Dissertation Advice! - lengths

Hi all, Im currently doing my masters dissertation which is 10,000 max words. For context its an Msci project. How many words should my intro/lit review be? how many words should my method be? how many words should be results be? etc. Also how many refernces is expected for the lit review? I am currently on ~2000 words for lit review with 70 references, ~1500 words for methods. Thanks! Also does anyone have any other advice?

Reply 1

MindMax2000

Universities Forum Helper

22

Original post by Charlotte1303

Hi all, Im currently doing my masters dissertation which is 10,000 max words. For context its an Msci project. How many words should my intro/lit review be? how many words should my method be? how many words should be results be? etc. Also how many refernces is expected for the lit review? I am currently on ~2000 words for lit review with 70 references, ~1500 words for methods. Thanks! Also does anyone have any other advice?

This is the sort of question that you should be asking your academic advisor.

When I did my dissertation, my word count was roughly the following for each section:

Introduction: 500 or so
Lit review: 2000
Method: 1500
Results: 1000
Discussion: 2500
Limitations: 1500
Conclusion: 1000
My references were roughly 70 - 100 (not words).

The above would vary depending on your topic and subject (it's obviously science, but that can vary widely). I don't know what your thesis is or what subject it's in so it's difficult to say.

Any other advice?
Don't leave it until Week 4 of your dissertation to make last minute changes.
If you haven't already, learn to touch type. It takes 10 hours and it's a life skill that can save hours of your life, that is unless you're so short on time that you don't have time for anything else.
Break everything down into sections, and write each section like an essay/assignment - the word count per section reflects this.
Once you have written out your dissertation with each respective sections, open a blank document and retype the whole thing again. The first time you write it, you write it for content. The second time is to make everything flow and concise/edits. Don't do everything in your first go - you would likely end up procrastinating and have writer's block. I like to think of it like sculpting a sculpture; you need all the content first, then you chip away the things you don't need to bring out the figure behind the clay. If you have no content to work with, you can't sculpt anything.

Reply 2

Charlotte1303

OP

10

Original post by MindMax2000

This is the sort of question that you should be asking your academic advisor.
When I did my dissertation, my word count was roughly the following for each section:
Introduction: 500 or so
Lit review: 2000
Method: 1500
Results: 1000
Discussion: 2500
Limitations: 1500
Conclusion: 1000
My references were roughly 70 - 100 (not words).
The above would vary depending on your topic and subject (it's obviously science, but that can vary widely). I don't know what your thesis is or what subject it's in so it's difficult to say.
Any other advice?
Don't leave it until Week 4 of your dissertation to make last minute changes.
If you haven't already, learn to touch type. It takes 10 hours and it's a life skill that can save hours of your life, that is unless you're so short on time that you don't have time for anything else.
Break everything down into sections, and write each section like an essay/assignment - the word count per section reflects this.
Once you have written out your dissertation with each respective sections, open a blank document and retype the whole thing again. The first time you write it, you write it for content. The second time is to make everything flow and concise/edits. Don't do everything in your first go - you would likely end up procrastinating and have writer's block. I like to think of it like sculpting a sculpture; you need all the content first, then you chip away the things you don't need to bring out the figure behind the clay. If you have no content to work with, you can't sculpt anything.

Thank you!

Reply 3

Morris Peterson

8

Original post by Charlotte1303

Hi all, Im currently doing my masters dissertation which is 10,000 max words. For context its an Msci project. How many words should my intro/lit review be? how many words should my method be? how many words should be results be? etc. Also how many refernces is expected for the lit review? I am currently on ~2000 words for lit review with 70 references, ~1500 words for methods. Thanks! Also does anyone have any other advice?