Hi all,

I have about 12 weeks left of my masters course, I've finished all my essays and I'm just starting my dissertation, which I haven't really worked on much until now. I've found myself in a place where I'm not really happy with the project I've written for myself, but I have no choice but to try and make it work now. I just feel completely freaked out about how this is the last hurdle I have to get over, but somehow it all feels wrong and I'm just convinced that after all the insanely hard work I've put it, I'm going to fail at the last minute. I just feel totally sleepless and stressed...

I'm hoping this will subside as I do more research and I'll start to get a bit more confidence in what I have to do, but at the moment I don't have the feeling that 'yes, I know what I'm doing' that I did with my other essays, which is frightening when I have so little time left to pull this all together. I don't know if this is normal, I've never written a dissertation before... it feels different somehow from the other essays. Is anyone else writing their dissertation at the moment who has any advice/moral support to share? I feel so down about the whole thing at the moment, like I've just messed up everything for myself...

Hang in there - I think what you're feeling is pretty normal, I was were you are this time last year and it is so daunting. I'd found out about now that the figures I had started to get back from my initial research not only didn't support the argument but actually went against it totally so I had to change the entire direction of the dissertation! It is different from an essay, but personally I found the easiest way to deal with it mentally was to basically break it down. I'm not sure what your word count is, mine was 20K - my MA essays were 5K so I viewed it as 4 essays that were all on different aspects of a common theme and that all linked together with an introduction and then a conclusion. That way it wasn't too huge - if you split it into chapters (essays), think about what you want to discuss in each chapter and get a flow running between them and then just write them one at a time, THEN you go back and make sure that they all flow nicely into each other so each chapter has a good structure, but there is an over-riding structure throughout the whole thing and its done :-) I couldn't have viewed it as one big piece of work, I'd have cracked up - but breaking it down will make sure each chapter has its own internal structure and focus which will make it better as a diss and also easier to read and follow - its very easy to write linking paras between each so that the flow develops.

I hope that that helps, you'll be ok, this is it, then end, just 4 more essays to write that you can have a lot of fun with and you're done :-)

Thanks for your advice, I had already basically done what you've said, split it into chapters etc - what I'm mostly worried about is whether there is actually any kind of coherent link between each of the chapters, because at the moment it all feels very disjointed. I have done some more work today though, and I'm starting to see a few links I can make at least between my second and third chapters, so this is a little bit of a relief. It's strange, but knowing that this is the last thing I have to do just makes it so much harder to concentrate! I have to keep grounding myself and reminding myself that there's still lots of work to do before the end, but my brain keeps on jumping about going 'woo hoo, almost finished!'

I'm mainly worried about running out of time... at the moment I'm continuing to put in my 8 hours and take my evenings off... but I feel like I should maybe just keep working solidly, even though that will probably drive me crazy. It's hard to plan my time when I'm not sure how long each section is going to take. I've given myself about three weeks per 4500 word chapter at the moment, that's including all research and write up... I really hope that's going to be long enough. It's difficult because my topic is quite obscure and my supervisor doesn't know too much about it, so I'm kind of winging it by myself, which I don't mind because I'm quite an independent worker, but I hope she's not going to tear everything to bits when I finally send her some work to look at. I will be the happiest person ever if I can just get though the next 12 weeks successfully!

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Hi, that seems like quite a good target to aim for, make sure you give yourself at least a week to two weeks at the end for editing and acting on your supervisor's comments - mine has always told me that his rule is that everything takes twice as long as you think it will. I have just written a 10K chapter in a little over a week (not including research) and when I did my MA diss I did all the research first and then went flat out and wrote and completed the first draft in around 2 weeks - not out of choice, he mailed me and said he was going away for two weeks mid Aug and wouldn't be back til early sept so I had no choice if I wanted time to act on suggestions before submission (but that was working from sun up til long after the midnight oil had run out) and then took the next 4 weeks to make all the ammendments suggested, tidying up, writing the appendices, bibliography, acknowledgements, contents etc etc - those little bits do take an age so make sure you factor in time to do them too. You should be absolutely fine - just keep working away, once the research is done properly then the writing should flow much easier and you will see links.

My structure was something like Intro, chp 1 - Lit review, methodology and sources, chp 2 research findings, chp 3 reasons for that, chp 4 further discussion, and conc - can't quite remember what went into 3 and 4 lol but it all flowed, ok and I got a distinction for it and I'm sure you will too :-)

I am in the same position at the moment. I've got an exam to do next week and then have to work on my dissertation which has to be handed in end of august and I havent lifted a finger with this project yet. yikes

Stressed has given some excellent advice there. Thank you :-) I think it does really help. I will be doing a 10k thesis. I know its a lot shorter than most disserations which usually are 20k ( in the arts ) but im an engineer and 10k is a lot to me ( ive never been much of a writer). doing an intro, lit review, maybe two experimental chapters and conclusions seems more managable when you think of them as seperate but linked entities of 2-3 k each.

ive often found that reading completed dissertations in your feild can help you getting a feeling for the appropriate style and structure that your thesis should have. You may be able to find some on the web or at least from your supervisor.

Also there are a number of really excellent books out there on thesis writing and writing in general:

check out "a manual for writers of research papers, thesis and dissertations" by Kate L. Turabian. I have a copy and will be sifting through it when working on my disseration. ive glanced through it a few times and it looks really useful