qub phd thesis word count

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How do I get a QUB thesis?

Answered By: Borrower Services McClay Library Last Updated: Jul 24, 2024     Views: 723

The McClay Library holds copies of all Queen's University PhD theses. You can search for them in  Library Search . 

Print theses are kept in the Library store. They may not be borrowed but can be read in the library and can be requested using the  Request  button in Library Search . Requested theses will be ready for collection from the Customer Service Desk on the Ground Floor of the McClay Library after 12 noon the next day.

Alternatively, you can complete a request form at one of the Library's Service Desks. Theses requested on printed forms are collected from the store on the hour during  staffed times  so will be ready for collection at the Customer Service Desk at around quarter past the hour.

Born-digital theses and theses that have been digitised will be discoverable via the Library Catalogue and available to read via Queen’s University Belfast Research Portal

All our print theses must be consulted on site.

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• How Long Is a PhD Thesis?
• Doing a PhD

It’s no secret that one of the most challenging aspects of a PhD degree is the volume of work that goes into writing your thesis . So this raises the question, exactly how long is a thesis?

Unfortunately, there’s no one size fits all answer to this question. However, from the analysis of over 100 PhD theses, the average thesis length is between 80,000 and 100,000 words. A further analysis of 1000 PhD thesis shows the average number of pages to be 204 . In reality, the actual word count for each PhD thesis will depend on the specific subject and the university it is being hosted by. This is because universities set their own word length requirements, with most found to be opting for around 100,000.

To find out more about how these word limits differ between universities, how the average word count from STEM thesis differ from non-STEM thesis and a more detailed breakdown from the analysis of over 1000 PhDs, carry on reading the below.

Word Count Differences Between Universities

For any PhD student writing a thesis, they will find that their document will be subject to a word limit set by their university. In nearly all cases, the limit only concerns the maximum number of words and doesn’t place any restrictions on the minimum word limit. The reason for this is that the student will be expected to write their thesis with the aim of clearly explaining their research, and so it is up to the student to determine what he deems appropriate.

Saying this, it is well accepted amongst PhD students and supervisors that the absence of a lower limit doesn’t suggest that a thesis can be ‘light’. Your thesis will focus on several years worth of original research and explore new ideas, theories or concepts. Besides this, your thesis will need to cover a wide range of topics such as your literature review, research methodology, results and conclusion. Therefore, your examiners will expect the length of your thesis to be proportional to convey all this information to a sufficient level.

Selecting a handful of universities at random, they state the following thesis word limits on their website:

• University of Edinburgh: 100,000
• University of Exeter: 100,000
• University of Leister: 80,000
• University of Bath: 80,000
• University of Warwick: 70,000

The above universities set upper word limits that apply across the board, however, some universities, such as the University of Birmingham and the University of Sheffield, set different word limits for different departments. For example, the University of Sheffield adopts these limits:

• Arts & Humanities: 75,000
• Medicine, Dentistry & Health: 75,000
• Science: 80,000
• Social Sciences: 75,000-100,000

Although there’s a range of limit, it’s safe to say that the majority fall within the 80,000 to 100,000 bracket.

Word Count Based on Data from past Theses

A poll of 149 postdocs.

In mid-2019, Dr Eva Lantsoght, a published author, academic blogger and Structural Engineering Professor, conducted a poll which asked postgraduate doctoral students to share the length of their final thesis. 149 PostDoc students responded to the survey, with the majority reporting a length falling within the ‘80,000 – 120,000 words’ bracket as seen below.

Analysis of 1000 PhD Theses

Over a three-year time period, Dr Ian Brailsford, a then Postgraduate Learning Adviser at the University of Auckland, analysed 1000 doctoral thesis submitted to his university’s library. The PhD theses which formed the basis of his analysis were produced between 2008 to 2017 and showed:

• Average number of pages = 204
• Median number of pages = 198
• Average number of chapters = 7.6

We should note that the above metrics only cover the content falling within the main body of the thesis. This includes the introduction, literature review, methods section, results chapter, discussions and conclusions. All other sections, such as the title page, abstract, table of contents, acknowledgements, bibliography and appendices were omitted from the count.

Although it’s impossible to draw the exact word count from the number of pages alone, by using the universities recommended format of 12pt Times New Roman and 1.5 lines spacing, and assuming 10% of the main body are figures and footnotes, this equates to an average main body of 52,000 words.

STEM vs Non-STEM

As part of Dr Ian Brailsford’s analysis, he also compared the length of STEM doctorate theses to non-STEM theses. He found that STEM theses tended to be shorter. In fact, he found STEM theses to have a medium page length of 159 whilst non-STEM theses had a medium of around 223 pages. This is a 40% increase in average length!

