desk, typically in the lab (1114/1115). Use this desk for doing your thesis work, and not your PC at home. A key communication instrument in the RTSYS group is the 9:30am tea, which you should participate in as well. One exception are theses that are done in collaboration with industry and where the industry partner provides the work space. In that case, you should keep your advisor adviser here on track with regular progress reports. Usually, a short an E-mail every 2 to 4 -6 weeks suffices for that.

Usually, your thesis is a full-time job, also meaning full-time presence at your desk. In case you also have other regular work to do, discuss this with your advisor adviser at the beginning of your thesis work.

Timing is (Almost) Everything

Sie sollten insbesondere bei der Anfertigung der schriftlichen Ausfertigung auf die Erfahrungen des Betreuers zugreifen. Sie sollten dem Betreuer also Entwürfe Ihrer Arbeit zukommen lassen, bevor Sie die zu benotende Endversion einreichen. Ihre Entwürfe sollten dabei aus Ihrer Sicht möglichst reif sein, müssen aber noch keineswegs vollständig sein. Eine bewährte Sequenz von abzuliefernden Dokumenten ist:

AktionMasterarbeit/DiplomarbeitBachelorarbeit/StudienarbeitIdee
Gliederung3 Monate vor Abgabe6 Wochen vor AbgabeZur Halbzeit sollte man schon einen Plan haben, welche Themen in der Arbeit grundsätzlich diskutiert werden sollen. Dies muss rechtzeitig mit dem Betreuer besprochen werden.
1-2 Probekapitel4 Wochen vor Abgabe3 Wochen vor AbgabeProbekapitel sollen grundsätzliche stilistische Probleme zeigen und verhindern, dass bei der Endkorrektur alles grundsätzlich anders gemacht werden muss.
Komplette Arbeit2 Wochen vor Abgabe10 Tage vor AbgabeDie Abgabe der kompletten Arbeit vor der offiziellen Abgabe dient unter anderem dazu, dass stilistische/orthographische Korrekturen noch in die Arbeit einfließen können, bevor diese offiziell abgegeben/veröffentlicht ist. Das dient nicht nur der Verbesserung der Arbeit, sondern ist auch für den Betreuer befriedigender.

Für Arbeiten, welche in Zusammenarbeit mit einem Industrieunternehmen angefertigt werden, gilt diese Sequenz ebenso; Sie sollten hier jedoch Entwürfe, welche Sie dem universitären Betreuer zukommen lassen, vorher entsprechend von Ihrem Betreuer aus dem Unternehmen durchsehen lassenChances are your adviser has already supervised one or more theses. Take advantage of his or her experience! Send him drafts of the chapters of your thesis before submitting the final thesis. Of course, the drafts should be as good as possible from your point of view. Your adviser can only improve your drafts so much. If your draft is of low quality, (s)he can help you push it to an okay-ish level; but if the draft is already of high-quality to start with, (s)he can help you achieve an excellent result. Note that your drafts need not be complete yet: you can always hand in missing bits and pieces later on. Here's a schedule that has proven to work well regarding when to hand in what.

WhatMaster's ThesisBachelor's ThesisMotivation
Outline3 months before final submission6 weeks

Once you are halfway through your thesis, you should have a basic idea of which topics you want to cover in your thesis. This must be discussed with your adviser.

1–2 chapters4 weeks3 weeks

The first drafts you submit are used to make you aware of basic problems of your writing style. Getting this feedback as early as possible in your writing process means that you won't have to change the whole thesis after you submit your final draft.

Complete thesis2 weeks10 days

Submitting a draft of your complete thesis before the final submission gives your adviser enough time to find problems and gives you enough time to incorporate corrections into your final thesis. This doesn't only improve the quality of your thesis, but also satisfies your adviser.

Theses done in collaboration with industry partners follow the same schedule. The drafts you submit to your adviser at the university, however, should previously be run past your industry adviser.

Keeping Notes

A common experience: while you do your investigative/implementation work, everything is clear - clear — until you try to write things up, weeks or months later. Thus we highly recommend to take notes along the way, eg, as part of a chapter draft of your thesis.

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Grundsätzlich gilt: Die Software ist „sauber“ zu schreiben und zu dokumentieren, unter Beachtung eines evtl. vorhandenen Projekthandbuchs. Die Qualität und Leserlichkeit Ihrer Software sowie der Dokumentation geht in die Bewertung Ihrer Arbeit mit ein.

Reviews

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and Ratings

More often than not, you will write code as part of your thesis. To make sure that code is of a certain quality, it must be run through design and code reviews. The way this works is explained on this page. The reviews are not only intended to improve the quality of your code, but also to give feedback to you as a programmer to help you improve.

What Grade Do I Get For All This?

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