How is the word dissertation progressing through the blogopshere
Here’s the result when looking up three terms for dissertation on blogpulse
It feels really great
For the past hour or more, I’ve been listening to music and working on my dissertation and I’ve just hit 9500 words on my dissertation (disso as it’s affectionately referred to) and it feels great. I’m so happy that I have two weeks in which to proofread, re-write, and improve what I’ve written.
It’s the first time in my life that I finish the writing part of my assignment two weeks earlier than the deadline. I’m not crying victory yet (french expression: mieux vaut ne pas crier victoire), after all, I’d expect myself to do at least another ten to fifteen hours of re-writing. I still have to format the references properly and look for video captures that can help illustrate my points so that the layout earns extra points.
Reading this post you’d be led to believe that I take this work seriously, and the truth is I do. I started it last summer when I came back to London looking for work. I applied to at least twenty jobs without luck and as I was growing demoralised I dropped by the library when no one else was there and borrowed as many books as I thought I could carry without a surtax on the plane. Over the summer I worked through over twenty chapters about film theory and created a documentary over 50 pages long and 25,000 words in depth. I also watched hundreds of hours of documentaries. Aside from the website, it’s the biggest project I’ve ever taken on.
I hope I do well.
Time For The Dissertation Re-write
Now that I’ve achieved my goal of getting most of my dissertation written I’m going to take a day’s break and work on another of my assignments to clear my head and also to make sure I complete all assignments by the required date. It’s been a long effort but last night I spent several hours working on my dissertation, getting it up to 8800 words.
The word limit is from 10-12000 words and having almost 8.8K means I’m 1200 words away. With re-writing and clarification of certain points I should easily get up to the word limit that was set out initially. I’m happy about the state of affairs. Over two weeks for editing and cleaning up of the text.
There’s another assignment that I will work on the 22nd of this month and another which I will start working on later today. With the way things are going, I should quite easily be able to meet all the deadlines and have time to be human by the same opportunity. It’s a great feeling. Finally, the glacier that was pressing down on me is starting to melt and I’ll begin to rise up as the pressure is released, much as England is doing since the last glacial age hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Three Thousand To Go
In three thousand words my first dissertation draft will be ready. This evening I may be able to get up to ten thousand words and from that point on it will be about the re-writing of one section after another until I am happy that I have fit in as much relevant information as possible into the dissertation.
It’s been great weather in London over the past two days especially. Far fewer planes were flying yesterday, therefore, there were far fewer contrails than usual. It’s another beautiful day today and everyone’s going to take advantage of this. It’s too nice to sit indoors in front of the dissertation when the sun is out. Summer is teasing us too effectively.
The Ten Thousand Word Project
Yesterday I woke up and within half an hour started working on my dissertation. For a few minutes, I added one or two more paragraphs of text before going on a search for interviews. I looked up Cousteau and arrived at the INA page. The INA is the french video archive online.
It’s there that I found a quote from Jacques Yves Cousteau during the 1956 Cannes Film festival where he was talking about his documentaries. There are three elements that are perfect for the purpose of my dissertation therefore I am happy to have found that resource. It’s made me feel more relaxed.
Add to this the fact that I’m up to 5800 words and you’ll understand that this current state of affairs is quite pleasant. I need to write almost four thousand more words by Sunday to be on track with my own project. We’ll see whether I achieve this goal.
I have heard from a friend that some idiots are getting so stressed about the dissertation that they going to doctors to get medication to calm them down and this goes against all logic. If your dissertation is stressing you then there’s one key element that will calm you down: Do your work!! Why are the doctors giving people drugs to calm them down when it’s a psychological problem because they’re too idiotic to relax in a logical way. The doctors are stupid for giving the medication and those taking drugs are idiots for taking them.
Rather than give people drugs why not give them time management lessons instead. That’s the real issue.
Anyway, my dissertation is going well and if I reach my target of 10,000 words by Sunday evening then I will have three weeks of revision to go through. I will see whether I can meet my module leader for one last time as soon as the April Holidays are finished to make sure that the content is correct. I want to do well so I might as well put in as much time as I can to get it finished on time and to the highest standard possible.
That’s why I’m procrastinating through the process of blogging 😉
First thoughts
You know you’re a final year student when the last thing you think about before going to sleep is your dissertation. It’s also the first thing you wake up thinking of and to make matters worse you notice that a friend has joined a group called “my dissertation is driving me crazy, just to make you feel that much better.
