Dissertation motivation!

Jolaaled

Well., have made a little bit more headway today...i think i'm a really slow worker.

It takes me ages to read a few papers, organise my thoughts whilst tying it into current theory..all before i've actually written anything!

Have written about 1000 words now...only another 19K to go!!

pavlovs_dog

cant believe this was on the second page - hope we aint been slacking on our dissertations like we have on reporting back here

im having a good day. collected two essays today, which both had 1st class marks, which has improved my degree fatigue. i *know* thats what im capable of, so the less than perfect marks at the start of the year did nothing for my mood or confidence. but im back with a vengence now, and having taken feedback on board, am really looking forward to producing my baby and writing the dissertation.

first round of questionnaires seem to have worked very well, there's another round today at four, followed by one tomorrow and the final two on thursday. think im going to write myself a dissertation timetable tonight to plan my time up to 28th march, to make usre i get it all done in time.

hows everyone else getting on?

love and positive vibes, p_d xxxx (told you i was in a good mood, didnt i?! )

Jolaaled

wow...well done, Pavlov, on your latest grades! you must be thrilled.

I've been busy trying to order my research papers, that i'm reviewing, into a sort of logical order. My dissertation is on communication, so i've sort of categorised into subsections of psycholinguistics, cognition and social communication..so i think that's how i'm going to structure my literature review.

If only i could just get started writing a bit more, i'd feel better.

ames123_2

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

cant believe this was on the second page - hope we aint been slacking on our dissertations like we have on reporting back here

Afraid I have yes! I'm doing other work that needs doing first. Anything to avoid the dissertation!

You sound in a good mood!

Ferris

Jolaaled wrote: »

wow...well done, Pavlov, on your latest grades! you must be thrilled.

I've been busy trying to order my research papers, that i'm reviewing, into a sort of logical order. My dissertation is on communication, so i've sort of categorised into subsections of psycholinguistics, cognition and social communication..so i think that's how i'm going to structure my literature review.

If only i could just get started writing a bit more, i'd feel better.

ah, psycholinguistics, the pursuit of navel-gazing professional hand-wavers everywhere*. i've been up to my elbows in psycholinguistics for months and it's still hard to find anything solid to work with...

another suggestion from the Ferris school of dissertation-writing is, when you have all your literature, write a 'contents page' for your literature review. in other words, break it down into numbered sections, and then subsections, and sub-sub-sections.

do this making distinctions and subsections to a very pedantic level, to an extent that you would never do in your final submission. it's amazingly good for organising your thoughts at a high level and giving you an overview

then you can sort of fill in the bits under individual headings starting with the bits that already make the most sense to you. before long you'll have a surprisingly large amount written, and you'll find you can add new headings or get rid of a lot of the distinctions you made previously. the headings you haven't written up yet will sit there as reminders annoying you until you fill them in, but at least you won't forget anything!

as you write more and more, you'll find you can cut and paste (a student's best friend!) bits around and then add in a few connecting paragraphs to link things up. hey presto! a lit review for the chronically short of time

why does it work? what i found writing lit reviews is that there's so much material it's difficult to find a place to insert the crowbar and really get started writing, and so you can end up writing an introduction and then delay actually writing up any of the meat of the literature for ages. with this method you get started anywhere and everywhere at the same time, and the introduction is the last thing you write. always worked for me, anyway...

* my future job, hopefully

pavlovs_dog

Ferris wrote: »

why does it work? what i found writing lit reviews is that there's so much material it's difficult to find a place to insert the crowbar and really get started writing, and so you can end up writing an introduction and then delaying actually writing up any of the meat of the literature fore ages.

thats EXACTLY the problem i forsee. love your suggestion though, may well have to borrow it

Jolaaled

Ferris wrote: »

another suggestion from the ferris school of dissertation-writing is, when you have all your literature, write a 'contents page' for your literature review. in other words, break it down into numbered sections, and then subsections, and sub-sub-sections.

thanks so much for this, Ferris. I'm gonna try this in the morning and see if it helps me to start actually writing the blimmin thing!!

Jolaaled

Ok...i have a system, which is working well at the moment and i've finally got the writing off the ground.

I've taken your advice, Ferris and got my sections, sub sections etc on my pc. I've got all ( i hope!) the key findings from the research papers on little post-it notes and these have enabled me to order the evidence, hopefully, into logical sections.

Post-It's RULE!! I love 'em!!!

deanlr55

ahhhhh a dissertation discussion....great!!!

i am yet to start mine, doing a 12 month masters and it due in for september.....any tips from you guys.........im gonna keep looking at this for motivation!!

if anyone wants some dissertation papers to use as a template for layout then pm me and i can forward. my tutor gave me a load yesterday

ames123_2

Aghhhh i'm so screwed, i'm never gonna do this! Why am I like this??