Can You Exceed the Word Count?

Whilst most universities will allow you to go over the word count if you need to, it comes with the caveat that you must have a very strong reason for needing to do so. Besides this, your supervisor will also need to support your request. This is to acknowledge that they have reviewed your situation and agree that exceeding the word limit will be absolutely necessary to avoid detriment unnecessary detriment to your work.

This means that whilst it is possible to submit a thesis over 100,000 words or more, it’s unlikely that your research project will need to.

How Does This Compare to a Masters Dissertation?

The average Masters dissertation length is approximately 20,000 words whilst a thesis is 4 to 5 times this length at approximately 80,000 – 100,000.

The key reason for this difference is because of the level of knowledge they convey. A Master’s dissertation focuses on concluding from existing knowledge whilst a PhD thesis focuses on drawing a conclusion from new knowledge. As a result, the thesis is significantly longer as the new knowledge needs to be well documented so it can be verified, disseminated and used to shape future research.

Finding a PhD has never been this easy – search for a PhD by keyword, location or academic area of interest.

Related Reading

Unfortunately, the completion of your thesis doesn’t mark the end of your degree just yet. Once you submit your thesis, it’s time to start preparing for your viva – the all-to-fun thesis defence interview! To help you prepare for this, we’ve produced a helpful guide which you can read here: The Complete Guide to PhD Vivas.

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Thesis word count

I have read that the maximum number of words for a thesis is 100,000. How does this breakdown in terms of the number of words per section and is there a minimum number of words? Cheers in advance Stephen

Ideally each chapter should be around 8,000 - 10,000 words. Though, it is not unusual to have chapters with 15,000. Longer chapters are harder to structure. If your chapter is longer than that try breaking it into two diffrent chapters. I havemnt heard of a minimum length, in physics and mathematics thesis could have 20,000 - 30,000 words and be less than a hundred pages. It depends on your area, try getting a few thesis of your area from your library (or just look online, there are some available), and see what is the usual length. At the end the minimum length is what has to be in the thesis, enough words to demonstrate that you made a contribution to knowledge, and to be a work that can be published. Good luck!

Guidelines for thesis length, including maximum and minimum lengths, vary by university and department/discipline. You should ask your prospective supervisor(s) about this, because the same subject at different universities can have different rules, and different subjects within the same university can be radically different. In my department the minimum length is 80K and maximum 100K. I'm actually going to come in under this minimum length, but have been advised that it will be ok, though I'm taking steps to make it look better, adding appropriate appendices, though they don't count for total length.

Thanks for that athos78 and BilboBaggins, I have just been trying to gauge how much effort I will need to put in!!

T.S. Eliot said "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter", and I think the same applies to a thesis. A lot of words doesn't necessarily mean a lot of content. A concise writer aims to communicate information with the least amount of words: as Professor Strunk says, "Rule #17: Omit Needless Words". I have a 130 page science thesis here that is just outstanding--a pleasure to read. Next to it is a 250+ page thesis which has less data, but is obviously longer, largely because the writing is not as concise--not a pleasure to read. Writing mostly in the passive instead of the active voice will also make a thesis much longer than it need be. Also, students who are insecure about whether they have done enough work tend to write excessively long theses (IMHO). Two of the least productive students in our group have written 350+ page theses (70,000+ words) yet don't have enough work in there to publish a single paper. Most science theses are about half that length (35,000 - 40,000). The most impressive thesis I've seen was European (from Sweden I think) and extremely thin. I thought my supervisor was kidding when he brought it out into the lab and announced its brilliance. When we looked inside, it pretty much consisted of a TOC then five chapters, each one a 1st author paper. Don't get caught up in thesis length or word count. The goal is to say everything you need to with the least amount of words.

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Theses: Getting published

• Queen's E-Thesis
• Embargoes and making your thesis open
• Copyright: seeking permission
• Thesis With Publications
• Training & support

Getting published

• Finding theses

During the course of your thesis you may wish to get your research published. In the past, and for certain disciplines, this tended to occur once your thesis was almost, or finally, completed. Now, it is not uncommon for researchers to publish some of their research before submission of the thesis. This is usually in the form of a journal article. Certain chapters of the thesis may naturally lend themselves to being worked into separate journal articles. Or, perhaps, you wish to create a monograph (book) based on your entire thesis.

Based on your research, discipline, discussions with your supervisor, peers and other experts in your field, you will be well placed to make decisions regarding publication e.g. where to publish, what type of format etc. This can, however, be very daunting for researchers.

