word count

gonefishin

Finishing off 15000 word masters dissertation and supervisior evasive on question about word count saying "we won't count the words but we will know if theer is more than 15000 there". I have edited out a lot and am down to 16000 now and don't want to loose too much more detail ut will if I have to, so wondering what is normal regarding word count, is 5% or 10% over/under acceptable? Thanks

convert

The norm would be +/- 10%. However, I know somebody who submitted a 17,000 word thesis when it was meant to be 12,000-15,000 words.

Jev/N

Depends on the course, ours was very strict with noting extra allowed. It might be 5-10% either way for yourself but it depends on the regulations and all that lark.

Could you stick some more in the footnotes?

niamh90

Rather than dumping chunks, could you try to reduce the word count by tightening up the writing?

One good rule is to omit needless words.

For example you could change:

"owing to the fact that" to "since
"the fact that I had arrived" to "my arrival"
"he is a man who" to "he"

Another rule is to always put statements in the positive form:

"did not pay any attention to" to "ignored"
"did not have much confidence in" to "distrusted"

Changing from the passisve to active voice will also save you some words, e.g.:

"Mobilization of the army was rapidly carried out" to "The army was rapidly mobilized"

I learned these and other rules from The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It's an excellent guide to good writing. It's available (free) on: http://www.bartleby.com/141/

gerry87

If you have it written up in word, do a search and replace for all the full stops and commas in the paper, then replace them with full stops and commas of a smaller size, over 15,000 it could well cut off a page or two.

piby

I think the general rule is about 10% each way or so but I think it's different if they say say between a certain amount i.e. 12,000-15,000 than I wouldn't go over. Our guidelines said around 15,000 so I'm taking it to mean I can do up to 16,000 or so.

DsJewel

Just wondering, what's the normal number of words required for a research masters thesis? Does it differ much from a taught masters?

Thanks!

claire h

DsJewel wrote: »

Just wondering, what's the normal number of words required for a research masters thesis? Does it differ much from a taught masters?

Thanks!

Depends but would usually be fair bit longer than a taught masters.

Figures I've seen for the humanities have been 10,000-20,000 words for a taught masters (1-year), 20,000-30,000 words for a taught 2-year masters, and 40,000-60,000+ for a research masters, if that's any use.

pow wow

OP they can't really tell from a printed document if you are a few hundred words either way, and they have way too many pieces of work handed in to count. When I was writing mine I asked at one of our seminars if the usual 10% +/- applied and the professors were horrified and evasive in equal measures. At the end of the day the leeway was there, they were just understandably reluctant to say so in case people went either way and took another 10% on top of that again.

If you have to submit electronically then of course they can tell, but I'd guess from your supervisor's response so far that if 15,001 words meant a penalty, (s)he would have been very very clear about that. Don't sweat it.

DsJewel

claire h wrote: »

Depends but would usually be fair bit longer than a taught masters.

Figures I've seen for the humanities have been 10,000-20,000 words for a taught masters (1-year), 20,000-30,000 words for a taught 2-year masters, and 40,000-60,000+ for a research masters, if that's any use.

Wow , and that's excluding transcriptions of interviews and such I'm assuming?I'm assuming they dont count for the word count. The final product would be huge!
Thanks