Dissertations: Making sense of word count
Trying to fit work into sunny days when everyone else is in holiday mode can be tricky.
You think you’ll just steal an hour or two here and there, but when such opportunities fail to present themselves, you realise you’d been naive. If you’re working on your dissertation this summer, you will know what I mean.
LET’S MAKE A PLAN
Here’s the truth: planning lies at the heart of successful dissertations, because they’re long. You have probably written pretty good essays or reports in a matter of days, armed with energy drinks and determination. But when it comes to long-form pieces, ‘winging it’ is a non-starter.
You need a plan. And over the next few blog entries, I’ll be helping you to make a good one.
DON'T LET THE WORD COUNT SCARE YOU
As you go up the student career ladder, so does the word count.
As an undergraduate, I was thrown by having to produce 8K for my final-year dissertation, but soon I was coughing up 5K essays on a weekly basis on my Master’s course (that was philosophy – not all subjects are so essay-heavy!). All was well until the time came to write another dissertation, and this time, it had to be a horrifying 20K in length.
Almost by definition, each dissertation is a new frontier, the longest thing you’ve ever had to write.
This makes sense: you are proving that you have achieved a new level of mastery, which will result in a new degree.
But the flip side is that thinking of all those thousands of words can send your head spinning, your heart racing, and your anxiety levels spiking. You simply cannot imagine how to produce something this big. Sound familiar?
The solution is simple:
DIVIDE AND CONQUER
To whittle down the word count to a more manageable size, divide it into its constituent parts:
Introduction
Main body
Conclusion
Now follow the 1-2-2-2-1 rule: each chapter of the main body will be twice as long as your introduction.
Example: for an 8K dissertation, you would aim to write:
1K Introduction
2K Chapter 1
2K Chapter 2
2K Chapter 3
1K Conclusion
Total = 8K
Now that you have the 8K broken down into units, it looks a lot less threatening, because you have probably written 1K and 2K pieces many times by now.
In fact, 1K is just two sides of an A4 sheet of paper!
This can be adapted to any word count.
Example: 20K dissertation comprised of 3 chapters:
2.5K Intro
5K Chapter 1
5K Chapter 2
5K Chapter 3
2.5K Conclusion
Total = 20K
ADJUST AS NEEDED
The 1-2-2-2-1 rule is not meant to lock you into a self-imposed word count prison: it’s just a guideline that gives your work an approximate shape.
For instance, you could have more chapters:
2.5K Intro
3K Chapter 1
3K Chapter 2
3K Chapter 3
3K Chapter 4
3K Chapter 5
2.5K Conclusion
Total = 20K
And chapters can vary in length:
2K Intro
2.5K Chapter 1
3K Chapter 2
3K Chapter 3
3.5K Chapter 4
3.5K Chapter 5
2.5K Conclusion
Total = 20K
MAKE ROOM FOR ERROR
Long pieces are, well, long. Dissertations are written over weeks stretching into months. That’s long enough to be swayed by your sources and change your mind on something halfway through writing about it.
You will think harder than you ever have before, go back and rewrite bits, and at times struggle to keep it all in your head. That’s the point! You’re being stretched here.
But no matter how long the final piece, it consists of smaller units. And each of the units is just a few A4 pages long.
Which means it’s totally doable!
If you need help planning it out, why not book a support session?