3 Weeks to write my diss, any pointers?

So, my diss hand-in is exactly 3 weeks from now. I’m due to start tomorrow as I finish work tonight, but I’m super worried about getting it done in time.

It’s 7000 words. On the topic of Marketing, investigating the increased popularity of Golf & its trickle down effects impacting attitudes & buyer behaviour. I’m slightly worried about what marketing topics / theory I should base the paper around, so any help here is appreciated.

But generally, any advice for writing a diss in a short period of time? (anything helps!)

Reply 1

De Montfort University

Official Rep

Hello 👋🏻

Writing a dissertation is a big piece of work but if you organise yourself you can optimise your time. When I wrote my dissertation I really focused on the marking criteria and what my lecturers wanted from me. This helped to structure my dissertation and to really focus on hitting all the criteria. 📖

I would advise starting as soon as possible and really focusing. Just think in three weeks it will be all over and you can relax. Just take yourself to the place where you work the most productively and put a lot of time and effort into it. I would advise skimming through the abstracts of literature to see if it is relevant before you read anymore. 😁

Also maybe plan your days out. Schedule in breaks and time to destress.It is important to look after yourself so you can produce the best work as possible. I would work at the times you are most productive. So if you’d a night owl then schedule your time to work in the evening. Being organised and optimising your time is the best strategy. Also talk to your supervisor and let them know where you are at. 7000 words seems like a lot but when you start writing and structuring it how it’s required it will soon fill up! 😌

I hope this helps! If you need anything else just message!

Hannah 🐄
DMU Student Rep
MSc Psychological Wellbeing Student 🧠

Reply 2

JDINCINERATOR

I crammed my dissertation after almost quitting university outright, so if I can go through a cram session, I'm sure you'll do just as well. The thing I think many uni students make when writing their dissertations is sometimes they find texts on the subject matter and then use those as citations for answering questions. There's nothing wrong with this approach of course, but what I did was I'd take any source that states what I'm trying to write about and then put that into the dissertation and link it in properly. If you PM me and tell me about the question, I can give you advice on how to answer it effectively. I've got a degree in Film and English, and I know marketing is different subject matter, the approach to writing a dissertation shouldn't be that different at all.

Reply 3

WolvesRep2

Official Rep

Original post by Kvaratskhelia

Hi @Kvaratskhelia,

I graduated in July 2023 so not long ago I was writing my dissertation and can understand that this can be stressful. From writing my dissertation some pieces of advice I can offer are:

Plan your time - I found this very useful as I had set myself mini deadline of when I wanted each sections to be done. This was helpful because it allowed me to know what I should be doing and when and that I made sure I made enough time to cover everything.

Structure - I found planning out the structure of my dissertation helped by splitting it into sections and writing down what needed to go within each section as well as what the word count should be. I found this super helpful because when I went to write a section of the dissertation I can easily see what needs to be included and how many works I need to write, it meant I wasn't stressing about what I should be writing and I could make sure I was hitting all the key points I needed to.

Speak to your dissertation tutor - not sure about your university but at mine my dissertation tutor was the one which marked my dissertation, so listen to what they say and what needs to be included because that's what they are going to want to see within your dissertation and they are telling you what is going to get you those marks. If you are unsure what marketing theory to use I would definitely recommend speaking to them as they can help and point you in the direction you need to go.

Research - I am not sure how your planning on doing the data collection whether that's through questionnaires or something similar or getting your data from online but this is the section of my dissertation which took me the longest. I handed out questionnaires for mine and didn't realise how long it would take to get reponces from people and get what amount I needed, I would bare this in mind if you are doing the same and I would hand them out as soon as you can to get the most amount of responses.

I am not sure about yours but my university allowed 3 self certified extension for any piece of work we wanted throughout the year which gave about a week extension on pieces of work. Does your university offer something similar? If it does I would recommend taking one just to give yourself that bit of extra time which might help with your stress.

But good luck and I hope this helps🙂
Louise - University of Wolverhampton Rep.

(edited 1 year ago)