Beijing Institute of Technology (北京理工大学, Běijīng Lǐgōng Dàxué) writes its rules for the degree thesis, the 学位论文 (xuéwèi lùnwén), down to how many minutes you must speak and how many days before a meeting your papers must arrive. Almost nothing is left to guesswork, provided you read the right document. The rules were reissued across 2024 and 2025 to sit under the new national law, so anything older you find online is out of date.
Start with the national law
The 学位法 (xuéwèi fǎ, Academic Degrees Law) came into force on 1 January 2025, repealing the 1980 Regulations on Academic Degrees. BIT's defence rules cite it directly, and its degree award rules reproduce its grounds for revocation almost word for word.
The parts that protect you:
| Article | Effect |
|---|---|
| 26 | Master's defence committee: at least 3 members. Doctoral: at least 5, including at least 2 from outside the university |
| 27 | If the defence is not passed, with the committee's agreement you may revise within a set period and reapply |
| 37 | A degree may be withheld or revoked for ghostwriting (代写), plagiarism (剽窃) or falsification (伪造) |
| 39 | You must be told the facts, reasons and basis before such a decision, and be heard |
| 40 | You may apply for 学术复核 (academic review) of an academic evaluation; the decision must come within 30 days and is final |
Article 44 confirms overseas applicants are assessed under the same conditions. BIT's blind review regulation states explicitly that it applies to academic doctorates, professional doctorates and international doctoral students alike.
The doctoral sequence, in order
The checks come in a specific order, and each one is a gate:
- 预答辩 (yùdábiàn, pre-defence), a quality review of your finished draft
- Academic misconduct detection, only after the pre-defence passes
- 匿名评阅 (nìmíng píngyuè, anonymous review), only if the check is clean and your supervisor agrees
- 答辩 (dábiàn, the defence), only if review passes
Students who plan around the similarity check as the first hurdle get the order wrong. At BIT the pre-defence comes first, and it can send you back six months before your thesis has been checked at all.
The pre-defence
The pre-defence rules set out a panel of three to five experts at associate professor level or above, chaired by a member of the discipline's responsible professors' group. Your supervisor cannot be a panel member but must attend throughout. The secretary must be BIT staff.
The notice periods are precise. The secretary pre-screens your draft, proposal report, literature review and mid-term review at least 10 days before, materials reach the panel at least 4 days before, and you publicise the notice within your school 3 days before.
Three outcomes are possible, by secret ballot:
| Result | What follows |
|---|---|
| 合格 (pass) | Revise to the panel's comments, supervisor and panel chair approve, then proceed to the misconduct check and blind review |
| 基本合格 (basically acceptable) | Revise within 15 days, approved by all panel members, then proceed |
| 不合格 (fail) | Full revision within six months, then a second pre-defence |
Fail the second pre-defence and no further pre-defence application is accepted. Your school then helps you arrange withdrawal, transfer from doctoral to master's (博转硕), or leaving without the degree. The record is kept for three years after degree award.
Blind review, and the grades that decide your year
The blind review regulation is the document to read most carefully. Five reviewers assess a doctoral thesis: three appointed anonymously by the university degree office from other universities or research institutes, with the other two available for open review. BIT no longer approves classified doctoral theses, so every one goes through anonymous review. Your supervisor may nominate up to two institutions to be excluded from the reviewer pool.
| Grade | Meaning | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| A+ | Outstanding, recommended for the excellent thesis award | Apply for the defence directly |
| A | Excellent, meets the requirement | Apply for the defence directly |
| B | Basically meets the requirement, some revision needed | Revise, write a response to each B comment, supervisor signs, professors' group approves |
| C | Some distance from the requirement | Revise for at least two months, then re-review, normally by the same reviewer |
| D | Does not meet the requirement | Revise for at least four months, then re-review with an additional appointed reviewer |
A+, A and B all count as passing. C or D is a fail. One C triggers re-review by the original reviewer. A D, or two Cs, brings in an extra reviewer alongside the originals. If a C or D comes back again after that, the round is over: you may reapply for blind review from six months after receiving the results, and within two years. Miss that window and the application is not accepted.
An initial BBC or BBD which still returns 75 to 79B after revision goes to three further reviewers appointed by your degree sub-committee, and some sub-committees require 80B or above before you can apply for the defence.
There are consequences for supervisors too. Two Cs or one D for the same student means your supervisor attends the university degree committee in person and answers questions, and results feed into supervisors' admissions quotas.
Master's theses take a lighter route. The spring 2026 notice confirms that all master's theses go through in-house anonymous review with at least two reports, on a cycle of about 10 working days, while doctoral review runs up to 45 working days, roughly two months, with an expediting request possible after a month.
查重 at BIT
BIT does not appear to publish a university-wide numerical similarity threshold, and we could not find one. What the rules do say is where the check sits: after the pre-defence, before blind review, and the thesis proceeds only if there is no plagiarism or improper citation and your supervisor approves. Ask your school for the figure it applies, in writing, rather than borrowing a number from elsewhere.
If the writing itself is where you are stuck, our thesis writing support works chapter by chapter.
