Reference

The words a thesis is written in, defined

Sixty terms you will meet between your first synopsis and your viva, each defined in two to four sentences. Where a body fixes the meaning we name it. Where the rule is your university's own, we say so rather than pretending there is a national one.

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All 60 terms

Study design
Statistics
Ethics and regulation
Writing and referencing
Submission and assessment

Study design

The shape of the study: what you are doing to whom, in what order, and over what period.

Aims and objectives

Also searched as: Aim · Objectives · Primary objective · Secondary objective

The aim is the one sentence that says what the study is for. The objectives are the measurable steps that deliver it, and each should name a variable, a population and a comparison where there is one. Keep one primary objective that maps to one outcome and one statistical test; everything else is secondary. An objective that does not say what will be measured cannot be matched to a test, which is where a vague synopsis runs into trouble.

Attrition

Also searched as: Loss to follow-up · Dropout

Participants who entered the study and did not complete it. It matters because the people who leave are rarely a random subset of those who stay, so attrition can move a result as well as shrink it. In a prospective design with follow-up, plan for it in the sample size, record the reason each person left, and account for every enrolled participant in the flow of your results.

Case-control study

Also searched as: Case control study

A study that starts from the outcome and looks backwards at exposure, comparing people who have the condition with people who do not. It is efficient for a rare outcome because you choose how many cases and controls to gather. It reports an odds ratio rather than a risk ratio, and its weak point is the selection of controls: they must come from the same population the cases came from, or the comparison means nothing. Watch for confounding too — a factor linked to both the exposure and the outcome can manufacture an association that is not causal, so say which ones you measured and how you allowed for them.

Cohort study

A study that starts from exposure and follows people forward to see who develops the outcome. It can be prospective, or assembled from existing records where the records are good enough. Because the exposure is known before the outcome appears, a cohort can report incidence and a risk ratio.

Cross-sectional study

A study that measures exposure and outcome at one point in time, in one group of people. It is the natural design for asking how common something is, or how two things are associated right now. Because nothing is followed over time it cannot establish which came first, so it supports statements about prevalence and association, not about cause.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Also searched as: Eligibility criteria

The rules that decide whether a patient in front of you enters the study. Inclusion criteria describe the population you intend to study; exclusion criteria remove people in whom the measurement would be unsafe, impossible or uninterpretable. Write them so that a colleague could apply them without asking you, and give each exclusion a reason. Criteria invented after recruitment has started are a source of bias and an awkward question in the viva.

Proforma

Also searched as: Case record form · CRF · Data collection sheet

The form on which each participant's data are recorded, one sheet per participant, designed before collection begins. A good proforma has a field for every variable in the analysis plan and no field you will not use, with units and ranges printed on it so two people fill it the same way. It normally goes into the thesis as an annexure, and it is also where patient identifiers must not live.

Prospective study

A study in which you decide what to measure and then start measuring, so data are generated after the protocol exists. It lets you standardise the measurement and take consent properly, which is why ethics committees are generally comfortable with it. It costs time, because the clock starts when recruitment starts.

Protocol

Also searched as: Research protocol · Thesis protocol

The full written plan of your study, settled before you collect anything. It states the question, the design, who is eligible, how many participants, how each variable will be measured, which statistical tests will answer which objective, and how consent will be taken. It is the document your ethics committee reviews, and after approval it is the thing you are held to: a change of design or of outcome measure normally needs to go back to the committee.

Randomised controlled trial

Also searched as: RCT · Randomised trial · Randomized controlled trial

A study in which participants are allocated to the interventions by chance, so that the groups differ by treatment and not, on average, by anything else. The allocation method, its concealment and who was blinded are all part of the design and all belong in the methods. In India a prospective interventional study of this kind is registered with the Clinical Trials Registry of India before the first participant is enrolled, and the ICMR's national ethical guidelines require ethics approval first.

Retrospective study

A study that uses records created before the question was asked: case sheets, registers, imaging archives, laboratory logs. It is quick and cheap, and it is limited by whatever the original clinician chose to write down. Missing fields, inconsistent definitions and absent follow-up are the usual problems, and you should say in your methods how you handled them. Using records still requires ethics committee review, and your committee will tell you what it expects in place of individual consent.