It’s not that I’m doing particularly badly, after all, I’ve done all the research I wanted to do in relation to the topic I’m writing about and I am progressing. I just wish it wasn’t so important in relation to all the other work I’ve done. It’s over in a month. That’s when I can finally relax and enjoy the real world again.
How many university students a year write dissertations? At least thirty to fourty thousand I’d guess. How many enjoy it, probably quite a few. I enjoy it but it would be nicer if the purpose was to create more content for a website than to be assessed by a lecturer. I’m going to work on adding at least another 2000 words today, get it to five thousand words today. That’d mean I’m halfway to completion and it will be a really nice feeling.
Now it’s time to stop procrastinating and do something more productive. No holidays for anyone so close to the dissertation deadline.
Dissertation writing
Reading Time: < 1 minute A dissertation is a lot like creating a specialised website. You gather hundreds of bits of information and amalgamate them into a collection of articles.
On a night at Swankey’s
Having the dissertation hanging over me is unpleasant. I often spend a few hours a day doing research which is divided between books and documentary films. Over time I organised all these ideas and I’m ready to start writing. I want to finish the first draft by Saturday. i.e. the day before april fool’s
On Saturday I went out to four parties. The first party was a nice mauritian buffet to celebrate a friend turning 25 and joining the generation old club. I was there for two or three hours before moving on.
The second party was a small affair although the participants were not university students therefore I left for the next venue.
It was the SU bar, busy on a Saturday night, something which is not that normal. It’s usually deserted but due to a person having their birthday there it was better.
The fourth party was the best part. Everyone from the bar got into 7-10 taxies and headed down to a house party. The house is in the middle of the suburbs, has two living rooms although one of these is half kitchen/half living room. Maybe it’d be called a dining room.
Many friends were there and there was a live dj to add to the ambiance. At the beginning there was no sound because they were lacking a cable or two to plug the speakers in. The issue was quickly resolved and sound began.
The party would involve the taking of 100 pictures, chatting to many people about many things. One of these people was glad to practice her french. Others shared drinks and such.
Saturday started around 7pm and ended 12hrs later with me walking a road I had walked many many times in the past. It was a really good night and I hope to have more like it.
Last night was tame in contrast
random | university | work
Why It’s Great To Be A Student
One of the best things about being a student is that you can work on projects without having to feel bad about not making any money. In particular, I’m thinking of the dissertation. It’s a point where you’ve got ten thousand words to write about subjects you love.
As you’ve got to do so much research you’ve got a reason to buy tens of books and DVDs and watch them, enjoying every minute and taking the occasional note.
As you progress and you start writing you’re there, being your own boss. You develop your structure and you see what you’ve achieved. You think about what is already said and what else must be written. You write it down, re-write it. You find there’s some information missing so you’ve got an excuse to get sidetrack to look for some in-depth material about that.
You come back to the original text and you’ve just added 200 words. paf. Done, great. My project has progressed ;).
Of course, the more time you give yourself the more fun the project will be. If you give yourself ten weeks then you’ve got lots of time so it’ll be lots of fun because you can sidetrack all the time. if you’ve got 6 weeks you’re under pressure but not quite in the same way. If you’ve got four weeks you may have to be very disciplined. If you’ve got two weeks then forget about sleep, about friends, about sunshine and everything else. You’ve got to plod along and distractions will destroy your chances.
Anyway, I want to get the writing part done by the beginning of April so that I have four weeks to edit. Editing can be quite amusing when you’ve got time.
Enough procrastinating, time to go back for five minutes before the next distraction comes along
Before waking up
Before waking up I found myself catching a plane to an airport before catching a small private plane to somewhere in the mountains where I went skiing. I was going home but for some reason I was late.
I was telling myself that I had to get back to one place to get my luggage before going home before realising that I didn’t. I decided to rush for the plane, dropped by my room, and threw a cursive look before running back to the small private plane, asking whether I was on the first flight before the plane took off.
For some reason, it had to taxi along some mountain roads and almost hit some bowling balls on the tarmac. Quite a confusing dream to have had.
I usually have strange dreams as summer starts trying to get in through the curtains. It’ss the fourth or fifth day of sunshine in sunny London.
Another day of sitting in the sun whilst waiting for night to fall to continue working on the dissertation.
Last night I spent at least an hour going through some of my notes. Highlighting relevant bits and thinking about how to structure the introduction. Now it’s another 15 days of such effort or more.
The deadline is still over a month away but it’s better to do as much as possible now to relax afterward… or at least not panic.