I'm finally back to writing which I was supposed to be doing from Sep but had so many things happening in my life that it became impossible to sit down and begin the writing. Now I'm back to it, (although not so much time is going into that as I hoped) the no of word keep me bit anxious. I'm planning a 6-7 chapter thesis in social sciences and the word limit is 80,000 max. Currently, I have abt 11,000 in a lit review and the second chapter which I'm writing now looks like its going to be around the same amount. So, acc. to my maths I will end up with a 60,000 thesis,:-( which worries me, or maybe I shouldn't. Please share your thoughts and experience on this-anyone who known how others have written or if you at the end stages of writing?:$

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I'd be hesitant about worrrying too much about word count until you've written far more chapters. Even then there's time to fix things. I'm a humanities student, aiming at a 7 chapter thesis, and I think I'm going to come in at just over 70,000 words. 80,000 is my minimum. I can see how I can fix that, and will seek advice from my supervisors. Basically though I need to get to the end of that full draft before worrying unduly. Even then the shortfall can be fixed.

But don't be too alarmed after two chapters. After two chapters I thought I'd come vastly short. Some later chapters were much longer and the shortfall has turned out to be much less. I've now written chapters 1-6 (though all need to be rewritten to an extent) and am now tackling the conclusions chapter 7.

:-) Thanks Bilbobaggins! I think I just went to a panic mode and alarm bells started ringing in my ear. After few hours hammering on with the writing I think I'm much more calmer. It seemed that I could not write even 4-5 pages a day which was the aim when I started. So I better get a good night sleep and start over tomorrow as it will probably help to clear my worries and anxieties.

Glad to help, and good luck with the continuing writing. I can totally understand your worry though - I was very worried about this at one point, especially after my first chapter came in at 6500 words. Fortunately hindsight is a marvellous thing - if only I could have zipped back in time to tell myself not to worry then!

You can always add mroe words, even if it's just fleshing out what's already there a little more.

Far rather that than the position I got myself into - i.e. scorching along and writing over 200,000 words and then wondering how the hell to get it down to an acceptable level without eradicating the best bits. Near-destroyed me, that did.

I am constantly told its only a PhD. The word count is a guide but not set in stone, my supervisor's (who is in her late 50s is 27000) and a guy I hope to have as my internal completed 4 years ago at 22000 for a science based PhD. I have written two chapters fully which equate to 12500, but my first will need changes. So write what you can and see you go, my original idea for chapter two was only 3500, but recently added a section and is now nearly 6000.

I'm interdisciplinary with a limit of 80,000. I have 35,000 so far in 9 chapters and hope to stretch out to 50,000. My supervisor agrees that will be enough. Right now I can't really see where the extra words will come from but I'll just keep going and have faith....

not sure about other unis, or what has been said before on here about the subject but here I the thing they have told us to bear in mind is the length needed for an MPhil, and the length needed for the PhD, the closer your word count is to the MPhil the more it will look like an MPhil level piece of work - or so they are saying. Not that this is necessarily true of course, but I would think you need to aim at least for the middle ground between the two just to highlight the difference. I'm aiming for around 75,000, but I bet I will go over    :-( I plan to make a lot of use of endnotes and the appendix :$

I have found discussing it with people who either slightly know about my field (as noone in my department fully does) or don't know anything can help by discussing what your trying to do and say, they can help you think of things you may not have thought of, sometimes supervisors are too close...so my director of research is useful in this case. Interdisciplinary has its ups and downs, as I do mine in a geography department, and no I am not a geographer! You will get there, best of luck :-)

Ah yes - ups and downs indeed! My thesis is quite math-heavy - that tends to make for a shorter count probably.

Thanks guys!:-x I'm kind of over the panic mode I was on yesterday and keep hitting the keyboard with utmost power and hope that it will gather words from wind and air etc ;-). Just out of curiosity, what is the word limit for MPhil in social sciences as someone mentioned it in this thread?

here the limit for MPhil is 60,000 in social sciences, not sure about elsewhere though