Sampling technique

Also searched as: Sampling · Consecutive sampling · Convenience sampling · Simple random sampling · Purposive sampling

How the participants you studied were picked out of everyone who was eligible. If you took every eligible patient in order of presentation, that is consecutive sampling and it should be named as such rather than called random; if you took whoever happened to be available, that is convenience sampling; if you chose particular participants for a stated reason, purposive. Simple random sampling means an explicit chance mechanism, and if you claim it you must say what the mechanism was. Name the technique in the methods and do not leave the examiner to guess.

Synopsis

A short version of the protocol, usually a few pages, submitted to your university or board for registration of the topic. It carries the title, the need for the study, the aims and objectives, the methods, the sample size with its calculation, and a reference list. A synopsis is an administrative document about a plan; a protocol is the operating manual for the work. Page limits, headings and the number of copies are set by your own institution, so ask for its template before you start typing.

This register holds 13 terms · anchor #study-design

Statistics

The terms an examiner asks about, and the ones most often used interchangeably when they are not.

Confidence interval

Also searched as: CI · 95% CI

A range around an estimate that shows how precisely you have measured it. A 95% interval is constructed so that, over many repetitions of the same study, 95% of such intervals would contain the true value. A narrow interval says your estimate is tight; a wide one says the study was small or the data noisy, which is the honest message a lone p value hides. Where an interval for a difference crosses zero, or one for a ratio crosses one, the data are compatible with no effect.

Incidence

The rate at which new cases appear in a population that did not have the condition at the start, over a stated period of observation. It answers how fast this is happening, so it needs a denominator of people at risk and a length of time. Only a design that follows people forward can measure it.

Odds ratio

Also searched as: OR

The odds of exposure among cases divided by the odds among controls, or equivalently the odds of the outcome in the exposed divided by the odds in the unexposed. It is the measure a case-control design can produce, and it is what logistic regression reports. It is not a risk ratio, and it drifts further from one as the outcome becomes common, so an odds ratio for a frequent outcome overstates the risk if you read it as one.

p value

Also searched as: p-value · Significance · Statistical significance

The probability of seeing a difference at least as large as the one in your data if there were in fact no difference in the population. A small p value says the data sit awkwardly with the no-difference assumption; it does not say how large the effect is, that it matters clinically, or how likely your hypothesis is to be true. The 0.05 threshold is a convention, not a property of nature. Report the actual value rather than only whether it crossed the line, and report it beside an effect size and a confidence interval.

Parametric and non-parametric tests

Also searched as: Parametric test · Non-parametric test · Normality · t test · Mann-Whitney · Chi-square test

Parametric tests assume the data follow a particular distribution, usually the normal one, and work on means and standard deviations: a t test comparing two independent groups is the familiar example. Non-parametric tests make no such assumption and work on ranks or on counts — a Mann-Whitney test asks the same two-group question on ranks, and a chi-square test compares proportions — so they suit skewed data, ordinal scales and very small groups. Which family you use is settled by a normality check on your own data rather than by habit, and the methods chapter should say what you examined and what you concluded. Name the specific test beside each objective in the analysis plan.

Power

The chance that a study will detect an effect of a stated size if that effect is real. It is fixed before the study by the sample size, the expected effect and the variability of the measurement. Convention sets it at 80%, which is a value you choose, state and justify rather than a rule you inherit. Power is a property of the plan, not of the result: calculating it after the analysis to explain a non-significant finding is not a defence.

Predictive value

Also searched as: PPV · NPV · Positive predictive value · Negative predictive value

The question the patient actually asks: given this result, how likely is it to be right? Positive predictive value is the proportion of positive results that are true positives; negative predictive value is the mirror image. Unlike sensitivity and specificity these depend on how common the condition is in the population you tested, so a predictive value measured in a tertiary referral clinic does not transfer to a screening camp.

Prevalence

The proportion of a defined population that has the condition at a point in time, or across a stated period. It answers how much of this there is, and it depends on both how often the condition arises and how long it lasts. A cross-sectional study measures it directly. It is not interchangeable with incidence: this one counts the cases that exist, incidence counts the cases that appear.

Relative risk

Also searched as: Risk ratio · RR

The probability of the outcome in the exposed group divided by the probability in the unexposed group. It is the measure a cohort design or a trial can produce, because you need to know who was at risk from the start. A value of one means no difference; report it with its confidence interval and, where the outcome is common, do not describe an odds ratio as though it were this.

