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Thesis

THESIS

The aim of the thesis is:

Independently processing the knowledge of Pharmacognosy, Phytochemistry, Phytotherapy, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology or related areas, to help students acquire the methods of library and literature search, to synthesize their knowledge on the given issue, to form critical opinions and to prepare a work at the level of scientific literature. The Department also recommends and enables experimental work on given topics.

Requirements:

  • The chosen topic discusses a current issue in the given discipline.
  • During the processing of the topic, it is necessary to know and use sources related to the field concerned, the most important international journals and electronically available publications (bibliographic and full-text publications). When citing electronic sources, the DOI number and URL must be indicated.
  • The length of the thesis must not be less than 50,000 characters and not more than 100,000 characters, without spaces, including tables, figures and bibliography, except for the appendix
  • The thesis must be submitted in 2 printed copies, together with the plagiarism statement, and electronically to the educational department responsible for the supervision. The title of the thesis, the student’s name, grade and group, year of submission and the name and place of work of the consultant should be indicated on the cover, see example below.

Conditions provided by the University:

  • The processing of the topic is assisted by the competent superviosor of the chosen department.
  • In order to facilitate the choice of topics, the department prepares a list, on which the names of the supervisors are also given. The Department of Pharmacognosy publishes the list of topics on the Moodle interface of Pharmacognosy II and sends a copy to the Registrar’s Office.
  • The deadline for posting the topic list for grade IV is October 1.
  • The student preparing the thesis can use the Central and Departmental libraries, and IT laboratories of the University and use their services for traditional and electronic literature research.
  • The University does not provide special assistance for the text editing, printing, binding and preparation of the diagrams of the thesis, the cost of which is borne by the student.

Order of preparation of the master’s thesis

  • Students can choose a thesis topic from any of the published list. The choice of topic may be different from the published ones, if the head of the department or the lecturer of the subject agrees with this.
  • The topic of the thesis must be selected with the chosen supervisor in the 1st semester of grade IV and reported to the Head of the Department by 16 October, who, will ensure its registration (until 21 October). As a consultant, the Head of Department or the supervisor may also appoint an external expert (honorary professor, associate professor, researcher).
  • The student is obliged to report to the consultant at least three times. For the first time (until 15 December of the IV. year), the supervisor describes the requirements and subject possibilities related to the preparation of the thesis. For the second time (until May 16), the student reports on the work done so far. For the third time (until 15 November), the supervisor evaluates the student’s results and provides guidance for their final form.
  • Award-winning papers in the Rector’s Award Competition may be accepted by the Dean as a thesis evaluated with an “excellent” grade, following the recommendation of the Head of the educational-research unit, if the student requests so in an application previously submitted to the Registrar’s Office.
  • A scientific paper published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal within the framework of studies – or accepted for publication by an editorial board – where the student is a first author may be accepted as a thesis by the Dean, in which case the evaluation shall be carried out according to the general rules.
  • Exemption from the obligation to write the thesis does not exempt students from the obligation to defend it.
  • The completed thesis must be submitted to the department by March 1.
  • The department evaluates the thesis with a five-grade [excellent (5), good (4), medium (3), satisfactory (2), unsatisfactory (1)] qualification, and prepares a textual evaluation of up to one page.
  • The thesis will be defended by March 22 before a committee of at least three members of the Department, consisting of at least the head of the department or his deputy, the supervisor and one of the lecturers of the Department.
  • As the third member of the committee, the department may use external lecturers, e.g. honorary professors or associate professors of the University.
  • In case of unsatisfactory qualification, the student cannot be admitted to the final examination. The department will notify the student of this fact. Insufficient thesis can only be replaced once
  • The departments will send the report certifying the preparation, defense and evaluation of the thesis, together with copies of the theses, to the Registrar’s Office by March 31.
  • The report certifying the protection and evaluation is filled out by the department on the “Diploma Protection Protocol” form. The completed form is attached to the thesis by the Head of Department or the lecturer of the subject and sent to the Dean’s Office by the prescribed deadline. A copy of the form remains with the department.
  • The Dean’s Office ensures that the members of the final examination committee receive the thesis and its written evaluation at the examination. Members of the final examination committee may ask the student questions about the thesis during the final exam.
  • After a successful final exam, a copy of the thesis will be returned to the student.

Formal aspects of preparing a thesis

  • The length of the thesis is 50,000-100,000 characters (approximately 30-70 pages), without spaces (this includes tables, figures and bibliography, except for the appendix)
  • Font: Times New Roman, font size 12
  • Line spacing: 1.5
  • Margin: 3 cm in all directions
  • Page numbering: bottom of page, middle (all pages numbered)
  • Title page: according to the sample annexed – thesis_title_page_sample.docx
  • Latin species and genus names of plants should be written in italics. After the first mention, binary names can be abbreviated e.g. Matricaria recutita – recutita
  • The figures and tables shall be accompanied by explanatory text which is comprehensible in itself. It shall be placed above tables and below figures. Figures and tables should be numbered separately sequentially and referred to in the text (e.g. Figure 1, Table 1).
  • In the case of a diagram/table taken from a journal or book, the source must be cited as described in the citation.

There are two ways to refer to sources in the text:

  1. in the order in which they appear in the text, numbers should be enclosed in square brackets, e.g. [10, 22-24], or
  2. the surname of the author and the year of publication (e.g. Holló, 2018), in case of a two-author publication: (e.g. Csanády and Törőcsik, 2019), in case of more than two authors, the first author is indicated, the staff are indicated by the abbreviation “et al.”: (Felegyi-Tóth et al., 2023).

 All papers referred to in the paper should be included in the bibliography. The bibliography can be compiled in two ways, according to the references in the text:

  1. in the order in which they appear in the text (numbering), or
  2. in alphabetical order of the names of authors.

 

  1. When citing an article published in a journal include the following descriptors:

surname and initial letter of author(s), (year of publication of the journal in parentheses), title of publication, full or official abbreviated name of journal, volume number of journal followed by colon, page number of the cited publication (from-to).

Felegyi-Tóth C.A., Heilmann T., Buda E., Stipsicz B., Simon A., Boldizsár I., Bősze S., Riethmüller E., Alberti Á. (2023) Evaluation of the Chemical Stability, Membrane Permeability and Antiproliferative Activity of Cyclic Diarylheptanoids from European Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus L.). International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 24: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24171348913489,

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/24/17/13489

  1. When citing a book:

surname and first letter of the author(s), (year of publication of the book in parentheses), title of the book, name of publisher, registered office, page number, p. or pp. (from-to).

Mabry T., Markham K.R., Thomas M.B. (1970) The Systematic Identification of Flavonoids. Springer Verlag, New York, pp. 62-68. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-88458-0, https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-88458-0

  1. When citing an edited book:

surname and first letter of the author(s) of the chapter cited, title of the chapter cited followed by “In:”, followed by the surname, first letter of the first letter of the editor(s) and in brackets (Ed.) or (Eds.), title of the book (volume number), name and registered office of the publisher, page number of the chapter cited, p. or pp. (from-to).

Harborne, J.B. (1999) Plant Chemical Ecology. In: Barton D., Nakanishi K., Meth-Cohn O., (Eds.), Comprehensive Natural Products Chemistry, Vol. 8. Pergamon, Oxford, pp. 137-196. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-091283-7.00051-5, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780080912837000515