For some reason, I always thought that a doctoral thesis was around 100,000 words (and I also took that number as a reference for my book). However, I wanted to test this hypothesis, so I launched a survey on the subject. From the comments I learned that word count limits are common in the UK (mostly) and vary by topic.
You can find the survey and answer here:
Can you exceed the word count?
Although most universities allow you to exceed the word count if necessary, this comes with the caveat that you must have a very good reason for doing so. In addition to this, your supervisor must support your request. This is to acknowledge that they have reviewed your position and agree that exceeding the word limit will be absolutely necessary to avoid unnecessary damage to your work.
This means that while it is possible to submit a thesis of 100,000 words or more, your research project probably won’t have to.
How to choose a thesis topic?
The first thing to do when writing a thesis is to choose a topic. Familiarizing yourself with your topic or question area will make your research and writing flow effortlessly. When choosing your theme, several factors should be considered, such as:
- Your department’s requirements.
- Your areas of interest and your existing knowledge.
- Relevance (social, scientific and practical).
- Resources available for research.
- Your schedule.
Research methodology: How long should a methodology be in a 10,000-word thesis?
The chapter on research procedures in a thesis represents 15% of the complete thesis. In a 10,000 word thesis, a chapter on research methodology should be 1,500 words in a thesis. In these 1500 words, you should give the general structure and style of the thesis, give complete details for data analysis, and give a complete idea about the evaluation of research methods.
You can also get expert help to write a dissertation methodology chapter tailored to your needs with our expert writer.
5% of the complete thesis is in the chapter of results or results of the thesis. In a 10,000 word thesis, there are 500 words in the results or results of a thesis section. Within these 500 words, a student must provide an in-depth analysis of the thesis results.
Walk away from the pain
The first step is to realize that we all face scary big numbers all the time. We just don’t notice it. On a typical work day, you manage to get around 1,000 minutes in (assuming you wake up at 6:30 and your head finally hits the pillow around 11 p.m.). What you don’t do is process them second by second. All the better, because there are 60,000 of them during a weekday, that’s over 15 MILLION waking seconds each year, not counting weekends.
Then we will overcome another mental barrier: the fact that we know that writing is often a complex task. Well, you are busy with other complex tasks all the time. Going through a typical day is quite complicated, if you think about it. Even an hour’s drive involves many actions and decisions that, taken together, would seem overwhelming. (Which route should I take? Do I use the bus or the train? Which train should I take? Do I have coffee? What kind of coffee? You get the idea.)
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