Who cares about your PhD thesis? I'm pursuing a Ph.D. in a computer science-related field (more particularly, in Artificial Intelligence). During my studies, I was involved in several projects, some of them got published in top-tier conferences. I'm ought to submit my Ph.D. thesis this year and was wondering what's the role of theses these days in CS.

Generating a polished thesis would take at least two months. However, collecting the work we've already published into a huge Latex file with a shared (newly written) introduction and discussion would take one week. I believe I can use the spare time to advance my research even further or start new collaborations.

If that matters, my career plans are to start a postdoc position, followed by seeking an academic position.

So, is there any significant downside to hastily constructing a "sandwich thesis" as opposed to carefully polishing a cohesive document? Assume that my committee would accept both.
Who cares about your PhD thesis?


At least your supervisor and your examiners, and potentially anybody seeking to evaluate your work in the future.

The primary reason to be careful with your PhD thesis is to avoid giving a bad impression to your PhD committee. Even if the content is solid, it would be unfortunate to be given major corrections or a lower "cum laude" honor (depending on the local usage) just because a committee member felt that you didn't do much effort with the dissertation.

It is true that most dissertations are not going to be read by many people, but your PhD dissertation is going to be a quite important part of your profile for your whole academic career. A reviewer for a hiring committee might have a cursory look at it, a student considering working with you might be curious about it, etc. Of course it's unlikely to be a major issue, but is it really worth the risk? Even simply for yourself, isn't it worth spending a bit more time in order to have a document you can be proud of in the future?