Hi guys, I know my question might seem a bit silly for some of you, but just seeking your advice and opinion mates. by the end of March, I will be 18 months into my PhD, I have already finished all my empirical work (not writing it) finished data collection, statistical analysis and results. I already have some literature, background and theoretical framework of my study written as part of my first year upgrade. you can say that I have almost 25000 words written although they need lots of revising...ect. I will start soon writing up..How long do you expect it would take to write the whole thesis from introduction, background, literatute, theory, and methodology, results , conclusion till the end ????????????? like is one full year enough for this job ????? I wanted to hear from others who are already in writing or those who already are about to finish....again thanks guys and sorry for posting maybe such a boring question...enjoy your weekend mates....by the way I'm doing my PhD in business

Hi andy, I don't think your quesyion is stupid or silly, manu of us here on this forum are still new to this whole process..like me for example and it would really be valuable and benificial to hear from other experienced more advanced students in this process. Andy, I can't commeny on your question just started two months ago..sorry mate

I'm just at the final stage of write up - but its in science - so I don't know how well that translates to business, a lot of my thesis is based around data analysis which took about 2-3 months of non-stop 6am-8pm analysis.

I suppose one of the longest phases for me was to get things like the relevant pictures, tables, graphs correctly analysed and formatted

Then you've got to figure out what you are really trying to say - in my experience this can be the longest and most frustrating bit - because you can spend hours and do nothing, as you are unsure of direction

Once you've got the basic structure and written out,you'll need it corrected by you supervisor - so a lot can depend on how efficient they are in turning your stuff around

Then its all corrections and final drafts (stage I am at)

I would say from the start of writing to submission, dependant on how much analysis you have, how well you already know you're direction, how motivated you are to write and how fast your supervisor corrects for you all play into it and I think 6-12 months is realistic for most folk from start to finish - again its highly variable.

However at 18 months 1 year takes you only to the minimum 2.5 year requirement for time served as a PhD - so I would imagine this is the quickest you could do it

hope this helps

S

So how many words are you going to be allowed, for me its somewhere in the region of 80,000, so you have a bit of a way to go! I would ask your supervisor how long they think you will need and be guided by them. One thing I would say though, is you might need work on one chapter at a time (not exclusively of course, but spending most of your time on it, so that you concentrate on the one bit), then leave it aside for a while and come back to it. That is the way I'm approaching things, it doesn't mean you can't add bits as you are working on something else, but it will give you a structure, which is something I think may be easier for the science based topics, (I'm ducking now, but I'm sure you know what I mean!!!)

thank you guys for your posts, yes, my limit is 80,000 words, I will stary writing the day after tomorrow....quite comfused, I hate writing but guess i do have a long time

You may want to spend quite a bit of time planning your chapters rather than just diving straight into the writing. That way it will be more focused and hopefully you will not waste as much. Just a suggestion but you may find that with more time you go down more dead ends. You should focus of buildign an overall argument, one that is sustained across all chapters. Maybe spend a lot of time going through the key findings from your data and start from there?