Good afternoon.....

I am the general lunatic trapped on an island person.....that some of you may have read about....well I am sending out an SOS

My question is: what percentage would you said your conclusion was or is going to be for your PhD thesis??????

How long is a piece of string type question I appreciate....but it would be really very helpful if anyone is out there today with some advice. Deadline Monday....still writing...hilarious.

Hi Heidi

Mine was a social science thesis, word count 82,800 and my conclusion chapter was as far as I remember 7,500.

good luck for Monday(up)

Hi Ady

Thanks very much for the advice....I so wish I was allowed that many words!! (I am over word limit by 8,000++) However they changed the word limit half way through my PhD and lowed it by 30,000! so clearly it is unfair....! I am going to try and make the conclusion around 6,000 - big enough to be sensible.

Thank you for your help Ady!

Better get back to the drawing board

Have a good evening, Heidi and Bea!

Mine was less than 10%. Thesis about 74000 (76882 with appendices, contents etc). Conclusion 5332.

Good luck getting finished.

My thesis (history) was about 70,000 words long. My final conclusions chapter was about 3300 words long, so 5% of the total.

I also had conclusions sections in each earlier main chapter though. The final one pulled the big ideas/themes/questions together.

Heidi,

If you're stuck on said Island without access to supervisors, how are you getting your scrpits proofed by them and how are you obtaining general advice from them?

I know you're probably e-mailing them and and engaged in phone contact, however, during write-up I found face-to-face contact absolutely crucial in understanding what was required as regards writing styles, content and viva preparation.

Just curious and in my own way trying to be helpful.

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

======= Date Modified 02 Aug 2012 10:11:26 =======
Just thought I would tie up this little thread - I ended up writing my conclusion in 12 hours!!! I wrote 6,200 - apart from the odd typo they were received really well! I could not believe it. The best bit of writing I achieved was with no sleep - knee deep in nappies - crazy hair (with probably a bird living in it)....must have learnt a trick or two during the years of PhD. This is method of time planning is not highly recommended - it was very stressful!! But thank you for all your thoughtful replies with regard to conclusions. I ended up highly structuring my conclusion chapter - and it paid off - most was directly related to highlighting originality theoretically/methodologically. So there we go! Your hints and tips gave me the last bit of confidence to complete - thank you chaps! love Heidi and Bea