Amelia
New member
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2026
- Messages
- 15
I need help because I'm getting completely conflicting information and my brain is about to short-circuit. 
I'm working on my master's thesis and trying to figure out what sources I can actually use. My professor keeps telling me to only cite peer-reviewed sources, which makes sense. But when I found this really relevant dissertation from 2022 and asked if I could use it, she said "dissertations aren't peer-reviewed, be careful."
But then I'm reading online and some university library guides explicitly list dissertations as academic resources that undergo "formal evaluation" . And there's this whole thing about "article-based dissertations" where the chapters are literally peer-reviewed journal articles that have already been through the process . So which is it??
From what I'm piecing together, the answer seems to be... complicated. A traditional dissertation is reviewed by a committee of experts (your supervisor, internal and external examiners) who grill you on it and can request revisions . That's rigorous! But it's not the same as anonymous peer review for a journal, where reviewers don't know you and have no stake in the outcome. One library guide straight up says theses and dissertations are "not universally considered to have been peer-reviewed" .
And apparently the "PhD by publication" model changes things completely—if your dissertation is a collection of published journal articles, those articles are peer-reviewed, but the connecting chapters might not be .
So... what do I actually tell my professor? Is it safer to just avoid dissertations altogether? Or is there a way to explain that some dissertations have peer-reviewed components? I'm so confused and my lit review is due in two weeks.
Help!
I'm working on my master's thesis and trying to figure out what sources I can actually use. My professor keeps telling me to only cite peer-reviewed sources, which makes sense. But when I found this really relevant dissertation from 2022 and asked if I could use it, she said "dissertations aren't peer-reviewed, be careful."But then I'm reading online and some university library guides explicitly list dissertations as academic resources that undergo "formal evaluation" . And there's this whole thing about "article-based dissertations" where the chapters are literally peer-reviewed journal articles that have already been through the process . So which is it??
From what I'm piecing together, the answer seems to be... complicated. A traditional dissertation is reviewed by a committee of experts (your supervisor, internal and external examiners) who grill you on it and can request revisions . That's rigorous! But it's not the same as anonymous peer review for a journal, where reviewers don't know you and have no stake in the outcome. One library guide straight up says theses and dissertations are "not universally considered to have been peer-reviewed" .
And apparently the "PhD by publication" model changes things completely—if your dissertation is a collection of published journal articles, those articles are peer-reviewed, but the connecting chapters might not be .
So... what do I actually tell my professor? Is it safer to just avoid dissertations altogether? Or is there a way to explain that some dissertations have peer-reviewed components? I'm so confused and my lit review is due in two weeks.
Help!
