Module Four

Organizing your work

Dr Manideepa Patnaik

We are still talking about planning practically so that you can practically get
started with your work and complete your work with expected deadline.

Organizing your thesis

Thesis writing involves a great deal of strategic planning. Breaking your themes
and sub-themes to papers is one idea. Assigning word limits to those papers or
chapters is also a good way to get started with your work.

My PhD thesis had 50,000 words. Some of my juniors and seniors had written
their thesis in 80,000 words. How effectively and how precisely you contribute to
the world of knowledge in your area is most important. How fat is your thesis is
not very important.
Tentative word limits for tentative chapters of your thesis can look something like
the following-

Chapter One- Introduction- 5,000 words

Chapter Two- Literature Review- 8,000 words
Chapter Three- Methodology- 7,000 words
Chapter Four- Data Analysis one- 8,000 words
Chapter Five- Data Presentation and Analysis two- 8,000 words
Chapter Six- Data Presentation and Analysis- 8,000 words
Chapter Seven- Conclusion and Recommendation- 6,000 words

This is a rough strategy; you can plan out a better strategy for your work. Given
this, if you can break, say, chapter two to 6 papers or writing units which may
even be annotated bibliography, then each writing unit will consist of roughly
1000 to 1200 words which is four to five pages of writing that you can easily do at
once. Breaking your thesis to several units of writing can thus be very helpful and
the quality of your work will also sharpen if you can effectively plan this phase of
your work. Can you send me a rough outline with tentative words units and
writing units now?

Truly yours,
Manideepa