Hi there, I have already submitted my undergrad thesis but realized in my intro I had included info in one sentence that is not true for the species i am studying. Worse is that the reference I used did say the information I cited, but for a different species. I didn’t read the article properly and I’m very worried that this might reflect poorly on me and my research- worse is that I knew that this wasn’t true for the species but for some reason forgot to remove it from the thesis (made several drafts and I guess it got leftover in one of them).
I should’ve proofread better, but I already submitted and did even poorer in my presentation as I stayed up all night preparing and was very jittery with coffee. I’m just worried that this might all reflect very poorly on me and I don’t want to make excuses to faculty and say I was sleep-deprived or that I have insomnia as I’m scared this might also affect future opportunities within my school.
My supervisors are both really kind, and I feel very bad with disappointing them like this but I’m just very scared too. Will I receive an academic penalty for this because its basically incorrect info that and it looks like i tried to pass it off as correct?
Comments
No. Mistakes happen.
Look it over one more time, and send them a correction.
FWIW one of the three peer reviewed journal articles for my PhD, I realized after I got the finalized paper copies, that I had a major error in a citation. My advisor shrugged, said “it happens”, and told me to just let the editor know. They thanked me for the correction, told me it was (obviously) too late for the printed copies but they’d correct the online version of record, they made the change, and that was the end.
you’re expected to make some dumb mistakes – it’s an undergrad thesis! It’s a little sloppy, but those things happen. It’s not taken as plagiarism or fraud or anything if that’s what you’re worried about – students are expected to make mistakes (and so is everyone else – I literally proofread an article for my professor once and she had misspelled the name of the author she was writing about throughout lmao)
There are mistakes in published papers as well. If the results/discussion is not affected by the mistake made in the intro, then I think it’s not a big deal.
For my undergrad dissertation, back when we had to provide two bound hard copies for markers, I managed to bind two conclusions into one copy and omitted the conclusion in the other copy. I didn’t notice until the hard copies were sent back to me much later after marking. I still graduated and went on to do two masters’ degrees (currently working towards a PhD).
It’s a small mistake, and mistakes happen to everyone. You’re not going to lose all opportunities in the school over one small mistake.
Is there a thesis committee? They’ll likely just tell you to correct it after they evaluate your thesis. If it’s your final draft, well, mistakes happen. Ask your supervisors for advice. It’s not disappointing to make mistakes and try to fix them.
Yeah, I noticed a fundamental error in my thesis (miscalculation of a metric, with the error carried throughout) after submission. It was about a week before my viva when I realised.
I reported it immediately to my supervisory team. It was very subtly raised in my viva, and I showed them my own annotated viva copy with every instance of the corrected term. I assured them that the conclusions were still perfectly valid, and demonstrated that there was no impact other than the presented values all being out by a factor of 100.
I had to revise the thesis but passed. No issues. I was honest.
Your issue seems minor in comparison. I wouldn’t worry
This sounds like a fairly small mistake in the thesis. I’m sure your supervisors won’t hold it against you. They might have made similar mistakes here and there during their career as well. Don’t worry about it.
If you and your advisor eventually publish this work in a scientific journal, then be sure to correct the mistake then. Otherwise, I’d let it slide if the final copy has been submitted for your thesis project.