Dissertations - Uni

Lagz said:
10,000 words nothing? I guess it depends on the contents.

I've been writing mine for over 10 weeks now, just doing a bit where I can around my other work. The requirement for technical content is so great its taking me about 3 hours per page :( . Its pretty damn good though (lol).

Hmmm yeah like i said if you have a clue on the subject 10,000 isn't at all as bad as it seems, 2,000 a day wouldn't take up a lot of time
 
mines 10-15000 words, but not strictly a dissertation, i've done about 1500 words, and its due in two weeks, but i'm not too worried as i've read a lot and its something i'm actually interested in so the words should just flow.

The thing that worries me is that my supervisor hasn't bothered to reply to any of about 5 or so emails i've sent him this academic year to meet and discuss it with him, so i'm literally doing it on my own. And hes never in his office, bit of a joke and something i think i'll bring up with the director of studies.
 
BUSH said:
The thing that worries me is that my supervisor hasn't bothered to reply to any of about 5 or so emails i've sent him this academic year to meet and discuss it with him, so i'm literally doing it on my own. And hes never in his office, bit of a joke and something i think i'll bring up with the director of studies.
I've got the exact same problem :/ Really not happy with the situation as my friends have other supervisors that they see regularly, while mine hasn't replied to any of my emails since October :eek: And whenever I've gone to see him, he's never in his office :/

Other than that, it's going ok because I did a huge amount of research and I'm interested in the topic.
 
Haly said:
I've got the exact same problem :/ Really not happy with the situation as my friends have other supervisors that they see regularly, while mine hasn't replied to any of my emails since October :eek: And whenever I've gone to see him, he's never in his office :/

Other than that, it's going ok because I did a huge amount of research and I'm interested in the topic.

I wouldn't mind if he just said, hes not interested, but its the not knowing, i've litereally never gotten to see him, so to an extent i'm not even sure of the style and technical level they're looking for

think i'll camp out at his office next week.
 
BUSH said:
I wouldn't mind if he just said, hes not interested, but its the not knowing, i've litereally never gotten to see him, so to an extent i'm not even sure of the style and technical level they're looking for

think i'll camp out at his office next week.
Ahh my main problem is no one else in the department would know enough to help me adequately for it :( Last year when I was deciding the topic at the end of my second year he seemed so keen on it and now he's just vanished. Really annoying!
 
God I feel for you guys. Struggling with a poxy 2000 word essay for tommorrow and it's not even assessed. A dissertation is one aspect of the third year I'm really not looking forward to :/
 
I'm looking forward to my dissertation in one aspect because it'll mean it's out of the way etc and I've nearly got my degree :p

atm, I quite prefer to do essays than anything else as they're usually straight forward. For Monday I've got to do a presentation on developments along Plymouth waterfront and i've just got about 6 books out for it. For Tuesday I need to have completed some introduction to GIS booklet. Not too work heavy atm for me but i've missed one assessment already due to sleep problems and I spoke to the module leader (who happens to be my tutor) today about it and he told me not to worry as i'm doing fine elsewhere.
 
Haly said:
Ahh my main problem is no one else in the department would know enough to help me adequately for it :( Last year when I was deciding the topic at the end of my second year he seemed so keen on it and now he's just vanished. Really annoying!

sounds a pretty bad situation, at least mine i can sort of get on with it, and if i get stuck i can consult my tutor for guidance on the style of it.

I've just learned to live with the fact that to many academics teaching undergrads is a chore to be endured as part of their research.
 
In the middle of my zoology dissertation atm, have run up literally hundreds of hours on it so far and I havn't even written a single word!

Ive been in the lab pretty much all day everyday since 13th January, havn't had a single day off (otherwise my animals die!) and probably won't get one till its handed in on April 26th.
 
King4aDay said:
In the middle of my zoology dissertation atm, have run up literally hundreds of hours on it so far and I havn't even written a single word!

