How long is your disertation

godtabh

How long is your dissertation?

I know its quality over quantity but just wondering of the people who have done one how long was theirs and people doing one how long do you expect yours to be?

So far I've written about 14k of words in about 70 pages but don’t even reckon I'm a third of the way finished.


Its for a taught masters

gamma23

yeah ok i am feeling childish

kearnsr wrote: »

How long is your dissertation?

longer than yours!

i know some of you only opened this thread up because you were tempted to write that too, don't try and deny it

godtabh

gamma23 wrote: »

yeah ok i am feeling childish



longer than yours!

i know some of you only opened this thread up because you were tempted to write that too, don't try and deny it

ask the ladies its all about gurth

Denerick

You should say what your course is. We ain't mindreaders. I'm assuming different disciplines will have great variations with their dissertations.

Scarinae

Have you not been given any sort of guidelines on how long it should be?

godtabh

Its an MSs in Civil Eningeering

No guide lines have been give

Thirdfox

Our undergraduate law dissertation (worth 1/6th of the year's grades) has a word limit of 13,000 words. So perhaps not much help in your situation.

Though... 14k words and 70 pages? You must be using very graphic intensive pages then! I remember my 9000 word essay was roughly 20 pages

claire h

Very strange that they don't give you a guideline. Worth checking in with the course coordinator, but the College Calendar entry for that course says it's 30,000 words for the dissertation.

godtabh

Thirdfox wrote: »

Our undergraduate law dissertation (worth 1/6th of the year's grades) has a word limit of 13,000 words. So perhaps not much help in your situation.

Though... 14k words and 70 pages? You must be using very graphic intensive pages then! I remember my 9000 word essay was roughly 20 pages

Not been smart but I didnt think undergrads did dissertations. Mine was just called a final year project.

Lost of tables, charts, grahs and figures in mine.

claire h wrote: »

Very strange that they don't give you a guideline. Worth checking in with the course coordinator, but the College Calendar entry for that course says it's 30,000 words for the dissertation.

Where is that?

MSc Handbookl wrote:

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FORMAT OF RESEARCH
PROJECT THESES


Two softbound copies of the thesis should be submitted on the 28th August 2009. The title of the project should be written on the front outer cover, with the student's name, qualification for which the work is submitted and year of submission. Three hardbound copies must be submitted once the thesis has been passed by the supervisor and Board of Examiners. A thesis which has been examined and in which all necessary corrections have been completed, must be securely bound in hard covers with dark blue cloth. The final size when bound must not exceed 320 x 240 mm. All copies must include a statement that the work carried out was the students own and has not been submitted as part of a degree in this or any other university.

General Details


Recommended Thesis Layout

The following is a complete list of the various pages and sections that are likely to be needed in any thesis. Those with an asterisk should be included in all theses; the others should be used if appropriate.

• Title page
• Declaration
• Abstract
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Literature Review
• THESIS MAIN BODY
• List of References
• Appendices











These will now be considered in detail:
Title Page

This should contain the following information:

• the full title of the thesis;
• qualification for which the report is submitted;
• month and year of submission.
• author's full name;

Declaration:

The thesis must contain immediately after the title page:
(a) a signed declaration that it has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at this or any other University,
(b) a signed declaration that it is entirely the candidate's own work (in the case of a thesis for which the work has been carried out jointly, there must be a statement that it includes the unpublished and/or published work of others, duly acknowledged in the text wherever included) and
(c) a signed statement that the candidate agrees that the Library may lend or copy the thesis upon request. This permission covers only single copies made for study purposes, subject to normal conditions of acknowledgment. (See below for stays on the exercise of this permission).

Abstract

This section, which should only be of the order of one A4 page long, is intended to give on overview of the whole project. It should contain a description of the work undertaken and of any significant results or conclusions reached. One copy of the abstract, printed on a single sheet of A4 paper, must also be submitted loose with each copy of the thesis. The abstract must contain the title of the thesis and the author's full names as a heading and may be single spaced.

Table of Contents

This is to list all relevant subdivisions of the thesis including the various appendices and should include page numbers.

Acknowledgements

A formal statement of acknowledgments must be included in the thesis.

Introduction

This should provide background information about the topic. The objectives of the project should be stated clearly.


Literature Review

A comprehensive summary of the literature, relevant only to the particular research topic should be given. This should consist mainly of recent specific references to journals, books and conference proceedings. It is not normally necessary to refer to general textbooks. Where good review articles exist, these may be referred. References in the literature review should not be cited unless they have actually been read. Key, early references, to the topic may be included, but avoid the use of very general references. The Literature Review should preferably finish with a brief summary and lead in to the particular research topic.

