Hey All

Managed to get full draft completed two days ago so now am process of rigorously editing. Word count came in at 88,000 which was a bit shorter than I thought so I am happy with that. Supv has yet to see it all together so here's hoping it's not a million miles away from what it needs to be. I'd be happy with a thousand miles away - that's doable, I think!

Yo Dunni, the extra star (up)

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Hey congrats Ady! It is all much easier now ;-) I do hope your sups are not long with their comments so submission will be very soon. Such a weight lifted once the whole thesis is fully drafted, well done, I know you have been working very hard to get here (up)

Oooh, an extra star has appeared, yeh!!! Still no word about a viva date, now wondering if it is not up to scratch, especially after reading pineapples rollercoaster journey :-(

well done Ady!

I have also just started editing and will send a full draft to my supervisors on Monday. Really hope it is almost there! Mine is 84,459 at the moment excluding bibliography and appendices so I think I am going to be right on the limit. Having said that I am sure there is a lot of babble I can cut out! Have edited two chapters so far and edited out a lot already. Hopefully I'll have some left!

Good luck everyone for the week ahead
:-)

Congratulations Ady! That's wonderful news :D

It's so good to hear that many of you are in the editing stage. I'm currently 91,000 words, including the bibliography. Do you guys count the bibliography int he word count? Mine's about 11 pages, so there's quite a lot of words in there that could make a massive difference to the word count.... Still, I have a lot of waffle that I can and should take out.

Does anyone have any editing tips?

I didn't, but check your university's regulations and/or with your supervisor about this.



I'd say distance helps. Leave it alone for days and preferably weeks if you can. Then when you return to the thesis it's much easier to be ruthless/objective in your editing.

At my Uni the word count includes Appendices and footnotes/ endnotes, but not the bibliography and tables. It can make a lot of difference, so I agree with bilbo, definitely check with your uni.

Thank you BilboBaggins and Corrine for such a speedy advice. Yes, I'm not quite sure why I didn't think of that, I'll email my department straight away (I have read the guidelines on thesis from the department but it didn't state it clearly).

I absolutely agree about distance. I've booked a 3 day trip to Isle of Skye for when I hand in my first full draft to the supervisor. I really feel I need a mental break from the thesis before I can do 2nd editing, and I can't think of a better way to have a break than 3 days in the scottish highlands :D Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of leaving it for weeks as my registration time is up in two months.

Hi Pink

At my uni a social science PhD is supposed to be between 80-100,000 words, including footnotes, appendices but excluding bibliography. However, a friend of mine (who was in the word count) was told that she had too many pages!!! Seems like you just can't win!

At my uni the word limit is 100,000 including bibliography and appendices. And my bibliography is taking up almost 8,000 words of that. Rather frustrating.

My word limit was 40000 excluding appendices, figures, tables, references and footnotes. I came in at 48000 so 20% overworded, but managed to get it down to 39300 by submission. I had to be rather ruthless in the editing stage and, to be honest, had no idea that I could achieve such a radical chop! Areas of my thesis written first were rather verbose so underwent a major slimming programme. Basically, rewording into more basic and short sentences. Then I tackled lit review/intro sections and discussions where there is more expression and therefore more likely to be overworded. I didn't really change much in the methodology as this was a fairly short and concise anyway. Editing is a valuable tool to learn and is very integral to the doctorate process. Take a few days out and then start at the flabbier parts ;-)

Hey, thanks Ady, Slowmo and Dunni for your feedback, I really appreciate it :)

Assuming that my word limit is 80,000 (I have emailed to ask, no answer yet but that's normal), I was 12,000 over at the start of editing. I've managed to cut 4000, so 8000 more to go, with three more chapters to read through.

I am noticing that I have been using a lot of fluff such as 'in order to' when 'to' will do, and 'that was used' where 'used' will do. I have started to keep a list of these bad writing tricks, and when I finish my first edit, I will search for these terms, and see if I can cut them out. Does anyone else have these writing habits?

Pink numbers - yes I have lots of annoying writing habits! In one of my chapter my supervisor circled a particular phrase each time it appeared and it appeared 12 times!

I am so exhausted. I have worked literally every waking hour this week and my draft is still not up to scratch. I have a deadline to send the first full draft to my supervisors on Monday. I have edited and tweaked for hours on end but I feel like it looks as though I haven't done that much. I am hoping I have just looked at it too many times and it looks like I have put in the time that I have. Fingers crossed. This is such a mission! It's so good to have people here to share it with as no one else seems to understand why I have to spend all the hours of my life working on it at the moment.

Hope everyone else is having a good week!

Hey, I been away from this forum for a while. Now Im back. Looks like there are lots of social sciences here on this thread.

Im in the sciences. I have had a very difficult PhD and been here for years more than you can count on one finger. BUT, im finihsing now, hoping to submit end of next month. I also had a very tough time at the turn of the year when my supa threatened to throw me out of PhD. It was crazy.

Now I have made my work stronger and finishing the last chapter of my thesis, which isnt the meat of the thesis, but tries to bring everything together. Unfortunately the results are not good. ie, continuing the line of arguement/modelling in my work, you cant reproduce the data. Well, what ever it is I am writing it. And almost done. There is just the fear that my supa might not be happy with my last work and ask me to do more which I really can not. Mentally and physically. We both had end of next month in mind to submit so I hope he will just accept this is the status quo and really nothing else can be tried to get what he wants to get...

I feel sad looking back at the years. When I was fresh and young, I was optimistic, eager to finish, find a job outside academia, optimistic in writing the thesis and believe everything will be fine. Now having suffered so much and been put down so much at the hands of my supa over the years, I am made to doubt everything and feel that things are not adequate. I hope this is just a temporary effect and after I leave I will get my confidence back.

Does anyone share this expereince? and also share the "not good enough" worry with the thesis as it is near towards the end? Not because you are afraid of the viva, but because you are worried your supa will make you do more.

Hi Globetrotter

I am a social scientist, not a scientist but I can completely identify with the 'it's not good enough' thoughts. I have just handed over a full draft to my supervisor who says he will have it read in two weeks and get back to me. Some of it he has seen, some not. He knows my lit review and my methodology but not my findings so I'm nervous. All I can think about is what if he comes back and says there is a big problem etc. My family mean well and tell me that I always think the worst :$ and it will be fine but no matter how much I'm told that, I can't shake the sheer terror that this time I will be proved correct and them wrong. Others have said that the self-doubt is part of the nature of the beast that is the PhD and although I know that, I still think that while others may think theirs is not good enough, mine is the one that actually isn't good enough!

Good luck with getting your supv agree for you to submit. I know somebody who was told at the eleventh hour to include statistics in what up until then was a completely qualitative PhD. She completely freaked out and got the courage to refuse. She submitted and passed!

Absolutely, I too get the 'not good enough' feeling. I do think this is normal and quite logical though.

I don't know about anyone else but my PhD ended up being just a fraction of the 'big dream' I had when I started the PhD. I had big ideas, but the work became smaller and smaller as time went on and deadlines loomed. I believe it is ok for this to happen, but compared to where I thought I was going to be by the end of the PhD, it's a lot less.