Dear all,

Here's a planning/strategy related question for those near or at the end game. Tell me, for those of you on firm deadlines, and full time PhDs:

1) How long did you have/would anticipate to have between the time you submit your first draft and the time you submit a thesis?

2) When you submit/ted a first draft how many versions had the chapters included in that first draft gone through, or were there any chapters in there that were first drafts themselves?

3) How long do you take (and I know this differs for everyone) to write a chapter of say 12,000 words? or perhaps 10K...

4) Finally, more generally, how many versions do you do of some major submission with your supervisor? 1, 2, more??

Thanks all! (Just thinking aloud and trying to figure out a rough agenda over the next year/s...)

Cheers, Bug

Can I join in as a part-timer, albeit one with a very firm 6-year deadline? I'm half-time so I'll divide all my times in half to get the full-time equivalent. I'm virtually at the end of the PhD, just about to produce my nearly complete full draft of the thesis for the first time. Just have a bit of research to finish and plug in afterwards though.

Re your questions:

1/ full draft -> submission: 10 months (fingers crossed) - so 5 months F/T equivalent. Part of that time is to allow me to finish more research and plug in the results. Part of the time is because my supervisor can take an extremely long time (many many months) to get back to me with feedback ...

2/ All my chapters were at least second draft. Most were fourth drafters. All had received rigorous criticism from my supervisor and had been revised as a result. I started writing early and have gone through at least 4 concentrated phases of writing over the time period.

3) It took me 2 months (so 1 month F/T equivalent) to write the key versions of most chapters around 10,000 words long. A couple came in around 15,000 words though and they took 3 months (so 1.5 months F/T equivalent). I have 7 chapters in my thesis.

4) What major submission? A chapter? The full thesis? They'll just be seeing one full thesis with one final chance for more feedback. But the component parts were reviewed by my supervisor multiple times. Or do you maybe mean journal papers? Two drafts at most go past my super.

Do allow for supervisors to take an eternity to get feedback to you though. They may turn things around quickly, or you could be very unlucky. You've got to factor that into any timescale.

Hmmmm thanks Bilbo, very insightful! My sup is *super fast* and I am kinda fast too, so uptil now we'e been doing table tennis with versions.... I find your timings very useful, and I find it positively encouraging to hear that yes, people do pump out chapter drafts in a month (even while doing a part time PhD). Writing early is also a good thing, and doubtless, something constructive, so yes, thanks for sharing!

Good luck with your work :-)