Sample size

The number of participants the study needs to answer its primary objective at the stated power and precision. The calculation has four parts and a thesis must show all of them: the formula, the values you put into it, the published source each value came from, and the final number. Add an allowance for attrition in any design with follow-up. If your department cannot realistically supply the number, change the design, the duration or the objective, not the precision.

Sensitivity

Also searched as: True positive rate

Of the people who truly have the condition, the proportion your test calls positive. A sensitive test rarely misses disease, so a negative result from it is reassuring. It is a property of the test measured against a reference standard, and it does not depend on how common the disease is in your clinic.

Specificity

Also searched as: True negative rate

Of the people who truly do not have the condition, the proportion your test calls negative. A specific test rarely raises a false alarm, so a positive result from it carries weight. Sensitivity and specificity are read together, because a test can always be made better at one by becoming worse at the other.

Standard deviation

Also searched as: SD

A measure of how spread out the individual values are around their mean, in the same units as the measurement itself. It describes the data. The standard error of the mean is a different quantity: it describes how precisely the mean itself has been estimated, and it shrinks as the sample grows, which is why the two must never be swapped to make a result look tidier. Say which one a table reports.

Type I and Type II error

Also searched as: Alpha · Beta · False positive error · False negative error

A Type I error is concluding there is a difference when there is none; its accepted rate is alpha, usually set at 5%. A Type II error is missing a difference that is really there; its rate is beta, and power is one minus beta. The two trade off against each other at a fixed sample size, which is why you state both before you start rather than choosing afterwards.

Anonymisation

Also searched as: De-identification · Coding · Pseudonymisation

Removing or replacing the details that identify a participant — name, hospital number, address, photographs, anything that singles a person out — so that the dataset can be analysed and published without exposing them. In practice a thesis dataset is coded rather than stripped: identifiers are replaced by a study number, and the key that links the two is kept separately and securely by you. A statistician, a medical writer or anyone else helping with your thesis should only ever receive the coded file.

Clinical Trials Registry of India

Also searched as: CTRI

India's public register of clinical studies, run by the National Institute of Medical Statistics under the Indian Council of Medical Research. Registration must be prospective: the registry states that a study should be registered before the first participant is enrolled, and a trial cannot be registered after enrolment has begun. There is no fee to register, and the record is publicly searchable. Many journals will not consider an interventional study that was not registered, so settle this before recruitment rather than at writing-up.

Conflict of interest

Also searched as: Competing interest · Disclosure

Any interest that could reasonably be seen to influence how you ran or reported the study: funding, a commercial supplier of the device you tested, a personal or family interest, a paid role. The ICMJE's recommendations require it to be disclosed rather than judged in advance by the author. Declaring an interest is not an admission of bias; concealing one is the problem.

Good Clinical Practice

Also searched as: GCP · GCP training

A body of standards for designing, running, recording and reporting research on human participants, the purpose of which is that the data are credible and the participants are protected. The international reference is the ICH E6 guideline. The NMC's 2023 postgraduate regulations require a course in ethics covering good clinical practice to be completed before the final examination, and it is your own institution that runs or nominates the course which satisfies it, so ask there before you pay anyone for one.

ICMR National Ethical Guidelines 2017

Also searched as: ICMR guidelines · ICMR 2017

The Indian Council of Medical Research's National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research Involving Human Participants, published in 2017. They are the national reference for research on human participants in India: approval before data collection, mandatory informed consent, safeguards for vulnerable participants, and registration of prospective interventional studies. Read the sections that apply to your design before you write the protocol, because your committee will read them too.

Institutional Ethics Committee

Also searched as: IEC · Ethics committee · IRB · Institutional Review Board

The committee at your own institution that reviews a research proposal involving human participants and decides whether it may proceed. The Indian Council of Medical Research's 2017 national ethical guidelines require its approval before any data are collected. Institutional Review Board, or IRB, is the name used for the same function in the United States and in much of the international literature; in India the body is generally called an Institutional Ethics Committee, and a journal asking for your IRB approval means this committee's letter. Its composition, meeting calendar, application format and any review fee are set locally, so ask the committee secretary rather than assuming another college's rules.

NBEMS thesis timeline

Also searched as: NBEMS · DNB thesis deadline · DrNB thesis

The calendar the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences publishes for DNB and DrNB trainees: the protocol with ethics committee approval is uploaded within 180 days of joining, data collection completes by 24 months and the thesis is submitted by 26 months, with a late window at 27 months on payment of a fee. Submissions are capped at 80 pages, and an assessor's remarks must be addressed within six weeks. These are board deadlines rather than university ones, and the amounts of the board's fees change with its bulletins, so read the current guidelines on the board's own site against your own joining date.