Ive been in the lab pretty much all day everyday since 13th January, havn't had a single day off (otherwise my animals die!) and probably won't get one till its handed in on April 26th.

What exactly are you doing for your dissertation then?
 
ive done 6k words so far for mine, however the suggested amount is 100 pages, which equates to about 20,000 words...

not due in till after easter tho, woo hoo.
 
nealw said:
ive done 6k words so far for mine, however the suggested amount is 100 pages, which equates to about 20,000 words...

not due in till after easter tho, woo hoo.

100 pages would be far more than 20000 words i'd have thought
 
I did mine a few years ago. It was 10,000 words and I left it until just over a week to go. I had hargdly any sleep that week and just got it in on time and got a 2.1, nearly a 1st. Reading it back now I'm amazed how good it actually is compared to what I thought it would be.

The funny thing is my housemate who is on the same course and had the same tutor as me did his ages in advance and the tutor read it and told him it was good and nothing needing changing so he thought he was going to get a 1st and left it. In the end I got higher than him and he scraped a 2.1. He was so angry with the tutor for that.
 
dobbsy said:
How late has everyone left it to produce their dissertation?

I have approx 4 weeks left to write 10,000 words..

The questions is...how late did you leave yours before you realised you had to start.... for all you previous students?

Hmmmm, well mine had to be handed in in May of 2004 and by Easter of 2004 i'd done a whopping 1000 words :D Had around a 12000 word limit. Needless to say I worked my ass off over the Easter Holidays :p Ended up being around 39,000 inc. research. About 15,000 of my own words, and 232 pages :o

EDIT: Just found some pics of it.
1000991Small1141349012.JPG


1000992Small1141349056.JPG
 
Last edited:
BUSH said:
100 pages would be far more than 20000 words i'd have thought

Depends what subject. If its something like computing and it's a software development project, then he might do 20 or 30 pages of designs with mainly diagrams on them.
 
MarkyMark said:
Hmmmm, well mine had to be handed in in May of 2004 and by Easter of 2004 i'd done a whopping 1000 words :D Had around a 12000 word limit. Needless to say I worked my ass off over the Easter Holidays :p Ended up being around 39,000 inc. research. About 15,000 of my own words, and 232 pages.




Yeh thanks for those pictures mate, makes me feel loads better, haha. My dissertation is on 'nutrient intake and mood' as of yet i need to find 18 subjects to carry out a diet and physical acitivity diary, then complete a POMS (profile of mood state) questionairre for 3 weeks :eek: So its definately not going to happen, fake results it is then!

Long shot...but does anyone know of any journal articles on the above topic? (nutrient intake and mood) could also have articles on diabetes and glycaemic index, as i will have both a high and a low g.i group after analysing diet figures.
 
BUSH said:
100 pages would be far more than 20000 words i'd have thought

my dept sets out a really strict format with double line spacing and quite big margins.

theres also going to be lots of tables of results, charts, calculations etc.
 
dobbsy said:
Yeh thanks for those pictures mate, makes me feel loads better, haha. My dissertation is on 'nutrient intake and mood' as of yet i need to find 18 subjects to carry out a diet and physical acitivity diary, then complete a POMS (profile of mood state) questionairre for 3 weeks :eek: So its definately not going to happen, fake results it is then!

Long shot...but does anyone know of any journal articles on the above topic? (nutrient intake and mood) could also have articles on diabetes and glycaemic index, as i will have both a high and a low g.i group after analysing diet figures.


lol sorry dude :p

As for journal articles......does your uni have an electronic library at all that you can get stuff from? I'm pretty sure taht ours used to list whitepapers etc. so at least we had some sort of idea of what we could actually get hold of.

Have you looked in food/nutrient books etc. Even psychology books. Not necessarily for the information contained in that book but I often found that if you follow an authors reference's you can find much more information. Try to follow the trail of info between books and you can pick up a lot of information along the way in my experience :) Nothing concrete for ya but good luck all the same.
 
Back
Top Bottom