Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 January 20

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January 20

M Phil and PHD

Which is better between M.Phil and PhD? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harbtss (talk • contribs) 04:45, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Define "better". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:42, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

If by better, the Op means "enables one to make the greater contribution to humanity's self-knowledge": As a doctorate, a PhD is the advanced qualification; an MPhil is still a master's. Notwithstanding, the latter is often a precursor to the former in many institutions.

If by better the Op means "which will allow me to swank more": The PhD lets you call yourself Dr so-and-so, while at the end of an Mphil you're the same old Mr/Mrs/Ms you began as.

HTH. ——SN54129 07:01, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Or maybe more to the point, "Which one will earn me more money?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:19, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

That's probably it. A shame the answer is, "both less and less"  :) ——SN54129 15:19, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

This has some information that may be useful to answering that question. --Jayron32 13:49, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

In some countries "mr." stands for "magister/magistra" (which is where the M in M.Phil comes from originally), while English Mr/Mrs/... use different abbreviations, so you do get some swank after all. 93.142.107.185 (talk) 04:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)