People write articles for publications, others also hold Philosophy degrees yet both are seen as researchers......What makes somebody considered as a researcher?
A researcher is one who carries out systematic and structured studies and makes available his/her findings to the scholarly community in the way of publications
I think its not the matter of publication or thesis....to me researcher is the one who has the capability of searching something....nowadays people don't even bother to search something using search engines they just want QA session with someone who can answer all their questions.....i have seen PhD s with no sense of research and lab technicians with good power of thinking , going deeper into any thing ....