This month I have to have a 3rd year interview. I have to provide an outline of my thsis and provide a clear timetable summarising the steps I am taking to complete the thesis. I'm trying to make a time table at the moment but really don't know how long to give things. I will finish data collection hopefully by the middle of August, and have managed to come up with a detailed timetable of what I should have done in August and September but after that it's pretty much "just" write up. I don't know how long is reasonable to say I'll take to write drafts and/or papers.... how many chapters to say I'll work on at once.....how many drafts to say I'll do ... when to suggest I might complete. I have another 14 months until I *have* to submit (though no funding from October) so would rather be done by spring.

Has anyone else had to do anything like this? and what is realistic? At present I'm tempted to write Oct-MArch Write thesis and be done with it!

I would allow at least one month per Chapter. It really depends on how long you expect they'll need to be, and the content of each Chapter. So for me, the theory part/literature review Chapters have been the most difficult whilst the methodology and empirical Chapters have been most straightforward; likewise, more or less time has been spent on them. I know for others it is the other way round! I would also look at other theses in your field to get a rough idea of length of each Chapter. I did this and from that could work out how long it would take me approximately, to get a rough draft. At full steam I can write a maximum of 1,000 words a day, but this is not good quality! So a 500 words per day target might be more realistic. BTW I'm writing my last Chapter now, the discussion, and I can say that I have written up the majority of my Thesis (79k so far) over the past 8 months. Good luck!

I would agree with the 500 *quality* words a day target - although I usually write more, by the time I have reviewed what I have written and redrafted it, 500 words is about the average. With this in mind, a month per chapter is reasonable but I would also consider allowing time for rewriting given that your supervisor may ask you to make changes that you hadn't considered. Hope this helps.