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Word count?

L

Hey,

I am in the process of writing an analysis chapter and have just realised it is going to end up being VERY long - about 15-20 thousand words, so it got me thinking about the overall word count. I have been aiming for 100, 000 words, but am now thinking that this doesn't sound like a lot!! :$

My research is in social psych and I use transcript data so that will artificially inflate my word count

What is everyone else aiming for? Or what have people ended up with? Just interested :p

xx

J

I'm aiming for 80 000 words... and have been warned my thesis must not go over 100 000 words. I'm in education. Not sure if its different for other subjects.

I

May not be relevant, but in my experience, qualitative projects often have an increased word limit for all of the transcribing. So if you're meant to do 100,000 for a quantitative, I guess this would be higher...

L

The guidelines here are for 80, 000, but it more of a hard science uni so I think the limit has been drawn up with quantitative work in mind. Picture says 1000 words and all that!!
xx

B

Aren't there different lengths for different departments/disciplines at your uni? There are at mine. I'm a humanities student and have been told to aim for 80-100,000 words. I'm going to come in a bit short, but have been told that's ok. Also my supervisor said he'd always prefer to read a too-short thesis than a far-too-long one, and he'd look more kindly on the former.

T

Blimey all these long theses! Mine is just submitted at 37,000. I did a molecular biology stylee and write concisely.

S

I'm in social sciences, and it's also 80000-100 000. I'll be doing 100 000 - and also using transcription data. You can't get your words down with a really good edit?

T

Eeek, I'm with The Ace! I was thinking 35-40,000 words would be me done. Again though, molecular biology and probably plenty of graphs ;)

L

I think it is a difference between disciplines. I don't know anybody who has done a social science thesis in less than 75, 000!

I am still aiming for 100, 000 - will have to be harsh with the editing though I think - I'm a concise writer too! I obviously have far too many interesting things to say for my own good ;-)

J

Can you put any of it in an appendix...or as endnotes, neither of these count, I already have one appendix and loads of endnotes, and expect there will be loads more! :$. mine has to be no more than 80,000, but they say they never actually count them!

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