Hi,

I would really appreciate advice or opinions on this...

I am doing my dissertation for an MA - 20,000 words. I work but have managed to get a day off work every week for 5 months. Very lucky to get that I know! My aim is to do the dissertation from start to finish in that time. I almost burned out earlier this year so need to have a bit of time that isn't work or study every week too. Am I being realistic do you think?

Thanks.

I started my maternity leave at the begining of September 1998 with only 600 words of my MA dissertation written. Handed in 23,000 words (including appendices) 31 September, went into labour on 19th October and gave birth 20th. It was tough but I did it.

You can do it but you will need to be spending evenings and weekend days as well as your one day a week (and forget going out). I was lucky when I did my MSc and was in last minute panic an working on it 20 hours a day for a week (yes really) - my husband used to cook me meals, make cups of tea and did all the looking after children and ferrying them to school and nursery. Do you have anyone who can do all the domestics and looking after you?

Good Luck!!

Hi Sunflower, I think that you can do it but it can depend on your methodology and research design as well. If your dissertation is purely literature research and theory related to that then you have a bit more control than if you are doing experiments or case studies with participants for example. Once you include things like the human factor (for example) then you can't always control how things will go or whether participants will be available when you want them, or whether ethics reviews will have hoops for you to jump through, etc.

Another variable that can impact on this is your supervisor and their time schedules. However, having said this, your time frame seems pretty reasonable. I think if you look at it as your goal but then don't become too stressed if if goes a little beyond then you'll be fine.

My circumstances were that I experienced delays that were really beyond my control and these stressed me a bit. However, having said that, i have finished my thesis pretty much on time and will submit only a few weeks over deadline, mainly to give my supervisor time to read the thing fully and also to finetune my lit review and references-just discovered a recently published article by some significant personage and need to adjust some of my review and discussion-but nothing that can't be done...

Seems like your proposal is realistic as long as you do give yourself some time occasionally to have a break and you don't berate yourself if things take a little longer at times.