Planning your dissertation

This article discusses the importance of dissertation planning

I have talked to lots of students recently about writing their dissertation. You might think that you have a long time to do it – you do not! One strong piece of advice that I would give to students working on a big piece of work is to have a timetable for your work. It might start something like this:

Week ending	By this date I should have…	Notes
24^th Jan	Confirmed the topic with my tutor
31^st Jan	Identified my primary sources
7^th February
14^th February
21^st February
28^th February
7^th March
14^th March
21^st March
28^th March
3^rd April	Reread and checked it through and handed it in!

If you fill out a timetable like this now you will not leave everything to the last minute. Of course you can adapt the timetable as you go along, and this process of adapting it will lead you to be continually monitoring your progress.