Dissertation Writing Requirements: How Long is a Dissertation?

Every university requires its students to write dissertations. For establishments with brilliant reputation or smaller and less known education centers, the rules are the same: dissertation is an invaluable part of every program. It often worries undergraduate students because in many ways, it is the most important work at this stage of life, so certain questions inevitably occur. Namely, how long is a dissertation? What is a common word count?

Dissertation lengthis such a point of interest because everyone wants being prepared for crucial academic projects in advance. This task might seem daunting at first, which is why it’s important to know more about dissertations and their size. Knowledge helps combat uncertainty and start planning everything regardless of what stage of writing one is currently at.

Definition and Purpose

Dissertation is a lengthy research-based piece of writing aimed to offer a new look at some specific subject. In some ways, it’s similar to PhD thesis, but education system, it is a broader research project often undertaken on a post-graduate level, in attempt to get a higher degree. Its purpose entails showing your ability to plan as well as execute a study while demonstrating accuracy and freshness of ideas.

Naturally, few students conduct research that’s actually completely unique, but it is a great chance of showing personal viewpoint and approach. You are the one who chooses topic, determines how to conduct this study, what population to target, what to prove, etc. So, you’re guaranteed to demonstrate your personal input, and the more original it is, the more chances you have at impressing audience, making useful connections, and diversifying your future academic portfolio.

Typical Dissertation Format and Content

How many words in a dissertation? Average dissertation length differs based on each uni’s requirements. It also highly depends on a subject one is writing this work on. In general, though, these papers have five chapters of sheer content, disregarding such technical aspects as table of content, abstract, acknowledgements, references list, appendix, and so on. Let’s take a more detailed look at specific format of this content as well as its approximate length.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Here, your task involves presenting the essence of your topic and mention all relevant facts it comprises. First, tell what’s being researched and for what reason. How is your chosen issue relevant in our days? What groups of subjects could benefit from this research? Put in some general references about the existing studies that also investigated this topic. Write about objectives of this work and how they’re going to be fulfilled. Overall length of dissertation introduction is between 10-15 pages long, which is a perfect size for mentioning everything while staying concise. Remember, your aim here is to intrigue audience, not reveal everything and disclose all processes in introduction already. Think of it as a teaser — you explain what’s being done, how and why, but that’s it.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

First you must pick actual research sources. Make sure they are credible by checking whether they’re peer-reviewed, when they were created, as well as what credentials their authors have. Of course, their relevance to your particular paper is crucial, so pick only something you can really use. Proceed to analyse these sources by pointing out their strong and weak points, then combine sets of them so you could show how they’re similar/different and what they achieved. Mention why they were chosen and what insights they bring to your research. Literature review length tends to be about 20-25 pages long.

Chapter 3: Methodology

This part takes between 10-15 pages long. Focus point here is how research was conducted. Mention type of data-selection process, methods you used, ways in which you contacted sample population and gathered data. Don’t forget to talk about challenges you encountered.

Chapter 4: Results

Typically, this section doesn’t take longer than 10 pages. List and clarify all findings you obtained. Mention them in relation to hypotheses explicitly. Were they confirmed or refuted? Write general conclusion to everything you did in terms of investigation here.

Chapter 5: Conclusion/Discussion

This section might seem tricky at first because in some ways, it resembles bits from other chapters. If so, check dissertation discussion tips to stay on track. Dissertation conclusion should be between 15-20 pages long and your goal is to explain research implications here. Point out what they mean for now and in a bigger perspective. How did they diversify the existing base of evidence regarding your topic? Discuss all explanations here, provide recommendations and acknowledge limitations of your work.

Of course, if you are interested in truly understanding all these points as well as learning more about smaller, more technical-based details, you should think about checking dissertation structure more thoroughly. Learn as much as you can so you could avoid all the sharp edges.

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How Many Words is a Dissertation?

So, how long does it take to write a dissertation? As we mentioned before, it majorly depends on subjects. Usually, they are about 80-100 pages long, but some topics presuppose more space for discussion and research in others. For example, technical subjects such as Mechanical Engineering, Economics, and Maths aren’t normally long, with some of them being less than even 80 pages long.

Medium-range subjects such as Environmental Health, Education, Political Science and alike tend to be a bit longer. They reach about 100 pages in most cases. History, Psychology, Management, Communication, and Nursing can be as long as 300 pages long.

Division into subjects is related to the kind of research that can be conducted. Data in mechanical area are usually more concise while in ‘talkative’ subjects, only background description can take numerous pages. Add to that the ability to conduct lengthy interviews with subjects and it becomes clear why non-mechanical kinds of these papers are longer.

Still, despite these common rules, each uni has its own sets of rules. You’re to be informed on the minimal and maximal word count permitted, which will assist you significantly. Then, after you select your topic, you’ll be discussing possible length with supervisor. If you’re a student in the area of one of subjects with typically longer dissertations, don’t be worried! Many pages are dedicated to graphs, tables, and appendices, with interviews transcripts alone taking up to 20% of space. So, orient toward about 100 pages initially and then you’ll see how it goes.

Dissertation Completion Time

If you were wondering, “How long is a dissertation?” and feeling quite intimidated, relax because you’re going to have plenty of time for preparation. Coursework, thesis, other major types of analysis done during years of study normally serves as a basis for your future dissertation, so you’ll be collecting materials, as well as writing down ideas and outlines for a long time. A year minimum will be given to focus entirely on your paper and conduct all you’ve planned. Two-three years will be spent on careful drafting of possible plans prior to that.

One is likely to be involved in some kinds of internships during studies. Don’t worry about it being a distraction. In fact, internships are usually a great way to help boost your experience and give you more ideas and insight. In the end, you’re likely to devise more approaches to your dissertation as the result.

The best tip regarding dissertation time of completion includes avoiding rushing while not slacking off. Be calm and don’t try to compose everything as soon as possible because it might only compromise results. At the same time, don’t let yourself wait in the hope to get more ideas or gather more experience with time. Such huge and important work can seem like an intimidating project at first, it’s understandable, but the more you wait, the scarier it’s going to look. Do everything gradually and use all options your uni gives you. You won’t care much about average dissertation length then because everything will come naturally.

Get Professional Writing Help Today!

So, answer to the question of “how long are dissertations” shouldn’t appear scary now that you know about how much time is given, what analysis process entails, as well as what general word count is for what kinds of subjects. But even with all possibilities and options, you might be unable to fight off worry completely. After all, a lot of depends on such major projects and sometimes, you might feel like you need some dissertation help .

EduBirdie offers best writing services of all kinds. Whether you need dissertation proposal writing help or want us to write entire dissertation for you, it’s not going to be a problem. How long should it be? It doesn’t matter to us since you’re the one dictating terms. Our professional writers have already successfully written their own works. They will do their best in helping you acquire the best possible dissertation of your own.

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