Starting my Dissertation, any advice?

daenis

I'm doing an MA in marketing at the moment and i'm coming to the end of my exams. That means one thing - DISSERTATION. The word alone makes me break out in a sweat.

I've already done a dissertation proposal, which i handed in last week. This was a 3,000 word research project which outlined all aspects of the dissertation.

So i'm just wodering if anyone has any advice/words of wisdom for me as i embark on this very scary project.

rain on

jaysus, if your proposal was 3,000 words, you're already well in. my proposal for my MA thesis was like 400 words.
the only piece of advice that i've retained from mine, which mightn't even apply to you, is to try not to get paralysed with The Fear. I spent a month around this time last year not doing anything because I just couldn't figure out where to start.. try not to do that. Start anywhere, it doesn't matter where, just write something, because then you have something to work from, and anything is better than nothing.
if you've already written a 3,000 word proposal you should be flying though. how long does your dissertation have to be?

daenis

Thanks so much for that reply. I feel a hundred times better now. It has to be at least 20,000 words. Didn't realise the proposal was longer than normal. It did give me 'The Fear' though because it was so much work for the 3,000 words i was wondering how i could ever squeeze 6 times more work into 4/5 months. But i see now that i do have a good head start considering we had to do a mini literature review of about 1200 words. So I have loads of articles on my topic. The survey and other research parts were worrying me not really the literature review etc. although i'm sure most people are the same. Thanks again

rain on

oh yeah I had The Fear about 'how the hell am i going to write 20,000 words' as well, cos I'd never written anything longer than 4,000 words before and my academic writing isn't exactly verbose. It's amazing how much your topic expands once you start getting your teeth into it.. the more you write, the more things occur to you. I just set myself a target word count for each day (500 words in my case) and didn't worry too much about whether it was amazing or not, just to get that much down and worry about editing it after I'd finished each chapter. having your literature review done will help you loads as well.
also you might well be the one with the normal proposal and mine might have been freakishly short

scop

Since I did the same thesis as rain on last year I'd pretty much agree with all she said. It really is a matter of simply writing, no matter what the hell you are writing so that you get a sense of progress and don't spend the day freaking out over coffee with the other people with The Fear.

Two things I would add now that I look back on it is that don't get too stressed on the word count. My thesis in the end was only 13,000 words of a supposed 15-20,000 and I did well enough to be doing a Phd now so it really is a case of content rather than literally having 20,000 words just for the hell of it. I'd also advise against over-stretching yourself in terms of reading. A few choice articles and books and good knowledge of your direct source material/writer/whatever will serve you far better than a bibliography of lots of books which you only have vague ideas of.

A nifty way to feel better is to have a little notepad which you should date so that you can see the progress you are making. Do this everyday and it will remind you that you are capable of working, and progressing.

daenis

Thanks for the replies and advice guys. I think most of it is just getting started, that's the hardest bit. It's also interesting about the lit review - to know more in-depth about a few articles rather than knowing a little about alot. A small bibliography is kind of frowned upon by my lecturers but it makes more sense the other way.

So, PhD - hows that going? Although I don't know how my parents would feel about that one. I'll be in college forever at this stage.