Hi all:

Hoping that everyone's well. My head's about to explode I think! I'm currently doing an MRes (as part of my 1 + 3 ESRC award) and I need to obtain 65% to pass and progress to next year.

I'm panicking - just really panicking. I've done the necessary chapters (only the final conclusions and recommendations chapter to get done of which I've written and mapped most of it out). Over the past year being an MRes student I've been lumped in with all of the PhD'ers... A great thing in one sense - it's opened my mind and stretched me in terms of as and what's required for a PhD but it hasn't really helped my nerves out over the past few weeks.

How much different is an MRes to a PhD in terms of what's expected? There's a maximum of 25,000 words allowed in an MRes, meaning that I need to be fairly brutal when cutting words out. But (with my PhD head on) I'm realising areas of my work that though condensed to only a few paragraphs, could literally (and will be) expanded into a 12,000 literature review chapter in my PhD (my MRes feeds into the PhD, almost as the first step of the research).

I'm almost too wrapped up in the research that I'm not sure which way to turn now (or even how good it is). It's in the social sciences area, and people have told me that my writing's good and articulate but I'm not believing them as I'm comparing the level of detail I've got with PhD studies I've read (and PhD students I work alongside).

Has anyone got any advice in terms of finishing an MRes? I've got five days (from tomorrow). I'm not sure how robust my literature review is (my supervisors are having a check on my work at the current moment and I could really do with their feedback ASAP).

I'm just scared that my academic dreams and career are about to be flushed down the pan.

Sorry if this sounds a bit desperate....

S x