Every successfully completed dissertation begins with a practical and workable action plan. An action plan is a vital tool to help you stay focused, on track, and motivated. It's highly likely your supervisor will ask you to make a plan, so that they can advise on time frames, targets, and goals.
Before you begin to plan your write-up, you need to decide when, where, how, and with what or whom you'll do your research, and how you'll collect and analyse your data. You also need to think about how long it will take to collect and collate your data and research, and then build that into overall time frames.
Once you have worked out how much time you will need for data collection, you can devise your action plan.
Use the following rules to help you:
- Assume you will write a page a day
- Work backwards from at least two weeks before the submission date to calculate when you need to start your writing. (A page is about 500 words, so if your dissertation is 15,000 words long, you'll need at least 30 days to do the writing.)
- Leave two or more weeks at the end for editing and proofreading
- Include interim achievable targets to help you stay focused and on track
- Work on different sections and if you get bogged down, switch from one to another
- Ask a close friend to read it bit by bit and provide feedback on clarity, accuracy, and relevance
- Build in meeting slots with your supervisor. Make sure these are strategically placed to catch possible problems at different stages of the write-up, or sections of your dissertation
- Use time-management tools to help you stay on track, e.g. a Gantt chart, or a planning app on your phone
- Once you have devised your plan, stick to it... It's there for a reason!
Remember it may take you up to three times longer than you expect to write up your dissertation, so build this contingency into your schedule.
Hopkins, D. and Reid, T., 2018. The Academic Skills Handbook: Your Guide to Success in Writing, Thinking and Communicating at University. Sage.
Related blog posts
We have a number of blog posts about writing your dissertation. Make sure you check these out so that you're ready to get started:
- Making the most of expert and peer support
- Choosing a topic
- Working with your supervisor
- Literature reviews
- Research (developing your research question, creating your working title and developing your research proposal)
- Structuring your dissertation (including contents, sections, and designing an effective structure)
- Writing an abstract - a six point checklist
Further support
If you'd like some further support on writing your dissertation, we offer 1:1 tutorials both online and in-person. Tutorials are available throughout the summer, and slots become available 14 days in advance. You can see what's available, and book a tutorial, in MySkills.
Respond
