I had a chat once with a Air Force officer who was wrapping up his PhD, and how much effort was 'dumped' upon this project.
So we eventually came to the topic of pages, and he simply noted....you had to show effort (which meant 100-pages minimum). However, he then spoke to the wisdom that the more you put into it (particularly after 200-pages)....the more prone you were to do stupid things (you know....not proof it enough, or fail on citations).
In his case.....he cut the matter to just over one-hundred pages, and hired a professional to grammar-check the whole thing. He admitted....this was a $250 cost item, but worth the weekend effort of the person involved.
I was reminded of the conversation because of a Focus article that popped up today....over the CEO of Springer Media (Germany).
The guy (59 years old) finished up his degree around 30 years ago....so it's odd that this pops up now.
The topic of the presentation? 'Music Criticism in Germany After 1945'. Yeah, it's a pretty odd topic to select.
Anyway, he wrote 334 pages (a lot).
The criticism pushed? Around 30 passages which are copied material, with zero attributing it to past work of others. Who pushed this? Buzzfeed and Speigel.
So, the University of Frankfurt is checking things out. The degree potentially to be taken away? Yeah.
How this comes up? Unknown.....no one says why Buzzfeed decided to target the guy. Affecting his CEO status? I would take a guess that he would immediately retire (taking some 'gift' package from the company) and some new player would be appointed to CEO status.
The thing I will note here....just about every eight to twelve months....some VIP in German society with a Masters/PhD.....gets a reality check on their thesis. This gets dragged out and it's serious (in terms of status).
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