Dissertation motivation!

Bamber19

1 month and 4 days until deadline
word count:450
Projected word count:12,000
Other things to do: 3000 word essay due around the same time; Financial report analysis on a company (should be 3-6000 words, would be great if my degree had anything to do with finance but alas it's just a random subject I have)

I should panic, but I'm not panicking in the slightest, other than maybe a few seconds of doubt once a day but in terms of essays, I've written practically every essay the day of or the day before the deadline and always passed with a good to excellent mark. Just before Christmas I handed in a 6000 word essay at 1pm having started it at 4am... The thing is, I'm exceptionally tempted to change my dissertation topic completely now to that of the 6000 word essay as I was limited by word count for it and could easily have written 10k. Biggest problem i'm finding is actually starting, i done my first 450 words on a day where i had to work on something else. The worst of it is that although only a small amount of words, it was beginning to flow and pick up momentum and now, despite knowing exactly where that chapter is going, I'm unable to get back on it.

ames123_2

Bamber19 wrote: »

1 month and 4 days until deadline
word count:450
Projected word count:12,000
Other things to do: 3000 word essay due around the same time; Financial report analysis on a company (should be 3-6000 words, would be great if my degree had anything to do with finance but alas it's just a random subject I have)

I should panic, but I'm not panicking in the slightest, other than maybe a few seconds of doubt once a day but in terms of essays, I've written practically every essay the day of or the day before the deadline and always passed with a good to excellent mark. Just before Christmas I handed in a 6000 word essay at 1pm having started it at 4am... The thing is, I'm exceptionally tempted to change my dissertation topic completely now to that of the 6000 word essay as I was limited by word count for it and could easily have written 10k. Biggest problem i'm finding is actually starting, i done my first 450 words on a day where i had to work on something else. The worst of it is that although only a small amount of words, it was beginning to flow and pick up momentum and now, despite knowing exactly where that chapter is going, I'm unable to get back on it.

Glad there is someone else as behind as me! 10,000 words in for a few days before the end of April and two 3500 essays for around that time and the next couple of weeks too!

System

Mmmm, I know how you feel. I started this morning and just couldn't face up to it .... ended up playing on Bingo sites ... not good.

We chose these degrees! We should enjoy writing 100 page long essays!

... shouldn't we?

Bamber19

ames123 wrote: »

Glad there is someone else as behind as me! 10,000 words in for a few days before the end of April and two 3500 essays for around that time and the next couple of weeks too!

TBH although I say i'm not worried about it, I think deep down (and rapidly moving to the surface) I am. Worst of it is that I know if I started now and didn't do anything over the weekend in terms of socialising I could have 10k done by Sunday night, leaving me a whole month to edit, show to my supervisor etc and generally improve it but the way it'll end up going is that i'll do the 10k weekend the weekend before its due and my first draft will be my final draft which probably isn't the best way to do things. One thing I do get put off by though is people constantly asking "How many words have you done now?"

meema

Neither moneysaving nor dissertation writing have went particularly well this week! Bought dinner from M&S twice (and grabbed a very pretty cardigan while at it), also bought a cd i didn't need (but which I am lovin)!

I was hoping to have finished my methods section today but looks like it'll be another couple of days at least!

And it's saturday night studying again...boooooo!!

Nevermind..I love it really..I think

Jolaaled

Have been forcing myself to write and have done a small amount....it's getting a bit confusing...does anyone use Headings in their MSword documents??

Are they worth bothering with??
Any tips for using them??

thanks guys.

meema

Jolaaled wrote: »

Have been forcing myself to write and have done a small amount....it's getting a bit confusing...does anyone use Headings in their MSword documents??

Are they worth bothering with??
Any tips for using them??

thanks guys.

I use headings for big documents. If you go to 'view' on MS word toolbar and click 'document map' it opens up a side panel which shows all the headings in your document. You can then navigate through your document by clicking on the headings. It's also useful for making an automatic contents page.

Is that what you were asking about? Hope it's helpful!

Jolaaled

thanks Meena...that's v helpful. I've been using document map this morning. A big help.

I'm not sure how to make a 'contents' page up from this tho.. i suspect it's obvious, but not had time to look!

thanks for your help.

meema

Jolaaled wrote: »

thanks Meena...that's v helpful. I've been using document map this morning. A big help.

I'm not sure how to make a 'contents' page up from this tho.. i suspect it's obvious, but not had time to look!

thanks for your help.

no probs, anything to distract me from the monotomy of reporting reliability and validity stats!! - go to 'insert', 'index and tables' then click on the 'table of contents tab'!

pavlovs_dog

Jolaaled wrote: »

Have been forcing myself to write and have done a small amount....it's getting a bit confusing...does anyone use Headings in their MSword documents??

Are they worth bothering with??
Any tips for using them??

thanks guys.

i think with your draft versions, it doesnt matter so much what it looks like.

i tend to start one section, get bored so move onto something else, then go back to a different aspect of the first point etc :rolleyes: and my thoughts are all over the place

i tend to just type anything in the frst draft (something has got to be better than nothing, nowt more off-putting and oppressive than a blank page). then as i work through sections and cherry pick from what im going to use, i change the text colour to show whats workable and whats utter carp, i put in silly symbols to draw my attention to the bits i need to edit/expand on, and then i gradually copy and paste the good bits over into the final draft version which is properly formatted, and pretty as a picture.

your first draft is YOUR draft. do whatever works for you. it doesnt have to look like a masterpiece (it only took me 3 and a bit years of a degree to work that one out :rolleyes:). It can be pink and frilly if thats your thing - so long as your submitted one looks like the dog's danglies, it doesnt matter how many pink and frilly drafts it takes you to get there (i usually average 4-6)