THESIS MAIN BODY

The layout of this most important part of the thesis will depend on the particular subject matter covered. The layout should be discussed with the relevant supervisor before the thesis is written. There will be usually between 6 and 8 chapters in the thesis (including the introduction and the literature review). The chapters should be sub-divided with appropriate headings. Numbering of headings and subheading should be as follows: 3., 3.1, and 3.1.1, etc (but not 3.1.1.1, further sub-division should be: 3.1.1, i, ii, a, b, etc.).

Chapters describing the aims and objectives, the results and analysis and a discussion of the results must be included. In addition the final chapter should outline the conclusions and/or recommendations. Recommendations for future work should also be included in the last chapter.

Consistency is very important throughout the thesis, including the way in which lists are made.

List of References

Whenever some use is made of any external material in the thesis, this should be admitted to by referring specifically to the book, journal article, conference proceedings or other source, as:

"...Smith (1995) stated that….” or
“Studies have shown….(Smith, 1995).

When an author has published more than one cited document in the same year letters a,b,c etc. are included after the year in the parentheses. If there are two authors both names are given. If there are more than two authors the first author and “et al.” is used:

“Smith et al. (1995) stated that….”

If you refer to a source quoted in another work you cite both in the text:

“A study by Smith (1960 cited Jones 1994 p.24) showed that...”
These references are then given in detail under the 'List of References' section. They must be given in ALPHABETICAL ORDER. The method of referencing for Trinity College is the Harvard system.



For a book
Author's SURNAME, INITIALS., (Year of publication) Title. Edition. (if not the first). Place of publication: Publisher.

example

HOWSAM, P. (1990), Microbiology in Civil Engineering, London., E & F.N Spon.

For a contribution in a book:

Contributing authors SURNAME, INITIALS, (Year of publication) Title of contribution, Followed by: In: INITIALS, SURNAME of author or editor of publication followed by ed. or eds. if relevant, Title of book, Publisher, Page numbers of contribution.

example:

SMITH, J. (1998) Activity based analysis of travel behaviour. In: P. JONES ed. New approaches to modelling, Blackwell, 10-20.

For a journal article

Author's SURNAME, INITIALS, (Year of Publication), Title of article, Name of Journal, Volume No. (Part), Relevant pages.

example

HOWSAM, P. (1988) Biofouling in wells and aquifers, J. Institution of Water and Environmental Management, 2(2), 209-215.

For an article published in conference proceedings

Author's SURNAME, INITIALS, (Year of Publication), Title of article, Title of proceedings including date and location of conference, Relevant pages, Publisher.

example

YOUNG, C.P. (1986). Nitrate in groundwater and the effects of ploughing on release of nitrate. Proceedings of Effects of Land Use on Fresh Waters 10-17 July 1986 University of Stirling. 221-237, Ellis Horwood.


For a publication from a corporate or government body:

NAME OF ISSUING BODY, (Year of publication) Title of publication .Place of publication: Publisher, (Report Number) (where relevant).

example

UNESCO, (1993) General information programme and UNISIST. Paris: UNESCO, (PGI-93/WS/22).

For a thesis:

AUTHOR’S SURNAME, INITIALS, (Year of publication) Title of thesis. .Designation (and type), Name and institution to which submitted.

example:

MATTHEWS, L. (1992). Soil-structure interactions. Thesis (PhD). Trinity College Dublin.

Reference to electronic sources (individual work):

Author/editor. (Year). Title [online]. (Edition). Place of publication, Publisher (if ascertainable). Available from: URL [Accessed Date].

example:

Williams, M. (1998) Stated preference techniques. [online]. Dublin, Trinity Press. Available from www.tcd.ie/Williams [Accessed 10 July 2000]

Reference to E-Journals

Author. (Year). Title. Journal Title [online], volume (issue), location within host. Available from: URL [Accessed Date].

example:

James A. (1999) A review of modelling methods. Transportation Research. [online], 10 (2), Available from: www.transport.com/tr/aj [Accessed 15 June 2001]


Appendices

Appendices should be used where supporting material that would disrupt the flow of the main thesis is to be included. They are particularly useful for tables, questionnaires, programming codes and lists of information. Appendices should be divided to contain different types of information.

Once the thesis has been completed, please ask a colleague to read through it for you to check for errors and to ensure that the objectives set out were achieved.

Thats whats in the egnieering hand book

claire h

College Calendar: http://www.tcd.ie/calendar/assets/pdf/calendar-part2-2008-09.pdf

Like I said, you really should doublecheck that with the course coordinator - the College Calendar is supposed to be the definitive word on everything, but in practice it's probably the case that they're not bothered about how long your thesis will be.