Who cares about your PhD thesis?
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?