Hi,
This is my first post, currently I am year 2---going to be 3 year soon. I was wondering, how long does it take you guys to write the whole thesis and how many times you edited-changed-re-draft?

I have spend my first year doing 2 chapters, second year fieldwork, and now it leaves me another milestone 3 years. Btw I have 7-8 chapters in total (or this is my initial plan)

Hi Chan,

I was in a similar situation when I started the third year... In the first year I pretty much wrote the literature review and the methodology, and spent most of the second year doing fieldwork.

I think it is possible to write up in the 3rd year. However, I wasted a lot of time playing around with statistics, publishing papers, teaching, going to conferences, organising conferences and writing reports for the industry.

Now, I am halfway in my 4th year, and still haven't finished writing up the thesis. It takes more time than I anticipated. I feel like I have to lock myself in some isolated prison where there is not the temptation of "I ll write one more paper, won't take long".... I suffer from perfectionism too, and nothing is good enough ever. I have probably written about half so far, and have edited these chapters heavily at least three times so far.

The whole process is taking ages, and my supervisor is frustrated (although he is the main source of distraction). I can't give any advice. Maybe I clearly distributed time wrong (because I can't say "no"), or maybe we really need plenty of publications and teaching experience to land a job.

Good luck, hope you will be more efficient than me.

Hi Chan,

I've recently finished my PhD (awaiting final admin stuff to deposit thesis in library and get my degree certificate). I can relate to a lot of what Dr Jeckyll said, but would say that every PhD is different. However, I think that many people do get side-tracked by a lot of extraneous things and forget that they're there to produce a thesis.

Yes, it is possible to finish in three years - one of my co-students did it in 2.5 - but it depends on the project, supervisor, how much is in place, motivation of the student, etc. Up until halfway through my second year, I was perpetually being told I was ahead of my game. Then I went out to the US for a year+... and it became clear even before this pre-scheduled jaunt - which was in the original project proposal - that it amounted to little more than a gentleman's agreement. I did all of the organising and once out there, I spent a lot of time allowing myself to be abstracted to run my "guest" supervisor's lab to even convince him to want me there, as well as grappling with ongoing accommodation issues!

In answer to your question, I spent my first year doing a literature review, doing initial experiments and producing a first year report. Though be aware that at the end, when writing the final product, I cringed at much of what was in that and changed a lot of it. As you go along, you simply become better acquainted with your field and develop more. So be wary of coming out of your first (or even second) year thinking "I've written x% of my thesis already". You will want to change and rewrite an awful lot!

In the end, during my final concerted writing, it took between January and September 2013. Fortunately for me, my supervisors loved most of the chapters I sent them so in the event, the changes and editing they suggested were not especially onerous.

I'm not sure how different it is in the arts/humanities, but I had to write as I went along. I had five chapters and a critical edition of the text I was working on, so it was basically 1 chapter a year (alongside the edition, which I did in dribs and drabs). Chapters 1 and 2 were done by the end of the second year (I had to take some time off at the start of second year), Chapter 3 was done in the third year and then Chapters 4 and 5 (which started out as just one huuuuge chapter) took absolutely ages to do. I finally finished it halfway through my fourth year and then spent the rest of the time revising everything (the first chapters needed to be completely rewritten in places as my writing style had changed so much).

As to whether it's possible to write up and submit within 3 years, I do know of people who have done it, but it's much more common to submit within four years. It takes a lot of focus and determination and you will have to say no to at least some of the 'extra-credit' stuff like teaching and publications in order to get it done.