Thesis/Dissertation - Tips & Advice!

cson

Going to be ploughing into this in the coming months; I've completed a 10k one already, stepping it up to 15k this time around.

Best advice I can give is twofold; organisation and communication. Set key dates and attainable goals [even reading a research paper is progress - you don't have to add anything to the word count to make a productive session], stay in touch with your supervisor! Don't hound them but keep in touch.

In terms of books; Research Methods for Business Students is quite good if you're doing a Thesis in that discipline.

So advice/books/whatever welcomed here!

The Cool

I think the best advice I've been given is - know your submission date, and then know the date that you definitely have to have it finished by. I've been told this should be at least 3 weeks before your submission date. So set yourself a completion date, and stick to it!!

itzme

I posted this in the FAQ already talks, we organised a talk mostly about finishing and writing up a PhD with talks from two Profs and three Postdocs. The first two are podcasts over the slides and the last three are videos. It covers both science and humanities PhDs.

ILikeBananas

Finished my minor dissertation for my masters at the start of last month. I found the following book very helpful (I picked it up in the college bookshop):



I can't say that I followed it religiously but had I done so then it would have taken a lot of stress out of my final 6 weeks or so.

I think the one thing I'd say to anyone is to treat it as a collection of tiny tasks and concentrate on doing one task at a time. Meet with your supervisor often but not so often that you've nothing new to say to them.

For a 4 month dissertation try and spend the first month reading and getting your head around the background theory and leave the final month for the write-up. Use the time in between to actually do the work that you're bringing to this project. Writing up as you go is also a good option if you think you can write good quality content without the experience of the whole project behind you.

mickstupp

itzme wrote: »

I posted this in the FAQ already talks, we organised a talk mostly about finishing and writing up a PhD with talks from two Profs and three Postdocs. The first two are podcasts over the slides and the last three are videos. It covers both science and humanities PhDs.

I found these very good, many thanks!