I can't write my Masters dissertation and it's due in 2 weeks, in despair over it

I've coached a good few writers through blocks of various levels of despair, and have a few hints and tricks that might help you.

First, find yourself some guided meditations which focus on self compassion. There are loads of them online, available for free, of varying lengths and types. Find some you like. Listen to at least one of them before you sit down to write every time, as this will help stop you being so hard on yourself, and telling yourself you can't do this. You can do it, and you can do it well. Trust me.

Next, try to write down a series of bullet points that outline what you want your dissertation to say. Don't worry about getting the wording of this right, or getting it down in the right order; just scribble out a few notes, as this is bound to change the more you get into it, and you don't need to get it perfect right up until the last moment. Just get it onto paper and be proud of yourself.

Once you've got all your points down, assemble them into a reasonable order that seems to flow in the right direction.

This is now your table of contents. Add a few subheadings if you can, but don't worry about that too much.

Well done! You're well on your way.

If you've got research to handother academic papers that back up what you're saying, or research you've carried outsummarise the important parts, very brieflya sentence or twothen paste those summaries underneath the appropriate headings.

Once again, look at all you've achieved and be proud of yourself.

By now you should have a decent framework to use to write your dissertation. Have a look at how many sections you've got to write, and then work out how many you'll have to write each day to finish a couple of days before the deadline. Then just write that many each day, making sure you use your guided meditations whenever the panic that you can't write takes you over. All you need is words on the page. They don't have to be perfect, just written.

Use the last two days to revise and correct and deepen.

You can do this. You really can.

How are you getting on op? I must say I’ve struggled the last couple of days with how hot it’s been. Last thing I want to be doing is slaving away at the laptop all day. Just keep telling myself this will be the last bank holiday I spend at the library all day.

Not much I can say that has already been said op. But wishing you the best of luck

Try not to be overwhelmed by the total word count. I remember being intimidated by the thought of writing a 10k word count but now I write that in work without thinking twice about it.
I wouldn't worry about it being perfect...all it has to do is pass. A Masters degree is just a pass or fail, not the whole first class, second class, etc. I have no idea whether I passed with flying colours or barely scraped through...it doesn't matter, I have the bit of paper either way.

This is what worked for me:

• Set out the sections that will comprise your dissertation
• Bullet point your thoughts and key points that go in each section. Don't worry about writing it properly, just get the thoughts down.
• Start expanding the bullet points into proper text. Don't necessarily worry about going from start to finish...just write what bit currently calls to you.
• Once you have the text filled in, then you can start going back through it and making sure it has the appropriate flow/makes sense as a cohesive document.
• If possible, ask someone to read it through for grammar/spelling errors.

You can do it!

I had six months of chemo and my last dose was two weeks before my masters dissertation submission deadline. I had done some very weak data collection but that was all - I hadn't read anything and hadn't analysed my data.

Sitting with my laptop made my brain fog worse, so I cleared my living room floor and spent two days with bits of paper and highlighters and post-its trying to develop and organise an argument. Then I started writing where it felt the easiest to start - not at the beginning. I definitely went down the wine route recommended here and also made sure I ate plenty of good food. I found sitting in different bits of the living room for different sections helpful for some reason - I think it felt less formal than sitting at a desk so helped keep the fear at bay!

I sent each section to my supervisor separately and managed to write, get her feedback, edit it, and complete by the deadline. This was also helped by the fact that I managed to find a printers near my uni who did a same day print and delivery service, so I didn't have to worry about leaving a lot of time to get printing and binding done or taking it in myself. I got an A.

It's possible, OP. Keep the faith :)

I hope it’s going well. I am a procrastinator too. I found a really detailed plan helped me so I could just look at it when the panic set in and say next I will write 2 paragraphs on xyz. Referencing and bibliography as you go along worked for me. I wrote short introductions initially just as a placeholder to help me focus and rewrote them at the end. It helped me to have something there to get me started.

haha lido that's what I keep telling myself at the moment - it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be done!

argh

ballacre I'm exactly the same - if I don't do any work for a couple of days I can feel the panic rising, whereas even if I've only done a little bit I feel much better

When I was struggling with perfectionism and procrastination what spurred me on were:
"It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be done" and
"The best dissertation is a completed dissertation".