答辩: the defence
Committee composition is set out per degree type in the 2025 defence rules.
| Doctoral | Academic master's | Professional master's | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Size | 5 or 7 | 5 | 5 or 7 |
| Membership | Professors or associate professors with doctoral supervisor status; more than half must be doctoral supervisors | Master's supervisors in the field | Master's supervisors or senior specialists, at least one from an external practice body |
| External | At least 2 external experts; 2 members must be your reviewers, at least 1 external | Organised collectively by school and discipline | Organised collectively by professional field |
| Chair | Professor and doctoral supervisor | Professor | Qualified master's supervisor |
| Your supervisor | Not a member, but attends throughout | May be a member, cannot chair | May be a member, cannot chair |
No member may send a proxy or vote by correspondence. If someone cannot attend, the defence is rescheduled, or at most two members are swapped. A secretary, who is BIT staff and has no vote, sends your thesis to the committee one week before.
The procedure itself:
- You read out the 学位论文原创性声明 (originality declaration)
- You present using PowerPoint: at least 45 minutes doctoral, at least 20 minutes master's, covering how you responded to the pre-defence and review comments
- Questioning: at least 30 minutes doctoral, at least 15 minutes master's
- The committee deliberates without you or your supervisor present, then votes by secret ballot on whether the defence passes and whether to recommend the degree
- Two-thirds of all members must agree
Defences are public unless the content involves state secrets.
One BIT-specific trap for master's candidates: a second defence is required if you are put forward for the university outstanding thesis award, if you ranked last in your first defence group, or if your school picks you in a random spot-check. The second result is the final one.
If you do not pass, master's candidates revise within six months and doctoral candidates within a year, with more than half the committee agreeing. A second failure ends the degree application, though you may still apply for a graduation defence if you are within your time limit. A doctoral committee that judges your work to be at master's level may, with your agreement, recommend a master's degree instead.
Writing standard: length, abstracts and language
The 2026 writing standard is the current one.
| Element | Doctoral | Master's |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 60,000 to 100,000 characters, introduction around 10,000 | 30,000 to 50,000 characters, introduction around 5,000 |
| Abstract (Chinese-written thesis) | 1,000 to 1,200 characters | 500 to 800 characters |
| Keywords | 3 to 8 | 3 to 6 |
| Title | No more than 25 characters; English title no more than 15 content words | Same |
Foreign language disciplines have their own figures: master's theses in Chinese or Japanese at least 30,000 characters, in Western languages around 20,000.
Page setup: A4, printed double-sided from the abstract onward and single-sided before it. Margins of at least 25mm at the top and on the binding side, at least 20mm at the bottom and outer edge. Front matter in Roman numerals, body in Arabic, page numbers in Times New Roman 小五号 centred at the foot. The running head is 宋体五号, centred, naming the degree level.
The language rule for international students is the one to read twice. Your contents page, body text and acknowledgements may be in English. Your cover, Chinese title page, originality declaration and authorisation statement must be in Chinese, and the abstract must appear in both languages. Where a thesis is written in a foreign language, the Chinese abstract should be at least 5,000 characters, placed after the foreign-language abstract, with Chinese keywords.
That is a substantial piece of Chinese academic writing. Start it early and have it read by someone who works in your field in Chinese.
If you disagree: 学术复核
BIT's degree award rules turn Article 40 of the law into a workable procedure, with real deadlines.
- Apply within seven working days of receiving all your anonymous review results, setting out why the result is unreasonable, attaching all review comments and the unmodified thesis, with your supervisor's signed view
- The degree office decides within ten working days whether to accept
- If accepted, two further anonymous reviewers are appointed within thirty days
- You pass only if both grade B or above. The decision is final.
A parallel route covers disputes about the pre-defence, the defence or the recognition of research outputs, decided within thirty days by a panel including the sub-committee chair and five peer experts. A separate 学位复核 covers decisions to award or revoke a degree, and there you attend in person to state your case. All academic review cases are published on the graduate school website.
After the degree
Chinese theses remain reviewable after graduation. Under the national 博士硕士学位论文抽检办法, about 10% of doctoral theses and 5% of master's theses are sampled each year from the previous academic year's awards, each going to three peer reviewers. Two or more 不合格 verdicts make it a 存在问题学位论文. Those consequences fall mainly on the institution; revoking an individual degree runs through Article 37 of the law and BIT's own rules, which add an expired 缓授 (deferred award) period to the statutory grounds.
Your signed authorisation statement, countersigned by your supervisor, lets the university keep print and electronic copies, provide retrieval and reading services, and send copies to the relevant national bodies.
Pre-submission checklist
- Doctoral: pre-defence application in, panel nominated, materials ready 10 days ahead, notice publicised 3 days ahead
- Academic misconduct check cleared and supervisor sign-off obtained, after the pre-defence
- Any institutions to be excluded from the reviewer pool nominated, maximum two
- Length, abstract length and keyword count match my degree level
- Chinese abstract written: 5,000 characters or more if the thesis is in a foreign language
- Cover, Chinese title page, originality declaration and authorisation statement in Chinese
- Margins 25mm top and binding side, 20mm bottom and outer; running head and page numbering correct
- Written response prepared for every B comment, signed by my supervisor
- Presentation timed: 45 minutes doctoral, 20 minutes master's, with PPT
- Aware of the seven-working-day window for academic review
Where to ask
Your 学院 (school) organises the pre-defence, the master's defence groups and the forms. The 校学位评定委员会办公室 (university degree committee office) appoints anonymous reviewers and handles academic review. Your 学位评定分委员会 (degree sub-committee) approves doctoral defence applications and committee composition.
When school practice and a university regulation differ, the regulation number is your friend: quote it and ask which applies. If you are also preparing the journal papers BIT expects alongside the thesis, our research paper support covers that separately.