NMC PGMER-2023

Also searched as: PGMER 2023 · Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations 2023 · NMC regulations

The National Medical Commission's Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023, in force from 1 January 2024. They keep the thesis compulsory for broad and super-specialty postgraduates, assess it within the practical and viva examination, and require that it be judged by an external examiner from outside the state. Regulation 5.2(x) additionally requires one research activity, a research methodology course and GCP training before the final examination. Where your university's own ordinance is stricter, that ordinance is what you are held to.

Vulnerable participant

Someone whose capacity to give free and informed consent is limited by their situation rather than by their condition alone: children, people who are unconscious or cognitively impaired, prisoners, and patients who may feel unable to refuse the doctor treating them. The ICMR's 2017 guidelines require extra safeguards where such participants are involved, and your ethics committee will ask what yours are. If your study recruits from a group like this, address it explicitly in the protocol rather than waiting to be asked.

This register holds 10 terms · anchor #ethics

Writing and referencing

We work to these published instruments · we are affiliated to none of them

Citation, integrity, authorship and the vocabulary of journals.

Two instruments sit behind this register. The University Grants Commission's 2018 regulations on academic integrity establish the convention that similarity below ten per cent is treated as acceptable, with graded penalties above it.^[3] The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors defines who may be named an author and what belongs in an acknowledgement instead.^[4] Nothing on this page predicts the figure your institution's own text-matching tool will produce, because that figure depends on a system we do not operate.

Acknowledgements

The section where you name help that contributed to the work without meeting the authorship criteria: statistical advice, language editing, technical assistance, access to equipment, funding. Naming a service you used is the honest place for it, and the ICMJE's recommendations treat that kind of contribution as an acknowledgement rather than an author line. Ask permission before naming a person, since the acknowledgement implies they endorse the work.

Article processing charge

Also searched as: APC · Publication charge · Open access fee

A fee some journals charge the author when a paper is accepted, in exchange for making it free to read. A legitimate journal publishes the amount on its instructions-to-authors page and asks for it after peer review, never as a condition of review. Many journals charge nothing at all. Find the figure before you submit, and treat a demand for payment that arrives alongside an instant acceptance as a reason to withdraw.

ICMJE authorship criteria

Also searched as: Authorship · ICMJE · Four criteria

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors sets out four conditions an author must meet: a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of its data; drafting the work or revising it critically for intellectual content; approval of the version to be published; and agreement to be accountable for the work, including for the investigation of any question raised about its accuracy or integrity. All four apply to every author, which is why supervising a department or supplying funding alone is not authorship. Contributions that fall short of all four belong in the acknowledgements.

Impact factor

Also searched as: Journal impact factor · JIF

A number published annually by Clarivate in its Journal Citation Reports, calculated from how often a journal's recent articles were cited. It describes a journal over a period, not any single paper and not its author, and it varies so much between specialties that comparing across them is meaningless. Treat a claimed impact factor on a journal's own website with suspicion unless you can find the journal in the Journal Citation Reports.

Indexed journal

Also searched as: Indexing · Indexed · PubMed · Scopus · Embase · Web of Science

A journal whose articles are catalogued in a bibliographic database, so that they can be found by someone who was not looking for that journal. PubMed, Scopus, Embase and Web of Science are the ones usually meant; each has its own selection criteria, and a journal may be in one and not another. 'Indexed' on its own therefore means very little: ask indexed where. The University Grants Commission discontinued its own CARE reference list of journals following a decision of the Commission in its 584th meeting on 3 October 2024 and asked institutions to judge journal quality themselves, so the criteria your department applies may now be local.

Paraphrasing

Restating someone else's point in your own words, with a citation. Done properly it is ordinary academic writing; done as a sentence-by-sentence substitution of synonyms it produces prose that is neither yours nor accurate, and it remains plagiarism if the citation is missing. Automated rewriting tools are particularly dangerous in medicine, because they change clinical meaning while leaving the grammar intact. Read the source, close it, then write what you understood.

Peer review

The process by which a journal sends a submitted manuscript to independent experts and uses their assessment to decide whether to publish it, usually after revision. It is slow, imperfect and still the main filter between a claim and the literature. A journal that promises publication within days is telling you it does not do this.

