I have to submit a plan of what I intend to write about in my 40,000 word dissertation in about a weeks time. However, I also have to email a VERY detailed plan of the first chapter on the same day.

It's quite difficult to get myself together at the moment, because I keep on thinking 'how the hell am I going to know what my plan is without having read everything first!?!' (let alone the detailed plan of the first chapter!)

You can probably tell that I am very inexperienced here... :$ , but how long does it normally take to do them? Will one week be enough to do both a plan of the whole thing AND the detailed plan for the first chapter?
What exactly is my supervisor expecting? I feel a bit daunted by the idea of writing up a plan without having read all the secondary stuff, you know? Or can you say in the plan that you INTEND to read blah blah for this bit in order to find out if...(etc). Or would that look rubbish?
I know that the plan won't be final, and will most definitely change over the next few months, but I still want to get it as brilliant looking as possible - I suppose if it's even just to prove a point and say: "see, Mr supervisor man, you did make the right decision in taking me on for this project. :-) ".

Just so you know (in case it changes the amount of time it might take to complete), my subject is in Literature.

Thanks for any advice in advance. x

Hmmmm, that is an incredibly hard question to answer without knowing how close you are to having read enough to be able to discuss it in detail - even then everybody is different in the way they write, the speed with which they write and editing time etc.

Personally, for me, a week would be nowhere near enough time - simply because although I write fast I spend a long time editing and turning my random verbal diarrheoa into something vaguely academic and knowledgeable lol. Its just the way I work, I write far too much and then cut - I can't write to word counts or even legibly half the time on the first pass as I have to put down what's in my head and then sort it all out ;-)

You overall plan doesn't have to be 'that' indepth - its more a kind of 'this is how it will be, this is what I'm planning etc' and it will most definately change, but its normally a fairly large piece of work. The 'very' detailed plan of the first chapter is more indepth by definition, although with my supervisor I could get away with saying that I propose to read this and this and this, and then hope to do that and that and that. I think its mainly to check that you're thinking things through fully and have a strong direction that you can then be advised upon.

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful, but this is one of those 'how long is a piece of string' type questions as there are so many variables to be taken into consideration lol :-)

Hi Cobweb,

you are right, at the beginning of the whole process you will not know what the literature entails nor will you not know exactly what project you will be able to take on. As such I think this plan and first chapter should be more a draft than "a protocol that is cut in stone".

For the plan you could write something like a time table, for example:

Year 1: Literature review, finding out where to fing the literature, working through it, writing the literature review, identifying potential research topics, writing a draft research protocol. Regalar reviews with supervisor. At the end of the year having completed the literature review and having a researh proposal.

Year 2: Setting up the project, finding a research population, doing the actual field work, data collection and analysis.

Year 3: Writing the thesis etc. etc.

For the first chapter (the literature review?) you would write something similar.
:-)

Hi Rick and Stressed, thanks for your replies!
I guess you're right - it is like asking 'how long is a piece of string', but I just think that if I have a really good idea of what the sup is expecting it to look like, then I could probably judge for myself how long I think it would take me.
I just don't really know if it is only meant to be bullet pointed ideas of what I intend to do, or full paragraphs stating in some detail a few ideas I may already have from the primary literature, and where I intend to take it... oh, i don't know.

Does any one else have any more advice? Is it like basically breaking down the ideas I have suggested in my proposal? and then stating how and what books I'm going to use to answer my questions/sub-questions?
Also, do we have to put in our plan how long we think such and such chapter will be completed by?

Thanks
x

...maybe I'm just worrying too much. I think I'll just go and get on with it now, or at least give it my best shot.
Any more advice would be greatly appreciated though! :-)

Hi Cobweb,

I am in the same field as you. I have had to submit a year-plan already, and I am now working on the detailed plan of my first chapter - I need about 15 pages written down within a month, pretty much. Given it is a lit review in my case, taking me to very unfamiliar grounds, and that I want to make a good first(ish) impression, I'm losing it already :$

That is what I did for my year-plan and my sup' was really happy with it. Oh, and I did use bullet-pointed lists for clarity but each of them was a well-written paragraph - I assume this is the least I could do when studying Literature, especially when all my supervisor had read from me at this point was a proposal.



I imagine you are required to do this. I was. But it was just to give them an idea, really, nothing precise. I said things like: "by month 5, I expect to have finished my literature review" etc... My supervisor found my plan was perhaps a little too ambitious and recommended I spent more time on a given chapter. It was really meant for him to be able to give me specific advice, really.

I had not read all the texts I had to read by then (still haven't by the way :p ). I suppose it's good if you demonstrate you know your primary sources well and you have identified the most relevant secondary (and what they contend, and how they will be useful to you). Avoid saying you have not read something: it just doesn't sound good, especially for your first chapter. That being said, I doubt your supervisor expects you to have read everything at this point!

Good luck :)

first I would get some large pieces of paper, and use one to write down everything I wanted to cover in the whole thing,(remember to dot them about, don't write in columns or anything) use headings, bits of notes, anything you like, just everything you can think of, not how you are going to do it though, at least not yet. now, remembering you will need intro, methodology, conclusion etc, collect these thoughts into groups, number them, use highlighters, whatever you want. This should give you some chapterish structure. Give each of these a fresh piece of paper, one per chapter structure, put down your headings for what is going into the chapter from your first sheet and start making a few notes about what you are going to do for each one. Use these to decide which one you feel most ready to describe in detail, then repeat the process but concentrate on just the one chapter this time, you should then be able to see the wood from the trees, know what will go in the chapter, where the info you need will come from - at least in the first instance, go and look for the information in a bit more detail, so you can say, for exam[le for the first section I will need to write about the the eco system of the pond, I will look at the work of Smith on the eco system of ponds which will inform tjis. There are also journals 'pond life international' which have excellent articles a,b,c which will be useful and which suggest that Tomlinson has written specifically on the red gnat which appears to be important in this study (I've made all this up, so it may not be true and ecologists may be amazed at my stupidity in this area, but you get what I mean :$ ) and of course - don't panic. - just read your subject, so gnats are definately not on the list of possibles are they! :-)