PostDoc Discussion Forum

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 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!

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.

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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