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Word Count!

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  • 16-03-2010 11:30pm
    #1
    closifer
    Registered Users Posts: 478 ✭✭


    Hi. I am doing a Media Studies PhD and to be honest I am finding it difficult to gauge whether I am doing well or not! I dont know too many other PhD students and im not sure how much I should have done and if Im congratulating myself too early!

    I know that word count isnt everything but I just want to get an idea of where other people were/are at this stage in the research. I started in September. I have loads of reading done and about 16,000 words written-hoping to have 20,000 done by mid May. Any thoughts!!?? My total word count will probably fall in the 90,000-95,000 bracket.


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    #2
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    closifer wrote: »
    Hi. I am doing a Media Studies PhD and to be honest I am finding it difficult to gauge whether I am doing well or not! I dont know too many other PhD students and im not sure how much I should have done and if Im congratulating myself too early!

    I know that word count isnt everything but I just want to get an idea of where other people were/are at this stage in the research. I started in September. I have loads of reading done and about 16,000 words written-hoping to have 20,000 done by mid May. Any thoughts!!?? My total word count will probably fall in the 90,000-95,000 bracket.

    John Nash did his PhD in 26 pages and it won a Nobel Prize. It can be any word count so long as you answer your research question, you could write 100,000 words and half of that could be just waffle. But to give you an idea, one chap I'm sharing a house with is doing his MSc by research and the word count for that when it's finished will be somewhere in the region of 40-50,000 so I'd say 50,000 plus but don't quote me on that.


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    #3
    Ostrom
    Registered Users Posts: 3,483 ✭✭✭Ostrom


    closifer wrote: »
    Hi. I am doing a Media Studies PhD and to be honest I am finding it difficult to gauge whether I am doing well or not! I dont know too many other PhD students and im not sure how much I should have done and if Im congratulating myself too early!

    I know that word count isnt everything but I just want to get an idea of where other people were/are at this stage in the research. I started in September. I have loads of reading done and about 16,000 words written-hoping to have 20,000 done by mid May. Any thoughts!!?? My total word count will probably fall in the 90,000-95,000 bracket.

    I'm two+ years in, not more than 20,000 written, if at all. I dont write much, but when I do it doesn't generally need much editing, I tend to work stuff out on paper in notes before writing. Some people write every day - its different for everyone.

    Dont gauge your success by wordcount! Submit and get feedback, but talk with your supervisor also - writing doesn't take long when the ideas are in order - editing and resubmitting endless bulky drafts does!!


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