Plagiarism

Presenting someone else's words, ideas, figures or data as your own. It is a matter of attribution, not of word counts: a properly quoted and cited sentence is not plagiarism, and a reworded sentence with no citation still is. The University Grants Commission's 2018 regulations on academic integrity set out graded penalties for it in higher education institutions. A similarity percentage is evidence to be examined, not the definition of the offence.

Predatory journal

A journal that takes a publication fee while doing little or none of what a journal is for: no real peer review, no editorial standards, an invented or unverifiable editorial board, and often a name and website designed to resemble an established title. The usual approach is an unsolicited email promising rapid publication and flattering your work. Before submitting anywhere, look for the journal in the databases it claims to be indexed in, read a recent issue, check that the editors exist and hold the posts claimed, and ask your librarian or guide. Because the UGC no longer maintains a central reference list of journals, this judgement now sits with you and your institution.

Reference manager

Also searched as: Citation manager · Zotero · Mendeley · EndNote

Software that stores your references and renumbers the citations in your document when you insert, move or delete one. Zotero, Mendeley and EndNote are the three you will hear named, and your institution may already hold a licence for one of them. Using any of them saves the hours that manual Vancouver numbering costs, because a hand-numbered reference list breaks the moment a citation is added to the introduction. Whichever you use, check its output against the style your department requires; no manager gets every field right from an automatic import.

Reporting guideline

Also searched as: CONSORT · STROBE · PRISMA · STARD · Checklist

A checklist of the things a particular kind of study must report in order to be interpretable: CONSORT for randomised trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews, STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies. They are not rules about how to do research, only about what a reader needs to be told. Using the relevant one while you write the methods and results is the quickest way to find the sentence you forgot, and many journals ask for the completed checklist at submission.

Self-plagiarism

Also searched as: Text recycling · Duplicate publication

Reusing your own previously published text, tables or figures without saying so. It matters most when a reader would be misled into thinking the material is new, or when a publisher holds copyright in the earlier version. For a thesis that draws on a paper you have already published from the same work, declare it and follow whatever your university says about prior publication.

Similarity index

Also searched as: Similarity score · Plagiarism percentage · Turnitin · Drillbit · iThenticate · Urkund

The figure a text-matching tool reports: how much of your document matches text the tool can find elsewhere. The University Grants Commission's 2018 regulations establish the convention that similarity below 10% is treated as acceptable, with graded penalties above it; which tool is run, who runs it and what report your own university wants at submission are its decisions, and Turnitin, iThenticate, Drillbit and Urkund are the names you will meet. The figure moves with the tool, its index and the settings your institution chooses — whether the bibliography and quoted material are excluded, and the minimum match length — so two runs of the same file can differ. Nobody can promise you a number produced by a system they do not operate.

Vancouver style

Also searched as: Numbered referencing · Uniform Requirements

The numbered citation style used across medicine: references are numbered in the order they first appear in the text and listed in that order at the end. The ICMJE's recommendations point to the United States National Library of Medicine's formats for how each kind of reference is set out. The details that trip people up — how many authors before 'et al.', whether journal titles are abbreviated, where the year sits — are fixed by the style, but your university may impose its own variant, so check its template before you reformat a hundred entries.

This register holds 14 terms · anchor #writing

Submission and assessment

The paperwork, the people who sign it, and what happens to the bound volume after you hand it in.

Binding and copies

Also searched as: Hard binding · Spiral binding · Soft binding · Number of copies

How the finished thesis must be presented and how many copies must be handed in. Hard binding with the title, your name and the year on the spine is the common expectation, but the colour, the lettering, the paper, the side and top margins and the number of copies are set by each university, and some now accept or require an electronic submission instead. Confirm all of it with your department before you pay a binder, because a rebinding is paid for twice.

Bonafide certificate

Also searched as: Bona fide certificate · Bonafide declaration

A signed statement that the work presented is genuinely the candidate's own, carried out in the named institution during the training period. For DNB and DrNB candidates the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences requires a bonafide declaration bound into the thesis and signed by the trainee, the guide, the co-guide where there is one, and the head of the institution. Universities ask for the equivalent in their own wording, so take the form from your institution's current format document rather than one you found online.

