Get your thesis reviewed before your examiner does
Your supervisor usually reads the whole thesis only after you submit it, and by then every weakness counts against your grade. Before that, you have a few ways to get an honest second pair of eyes. Here is what each of them actually checks, and what it does not.
Who can review your thesis before you submit it?
The options check very different things. Know which, and you ask the right person for the right feedback.
- Your supervisor: knows the expectations best but has little time. Ask about one chapter or one concrete decision (research question, method), not “could you have a look”.
- Fellow students: find the places where your argument is hard to follow for an outsider. They rarely judge your methodology or your use of sources critically.
- Proofreading or copy-editing: spelling, grammar, wording. A proofreader judges neither your methodology nor your common thread, and that is exactly where the grade is decided.
- AI feedback: available instantly, even at 2 a.m. But it is only worth anything if it judges against concrete grading criteria and does not invent sources.
What an examiner actually grades
Typos rarely cost a whole grade. Examiner reports ask whether your research question is clear and answered, whether your method is justified, whether the structure holds, whether you write academically, and whether your thesis makes a contribution or has practical relevance.
The rubrics differ in detail from one institution to the next, but in substance they mostly ask the same things. The five criteria, with questions to check yourself against, are in the tutorial on grading criteria.
What Roastgaard checks, and what it does not
Roastgaard reads your thesis chapter by chapter and grades it on five pillars: conceptual framework, methodology, structure, academic style, and practical relevance (university of applied sciences) or research gap and contribution (university). Every finding names the passage in your text and the literature it judges by.
Every source is matched against the DOI registry (Crossref), and when Roastgaard suggests literature, it has been verified there first. Upload your institution’s guidelines and it checks against exactly those rules. German and English theses both work.
What it is not: no plagiarism check, no AI detector, and the score is not your grade. It shows you what to work on before you submit.
Getting a master’s thesis reviewed: what is different
A master’s thesis is expected to make more of an independent contribution: a cleanly derived research gap, a more deeply justified methodology, and a discussion that ties your own results back to the literature. At universities, Roastgaard therefore grades the fifth pillar as research gap and scholarly contribution instead of practical relevance.
When to get it reviewed
Earlier than you think. A weak research question can be fixed in an hour in month two, and not at all in the week before submission. Have your introduction or methodology chapter checked first, while you still have time to act on the result.