The Dissertation thread

Amp34 · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:11

Anyone else doing their dissertation at the moment?

I had to hand in a draft copy (of 2,500 words...) a few days ago, and have 3 more weeks before my deadline. I'm starting to despise it with a passion at the moment.

Geoscience disertations seem to take forever, 4 weeks of independent fieldwork and writing up the equivilent of a journal based on those results.

V4NT0M · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:13

No, never saw the point.

Burnsy2023 · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:14

Don't even talk to me about my dissertation :mad:

Nix · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:15

Stop moaning and crack on with it. You never know, you might end up enjoying it.

Okay, I jest. You're more likely to simply become delirious from lack of sleep.

A.N.Other · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:16

Handed it in on Monday

. 7,000 words on 'The annual cycles of gonadal maturation and moult in three species of raptors'. Now there's something different to all the normal computing ones we see in these threads

. About 10 weeks of data collection and many months of statistics, writes and re-writes.

Good luck everyone!

GingerNinja1989 · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:30

A.N.Other said:
Handed it in on Monday . 7,000 words on 'The annual cycles of gonadal maturation and moult in three species of raptors'. Now there's something different to all the normal computing ones we see in these threads . About 10 weeks of data collection and many months of statistics, writes and re-writes.

Good luck everyone!

Is that to do with birds and their family jewels? :eek:

Aod · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:30

not a dissertation as such, but last week i had to hand in my most recent peice of coursework, a 2,000 word, fully referenced essay comparing and discussing Ethernet.

*shudder* - never again...

kai · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:31

yesterday submitted milestone 2 - design & development. got 13 weeks before milestone 3 is in the final part

going to exceed well over 150+ pages. Plus a fully working system.

Burnsy2023 · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:32

Aod said:
not a dissertation as such, but last week i had to hand in my most recent peice of coursework, a 2,000 word, fully referenced essay comparing and discussing Ethernet.

*shudder* - never again...

Easy stuff. I do that sort of thing all the time. How many references?

Amp34 · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:33

Burnsy2023 said:
Don't even talk to me about my dissertation

Going that well ah?

Nix said:
Stop moaning and crack on with it. You never know, you might end up enjoying it.

Okay, I jest. You're more likely to simply become delirious from lack of sleep.

There are moments of pleasure but it's the motivation that's killing me, I really enjoyed the fieldwork (during my summer "break" and out of my own pocket, but the pyrenees was nice

) but the writeup is a *****!

A.N.Other said:
Handed it in on Monday . 7,000 words on 'The annual cycles of gonadal maturation and moult in three species of raptors'. Now there's something different to all the normal computing ones we see in these threads . About 10 weeks of data collection and many months of statistics, writes and re-writes.

Good luck everyone!

What degree are you doing? Biology or a simar course?

My title will probably be along the lines of "The uplift and deposition of turbiditic sediment within the Pyrenean foreland basin, with reference to the growth of a carbonate shelf"...

Nix · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:34

Aod said:
not a dissertation as such, but last week i had to hand in my most recent peice of coursework, a 2,000 word, fully referenced essay comparing and discussing Ethernet.

*shudder* - never again...

What, is this like the only essay you have to write at university or something?

Mat · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:34

A.N.Other said:
Handed it in on Monday . 7,000 words on 'The annual cycles of gonadal maturation and moult in three species of raptors'. Now there's something different to all the normal computing ones we see in these threads . About 10 weeks of data collection and many months of statistics, writes and re-writes.

Good luck everyone!

Heh. I did mine on "The Effect of Cinnamic Acid on the Movement and Behaviour of Pardosa Amentata."

It was years ago mind...

Amp34 · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:36

Nix said:
What, is this like the only essay you have to write at university or something?

We've had about 4 of those type each year so far, although this year we got to d a critical review of 5 essays that went to around 5000 words. the magazine was fun though.

Nix · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:38

Amp34 said:
We've had about 4 of those type each year so far, although this year we got to d a critical review of 5 essays that went to around 5000 words. the magazine was fun though.

My word, I was typing my fingers raw with the amount of essays I had to write last year.

A friend on Computer Science actually had to get me to help with his referencing as he didn't know how to do it and he was a final year student!

Aod · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:39

Burnsy2023 said:
Easy stuff. I do that sort of thing all the time. How many references?

fully referenced - i think i had over 60 references.

Nix said:
What, is this like the only essay you have to write at university or something?

funny

do you know how long the IEEE 802.3 document IS?
its TWO-THOUSAND, SIX-HUNDRED PAGES! - 2600 pages into 2000 words? yeah! easy!

<edit>
oh yeah, and the 2600 pages doesn't cover the as-yet, undocumented and unratified standards of 40Gbit/s and 100Gbit/s Ethernet, which needed to be included. you try finding references on UNDOCUMENTED standards.

Nix · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:46

Aod said:
fully referenced - i think i had over 60 references.

funny

do you know how long the IEEE 802.3 document IS?
its TWO-THOUSAND, SIX-HUNDRED PAGES! - 2600 pages into 2000 words? yeah! easy!

Oh boo hoo.

Try condensing half a module down to under 1k, it's the same deal.

Any standard essay I did of around 2,500 words involved weeks of reading information, and sieving through mountains of books and journals. Try doing a literature review for the first time on the philosophies of environmental geography, then you can complain. You're making out like you're doing the hardest piece of work ever, and you're clearly not. Stop bitching and get on with it.

Mat · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:48

Thats why I did a practical based dissertation. Even if it failed it wasn't wrong. Thus is the beauty of science

Nzyme · 29 Jan 2009 at 14:51

Currently writing 10,000 words on high pressure water jet cutting. Worth 1/3 of my final year which aint bad considering a normal piece of my coursework is 5000+ words and usually only worth 1/25 of a year

Aod · 29 Jan 2009 at 15:00

Nix said:
Oh boo hoo.

Try condensing half a module down to under 1k, it's the same deal.

Any standard essay I did of around 2,500 words involved weeks of reading information, and sieving through mountains of books and journals. Try doing a literature review for the first time on the philosophies of environmental geography, then you can complain. You're making out like you're doing the hardest piece of work ever, and you're clearly not. Stop bitching and get on with it.

eurg. glad i'm not on your course then! :eek:

icey_haj · 29 Jan 2009 at 15:03

Can you stop talking about disserations. I've barely started and this thread is reminding me of how much work i've got to do.