Reasons to publish your thesis

• There are a number of reasons why you might consider publishing all, or part of your thesis:
• Share the results of your research with others. This will directly benefit other researchers, scholars or practitioners in your field.
• If you research has uncovered something noteworthy, novel, or important, there is added impetus to publish.
• It may be a requirement of your funder.
• It may help to secure future employment, particularly if you wish to pursue an academic career.
• Even if you decide to pursue employment outside of academia, publishing your research may be a helpful way to end mark your time as a research student.
• Even if you decide not to get your thesis published as an article, series of articles/chapters or a book, even by making it Open Access you are ensuring that your findings can be accessed and therefore will help future researchers.

Embargo information

Do not fear making your thesis Open Access. Why not?

If necessary, you can apply an embargo to your e-thesis at any point

Consult with funder, potential publisher, supervisor etc to inform decision if an embargo is required or not

Implications of making your e-thesis open access

Once you upload your e-thesis to Pure , barring any embargoes, it will be can be viewed and accessed online via Queen's Research Portal . This is a good thing! As a result, people may be able to contact you about your research, ask you to speak on your topic or engage with it on social media or scholarly publications. You are likely to have greater visibility as a result of making your thesis open access.

Some researchers are, however, concerned that by making their e-thesis online this will scupper their chances for monograph publication. This may not actually be the case. For example, a thesis may only come to the attention of a publisher or a commissioning editor exactly because it has been made open access first! Also, it is important to remember that it is possible to make your thesis open access while you consider your publication options and then later to apply an embargo if this is required.

Whether or not you apply an embargo to your e-thesis or not, it is important to remember that a dissertation will probably have to be quite significantly revised before it will be published. Different publishers moreover have different policies regarding Open Access theses. Included is some of the policies regarding some of the more prominent publishers.

Some publishers accept proposals based on PhD dissertations and are not overly concerned about a thesis being available in an institutional repository. Other publishers may ask for an embargo period. Some may have a blanket policy of not publishing dissertations. The policy will vary from publisher to publisher. If in doubt it is always best to contact the publisher to ask what is their policy.

Recent research indicates that almost 50% of university press welcome manuscripts that are revisions of Open Access e-theses, with a further almost 50% willing to publish on the basis of substantial revision. Open Access is rapidly evolving and changing the scholarly publication landscape.

Benefits of e-thesis

Some useful resources

Can Openly Accessible E-Theses Be Published as Monographs?

Can't Find It, Can't Sign It: On Dissertation Embargoes. Harvard University Press

Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities?

Electronic Theses & Dissertations: Publishing and policy based on fear

Open Access and the Graduate Author: A Dissertation Anxiety Manual

The Continuing Cautionary Tale of Creative Writing Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Open Access, Publishers and PhD Theses

PhD Theses - Drawing Attention to the Often Overlooked Articles in Open Access Repositories

Copyright, Open Access and your Thesis

Publisher policies

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• Last Updated: Sep 5, 2024 12:55 PM
• URL: https://libguides.qub.ac.uk/ethesis

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Dissertation Word Count Analysis: A Helpful Writing Guide

Table of Content

Introduction (10% of Total Word Count)

Literature review (30% of total word count), research methodology (20% of total word count), discussion (30% of total word count), conclusion (20% of total word count), inappropriate hypothesis, indefinite timelines of submission, huge volume of literature, the quality of writing, audit of descriptive content, audit of detailed summary section, audit of bloated discussion.

Dissertation creation is a task that consists of multiple elements and factors. You must mention accurate information and data in the work so readers can understand. When you write a document, you must manage the dissertation word count because it affects the relevancy. This task consists of several elements and factors that affect the document structure. If you ever face issues, get dissertation help from our experts. They have exceptional skills and talents that can assist you in getting high academic scores.

In this blog, you will learn about the structure and breakdown of words in a dissertation. Now, let's understand how long a dissertation UK should be.

How Long a Dissertation Should Be?

The length of a dissertation depends on the value of a given topic. You must identify that topic and write accordingly. Generally, a descriptive document consists of 8000-10000 words. The theme and structure of the write-up determine its component and writing format. To get an idea of the work, analyze the dissertation examples because they have various sources and references. Always manage the task so you don't face issues while submitting.

If you have a query about what is included in word count dissertation, then get assistance from our professionals. They possess exceptional skills and talents that can allow you to get high academic scores. Always mention prominent data and facts in the work because they are crucial for relevancy. Now, we will break down the dissertation word count, which will help you to get a general idea of the work.

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Breakdown of words in a dissertation.

Each section of a dissertation has a set of rules for words. You must manage your task in those assigned targets. We will provide you with a dissertation word count breakdown to you that will help with productivity. The introduction, literature review, and methodology are the write-up's initial parts. When you face issues, buy dissertations from our portals. We can assist you in achieving academic success and greatness.