Certificates and declaration

Also searched as: Preliminary pages · Front matter · Plagiarism undertaking

The signed pages that sit before the introduction: the guide's certificate, the head of department's and head of institution's endorsements, the candidate's declaration, the ethics committee approval letter, and where your institution asks for one, a similarity report with an undertaking about academic integrity. Which pages are required, in what order, and whose signature goes on each is set entirely by your own institution, so work from its format document and not from a senior's bound copy. Collect the signatures early, because every one of them depends on somebody else being in the building.

Dissertation

Also searched as: Thesis

The bound account of the research you did during your postgraduate training: introduction, review of the literature, aims and objectives, methods, results, discussion, conclusion, references and annexures. In Indian postgraduate medicine the words thesis and dissertation are used interchangeably, and which one your institution prints on the cover is a local convention. The structure, margins, font, line spacing, order of the preliminary pages and number of copies are set by your own university, so get its format document before you begin formatting.

External examiner

An examiner from outside your own institution who assesses the thesis. Under the NMC's 2023 postgraduate regulations the thesis is judged by an external examiner from outside the state, and it is evaluated as part of the practical and viva examination rather than as a separate hurdle. You will not know who they are, which is the point: write the thesis so that a stranger in your specialty can follow what you did from the methods alone.

Guide and co-guide

Also searched as: Guide · Co-guide · Supervisor · Mentor

The faculty member in your own department who is formally responsible for supervising your thesis, and where the work crosses specialties, a second faculty member from that other department. They sign the protocol, the certificates and the submission. Their eligibility, how many postgraduates one of them may supervise at a time, and how a change of guide is approved are all governed by your institution and by the NMC's regulations, not by convenience.

Modified thesis

Also searched as: Resubmission · Assessor remarks · Revision

A thesis returned with comments that must be addressed and resubmitted. For DNB and DrNB candidates the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences requires the modified thesis within six weeks of the assessor's remarks. Address each remark explicitly and say where in the document you did so; an assessor who cannot find the change will assume it was not made.

Research activity

Also searched as: Publication requirement · Poster presentation · Paper presentation

The separate requirement, at Regulation 5.2(x) of the NMC's 2023 postgraduate regulations, that every postgraduate completes at least one research activity before the final examination: a poster presentation or a podium presentation at a state, zonal or national conference of their own specialty, or a research paper published or accepted for publication in a journal of their specialty on which they are the first author. It sits alongside the research methodology course and the ethics and good clinical practice training, and it is not satisfied by the thesis itself. Plan it from the same data early, because conference deadlines do not move for you.

Viva voce

Also searched as: Viva · Oral examination · Thesis defence

The oral examination in which you answer questions on your own work. Expect to be asked why this design, where each sample size value came from, what the limitations are and what you would do differently, and expect at least one question about a statistical term you used. Knowing your own methods chapter properly is worth more than rehearsing answers, because every question ultimately comes from it.

This register holds 9 terms · anchor #submission

If a definition was not enough

A glossary settles a word. Three of these terms need a whole guide, and the costs behind several of them have a page of their own.

Sample size calculation, with worked formulas — for sample size, power and confidence interval.
How to write a synopsis, section by section — for synopsis and protocol.
How thesis similarity is measured, and reduced ethically — for similarity index, plagiarism and paraphrasing.
What a medical thesis actually costs — for binding and copies, article processing charges and ethics committee fees.
The full guide library, and the calculators.

We mentor, edit and analyse. You remain the sole author of your thesis, and nothing in this glossary is advice about your own institution's rules — those you confirm with your department.

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References

[1]
Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023, National Medical Commission. In force 1 January 2024. Thesis requirements at Regulation 5.2. nmc.org.in
[2]
DNB and DrNB thesis guidelines, National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences. Protocol within 180 days of joining for three-year courses and 90 days for the two-year post-diploma DNB; research study complete by 24 months; thesis by 26 months; 80-page limit inclusive of certificates and annexures. natboard.edu.in
[3]
Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions Regulations, 2018, University Grants Commission. Similarity below 10% treated as acceptable. ugc.gov.in
[4]
Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Authorship criteria. icmje.org
[5]
National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research Involving Human Participants, 2017, Indian Council of Medical Research. Ethics approval precedes data collection. icmr.gov.in

Document: Glossary of thesis terms · Revision 1 · Last reviewed 10 SEPT 2026

Issued by MDThesis, a brand of REDENN Informatics Private Limited

The words a thesis is written in, definedThe words a thesis is written in, defined

Tell us where your thesis stands. A senior doctor will tell you what to do next.

The words a thesis is written in, defined