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Monday 28 July 2014

How to write a dissertation and submit it EARLY for a change (part 1)

1. Take a photo of most of the books you're going to reference, knowing that you won't read half of them, and you'll probably end up quoting different authors... Don't forget that most of your reading is going to be hard-to-find essays from e-journals, anyway.


 2. Using the tower of books balanced precariously on the edge of your desk, type out a book bibliography, trying not too get distracted into reading bits from each. Try not to laugh when the tower topples and the neighbour downstairs bangs on the ceiling.

3. Realise that you only have 15,000 words. At the rate you're going, that's about 300 words for every book/article you're aiming to reference.

4. Make a mental list of all the films/YouTube clips/articles/exhibitions/books you've encountered in the past few month - they may come in handy. You're going to be writing a lot about divergent thinking and metaphor making, so all anecdotes hold possibilities (including the one about coming into school and spending half the morning crying in your supervisor's office, before teaching one of the best classes ever).

5. Play some more with the title. You're going to talk about mirrors in the introduction... You like wordplay. Why isn't there a suitable academic pun? Google: mirrors.

6. Realise you're stalling. Start writing the introduction.

7. Talk to your friends about it. Listen to them when they suggest you set a deadline and a daily/weekly word count. 

NOW when that's all done, stop procrastinating. Stop writing on your blog. Just write the thing - Go!

*current word count (excluding bibliography): 200
works cited: 1 (student poem)





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