When you write an introduction section of the dissertation, mention 10% of the total word count. It helps you to manage the structure and value of the document. If you decide on the dissertation word count, then it will help you to mention accurate information.

The literature review is a section that consists of a summary of references and resources. You must mention 30% of the total word count in this part because of the structural value. If you are writing a dissertation of 10000 words, then mention 3000 words in this section.

Research methodology is a section where you mention the respective methods of your research. This chapter uses 20% of the total word count because it has descriptive elements and factors. If you are writing a dissertation of 10000 words, then mention 2000 words in this section. You must mention relevant information in the work because irrelevancy can affect your academic scores.

Discussion is a crucial part of a dissertation because it has prominent facts and figures. When you write this section, mention 30% of the total word count so that it can convey accurate data to the readers. Suppose you are writing a document of 10000 words, then mention 3000 dissertation word count. It helps you to transfer references and resources of discussion to the readers.

The conclusion is the final segment of a write-up. When you write a dissertation, mention 20% of the total word count in the conclusion section. In this chapter, you must mention the summary of the entire document. It helps the reader to identify the text and understand the summary. If you are writing a 10000-word task, mention 2000 words in this chapter.

After understanding the breakdown of dissertation word count, we will identify the problems that you may face in achieving the parameters of word count.

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Problems in achieving dissertation word count.

There are several problems you may face while distributing the dissertation word count. You must identify the issues and edit them accordingly. If you face problems, then seek help from our dissertation editing services . Our experts can assist you to achieve the target of your work. The inappropriate hypothesis is a vital aspect that helps you to achieve the dissertation word count.

The inappropriate hypothesis is a crucial problem that affects the word count distribution. You must manage the task and write prominent words. If you are inconsistent in the hypothesis, it will affect the productivity of the document. Always mention relevant facts and data in this section so that it can meet the required word count.

When you write a dissertation, the hurry of document submission can affect its word count. You must manage your work accordingly so that you can meet the required deadline with accurate tasks. Many times readers identify the text of the write-up because they need to determine the academic scores.

The vast volume of literature is an aspect that can affect the dissertation word count UK. You must manage the task according to the literature. That's because this element organizes the aspects and works in proportion to the given task. Always manage the document structure so you can meet the determined word count. If you are irrelevant, then it will affect your academic success and scores.

If you don't focus on the quality of the writing, then it will affect the word count as well as the structure of the document. It is vital to manage the resources and facts in the dissertation because of their relevancy. The quality of writing depends on the writer's reference and skills. Prominent information is necessary to manage the structural value of the document.

Now, let's move forward to understand the tips that help you to reduce the word count in a dissertation. These elements will allow you to assess and remove unwanted aspects from the document.

Tips To Reduce Word Count In a Dissertation

Several tips can resolve your doubt about how to cut down word count in the dissertation. You must assess them and write accordingly so readers can understand. Audi of descriptive content and detailed summary section is crucial to reduce the words from the content.

When you write a dissertation, always audit threw the descriptive content. It helps you to remove unnecessary words and format from the work. Use simple descriptive with relevant information. Inaccuracy and mistakes lead to false impressions of your results. Maintain perfection in writing because it helps the reader to understand the descriptive content.

To reduce the word count in a dissertation, conduct an audit of the detailed summary section. You must remove unwanted data and facts from this section because they impact write-up relevancy. Accurate information helps you to enhance the structure and productive value of the document. The summary section consists of detailed facts and figures of a dissertation.

Always conduct an audit of bloated or unnecessary discussions. You must mention prominent facts and data in this section. To reduce the word count from this part, analyze the draft. This helps you to remove unwanted discussions from a dissertation. If you ever face issues in this task, seek assistance from peers because they have exceptional talent and skills.

Hopefully, these tips will help you to reduce the dissertation word count. If you ever need help with dissertation writing, feel free to reach out.

Also Read:- Dissertation vs Thesis

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Dissertation writing is a task that requires constant research and effort. You must mention relevant data and facts in this section for relevancy. You must analyse the dissertation word count so that you can get high academic scores. Always follow a simple format and writing style to achieve the given target. Assignment desk is a platform that provides dissertation, thesis, and assignment help . We have professionals and experts who can resolve your query with their expertise and experience.

When you write a 10000-word dissertation, distribute words according to the write-up format. It helps you to meet the given target and descriptions. Our portal can assist you with multiple academic issues and problems. We have been resolving students' queries for a vast period. Hopefully, this blog has helped you to analyse the dissertation word count.

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