With the statutory declaration, you confirm that you have written the paper yourself, used only the sources listed, and properly cited any sources used. You also confirm that you have not submitted the work for any other course or to any other examination office.

The statutory declaration must be dated and signed.

It is legally required for final theses and is sometimes requested by instructors for term papers as well.

The statutory declaration is usually a mandatory part of the structure of an academic paper.

Frequently asked questions

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Your actual independent contribution

It is essential that an academic paper includes your well-founded, logically comprehensible conclusions based on what you have worked out, read, researched, investigated, thought about, and presented in the paper.

This creates something new even in a student paper – something that makes it worth reading. You ask questions, compare, evaluate, make critical remarks, discover contradictions, notice that something has not been addressed, that the entire literature supports one position or several different ones, that certain positions are mutually exclusive, that models, theories, and concepts seem applicable – or not, and so on.

Even processing a topic, creating a coherent structure, and answering a research question are independent achievements.

Taking a well-founded position

Expressing your own well-founded position does not belong only at the end of a paper, but wherever it fits. These can be small remarks, e.g. as a footnote, or more significant conclusions – for example, when you conclude that the method examined appears only partially applicable to the chosen field. Or when your survey has limited representativeness, but still provides impulses for further research.

Frequently asked questions

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