Hi fellow PhD students

I was wondering if I could please pick your brains about word limit. I realise that this differs according to Uni and subject but does anyone know if appendices are typically included in the word limit?

I have read my Uni's guidelines on word limit etc and there is no mention of appendices. I was shocked to see that the reference section is included in the final word limit, some serious editing on my part will now be required!!!

Thanks for all your help. I am a serial lurker so have braved posting for your sage advice.

Cheers

Fluffymonster

Hi Fluffymonster, and welcome. To answer your question, appendices do not count, nor do words under figures or in/uder a table...I am surprised at refrences counting, as normally they don't (as I would have 5000 words already from them).

Hi fifi_fole

Great name by the way.

Thanks so much for your reply. Tables are a big proportion of a couple of my chapters so that makes me feel much better.

I still find it hard to believe about the references but it states this in the thesis guidelines. This could cause a few problems for me too! They use the word bibliography though so I will triple check by asking them in person.

Thanks again

Fluffymonster

No probs

Yep, like Fifi said, where I am it's only main text that is counted; figures, appendices and references aren't counted. That doesn't make sense to me, because the more thorough and structured literature review you do to back up your research argument, the more you get penalised!

DanB will be happy a lurker is posting...welcome to the forum!

Thanks coastman

Sorry, I was trigger happy and pressed add message before I finished composing my reply!

I agree, it seems completely insane to me. Two of my chapters are reviews of measures so the reference sections for those chapters alone are huge.

I have sent an email to the person in charge asking them directly about all of these things.

It seems you can apply for an extension on word limit which I may do if it gets too insane with the word count for the reference section.

I have been lurking for some time and have even recommended this site to a couple of people. I think we have all been struggling by what some poster described as 'imposter syndrome' so it is great to know that others feel the same.

Thank you

They are not usually included BUT be careful because there are often other 'size-restricting' guidelines to be adhered to e.g. the thesis should not be more than n cm thick!

The appendices saved my thesis, managed to keep the bulk of it within 60K words but my appendices were about as long, opps!