More Tips on Tackling Your Dissertation
From a Student's Perspective
Written by Lauryn, 301 Intern
Congratulations! You’re so close to graduation! There’s just one pesky thing between you and that diploma: your dissertation. So, here’s a few tips to make that task seem a little less overwhelming.
Breaking down (in a good way)
Let’s say you have 8000 words to write for your dissertation. That’s a pretty formidable task. It can be hard to figure out how to even get started on a task so big, like when you get one of those huge burgers from Bar One and you have no idea how best to tackle it. For me, breaking it down into more manageable chunks makes that process easier. Seeing that huge task as ‘introduction, chapter one, chapter two, conclusion’ makes it much easier to visualise. Then you can set approximate word counts for each section. Perhaps that’s 1000 words each for your introduction and conclusion, and 3000 per chapter, or however you and your supervisor have agreed to split it. Which brings me onto tip #2…
Superhero supervisors
Luckily, you aren’t facing your dissertation alone; you have your supervisor on hand to help. Make good use of your meetings and come with a list of any questions you have written down. That way, you won’t forget what it was you wanted to talk about because you’re stressing about whether or not your supervisor can hear your cat meowing in the background (they can, and they’re waiting for you to show them your cat). It’s worth reading up on your supervisor via their staff profile on the university website, because you might be surprised what areas of study they participate in that could be helpful to you! My MA tutor is in a totally different area of study to me, but through the Staff tab I saw that she’d actually taught on one of my texts, meaning she had a bank of information already collated for me to access.
Citation frustration
Picture this: it’s less than a week until your dissertation is due, and you’ve just realised you have to cite the whole thing. And write up the bibliography. Yikes. I’m going to give you advice that you’ll roll your eyes at: cite as you go. I know, it’s so annoying, and feels like it breaks the flow of your work, but I promise you it’s better than having to do it all at the end and realising that there’s a great source that you just can’t find again. Personally, I like to leave all my tabs open with sources I’ve looked at in a particular writing session, then cite all of those when I run out of steam to write more. That way, I don’t interrupt the process if I’m on a roll with an idea, but I still have them all to hand. If you find citing difficult, there are tools that can help you to format, such as citethisforme, easyBib, and Mendeley.
That’s all for now, but good luck with your dissertations, and remember that your coursemates will be going through all the same trials and tribulations with it, so lean on each other for moral support!
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