Hi guys,

Just looking for a bit of perspective here. I'm in year 5 of my Literature PhD though since running out of funding at end of year 3, I've been working at it pretty much part time, balancing writing up with a job on top. It's been a tough slog but I'm getting ready to hand in my third of five chapters this weekend. I have all my reading and research done for the thesis, with all chapters outlined and researched - I do feel an expert and I'm making an original contribution, it's just the writing that holds me up.

Currently, I'm sitting on about 45k words at the moment with two chapters left to go and my supervisor is pushing for an April submission. I feel that this is do-able and that the pressure of submitting will spur me on as motivation is sometimes so tough when you come home from work and want to do anything but write.

Can anyone relay to me their last few months of writeup? I think two chapters (approx 12k each) and bringing the whole thing together is do-able in 16 weeks. It might not be perfect, but a finished PhD is a good PhD, right?

Any tips, stories to keep me going would be much appreciated.

Hi litphdgirl

It's hard to say because everyone is different, but from what you've outlined, I think this sounds doable. There is another thread on a related topic on the go which might also help. here's the link :)