Therefore, my minimum writing speed was around one chapter per week.Ĭontinuing, I had a total of eight chapters to write + the abstract (derived from my initial story structure), which let’s say was equivalent to approximately nine chapters. These were chapter drafts, so definitely not polished material. Let me share with you my personal experience on this matter.įollowing the rules in the section During writing, I was writing one to two thesis chapters per week. The combination of the aforementioned three factors will then help you make a realistic estimation of how long the PhD thesis writing will take. Then all that is left, is for you to make an educated guess of your writing speed. Moreover, you should already have a pretty good estimate on the amount of total chapters, based on the modular way of constructing your PhD story as was explained in Rule 3. Third, the number of chapters you need to write.Ĭhoosing the format of the thesis should be fairly obvious, based on common practices in your research field, the regulations of your academic institution and the existence or not of published PhD work (papers). Second, your personal writing speed, measured in the amount of chapters that you will be able to write on average in a specified time period (usually a week). I personally think three factors are of significant importance to derive such an estimate.įirst, the format of the thesis, i.e. a paper-based thesis or a monograph, the latter of which will surely require more time to finish. Using this knowledge, you can make a rough calculation of how much time it will take to write your PhD thesis. Some other factors are directly related to the practical task at hand and can thus be more easily predicted and regulated to your advantage. Some of these factors are uncontrollable and there is no way to prepare for them (the phenomenon also simply known as “ life happens”). The reason for this is that during such a large time period, your life is going to be influenced by a lot of factors. How can then someone derive such an estimate?įor starters, you need to understand that the exact amount of time that is necessary to finish the thesis writing is hard to predict. Therefore, you need to make a well-balanced estimate and plan your thesis writing accordingly. On the other hand, you surely don’t want to underestimate the time that is required for such a colossal task. So you might not want to spend too much of your time in thesis writing. Time equals money as they say, and that’s definitively the case for the PhD. That’s a minimum proposed time frame and it might be far from ideal for you. 3Įxamples of things to write can be submission of papers, finishing data analyses or other leftover work, writing the thesis, preparing for the defence, sending some important emails, etc.Īllocate at least two months of your time for the writing of the thesis. Write down in that document the important things that need to be done in the last six months of your PhD, preferably in some chronological order. Here is a proposal: make a document with your PhD plan. So schedule it in a proper time-wise manner.ĭo not wait until it’s just two weeks before the deadline to start writing. It is going to be a painful task for most of you (it was for me). It is hard, maybe even the hardest thing you have to do during your PhD. A PhD thesis can not be written in one week.
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