Good luck, you'll get there!

Hello,

The problem that I found with writing dissertations was anxiety. I could not stop thinking about the thing and how much I had to do. The only way that I could cope with the anxiety was by writing something every day.

Sometimes, I simply noted down a few quotes or revised a section; sometimes I managed to write a substantial amount. Eventually, it was finished.

The advice to just write anything to start with, really did work for me. Out of the jumble of words came sentences and important points.

For my undergrad dissertation back in the dark ages I had put it off all year. On the Friday before submission. I sat down with the books and journals. Ate lots of ritz crackers, drank more than my body weight in irn bru and coke and just wrote for 48 hours straight stopping only for a pee, didn’t even sleep. Stupidly I ended up writing 33k words and had to edit like mad on the Monday hand in day. I lost marks for handing in such a weighty tome but did write 21k words of decent enough work to get me a high 2:1 for dissertation. It can be done just write anything down to start with and have lots of caffeine. You tell your body & mind your health can go to shit after two weeks but for now it can stfu (I say this from a place of experience with rheumatoid arthritis and chronic fatigue!)
Good luck!

It's lovely to read all the supportive posts. But I also have a health condition that causes brain fog and when I am in the grip of it I can barely think l, let alone be able to write a masters dissertation! It would be impossible.

I really thin you need to go back to the uni and find out your options.

Hey op just wondering how you managed to get on yesterday? Did you manage a good rest and a good breakfast? Any words?

Please keep coming back for updates and support so we can all cheer you on and celebrate when you hand it in!

This is an excellent thread full of advice. Everyone rooting for you, OP - and good luck to all the others writing up too.

This stood out to me:

I love my topic. I'm worried I'll do it a disservice and that basically I'm saying goodbye to any further study by screwing this up so badly.

You are suffering from the curse of perfectionism - and almost ALL procrastinators are closet perfectionists.

The only way out is through, so get writing something.

You only have to get started, that’s all. If you’ve started and it’s not good enough the option to delay or defer or get an extension is still there. But you may find just by starting that it breaks the cycle of worrying.

Put it this way - if you do nothing you will definitely need to delay or defer. If you do something you will have greater choices.

I finished a PhD in 2015 having had to take nearly a year out in the middle due to major depression. I still wasn’t ‘right’ by the time I came to writing up so can understand the brain fog and difficulty concentrating really well.

As others have said, - first draft is just that- a first draft. It’s not meant to be perfect. Write something - anything - to get your thoughts and structure on paper, leave it, and then go back to it. But write. Having some words on paper, even if you think they’re rubbish, will help you clarify what you’re saying and what your argument is.

My partner (an academic) always used to say ‘what are you telling me? Why is this important?’ and it helped to keep that in mind as I was writing.

The other thing that can help with structure is this: say what you’re going to say (intro), say it (main body of thesis), say what you’ve just said (conclusion).

Write the intro last, as others have said. It helps to have a really rough one at the start to sort of signpost yourself as to where you’re going, but leave the intro until the end; it’s far easier to write then!

If you’ve had the moments where you’ve gone ‘yes!’ about your argument, then it sounds like you know your stuff. You could read
and research from now till Christmas and still not feel as if you know everything you think you need to. But you don’t need to know everything, you need to know ‘enough’; and there comes a point where you have to say ‘ok, I’m going with what I’ve done so far’ and write the dissertation.

Not sure what your subject is (read most but not all of the the thread), but I didn’t get a distinction in my MA (arts subject) and was accepted for a PhD. I was part time and self funded for the PhD, so perhaps that made a difference, but a distinction is not always necessary.

Good luck- you can do this!

OP, writing as an academic here, my advice is different: if you have notes, and a comprehensive set of notes on your desktop review, and you have a decent bibliographic system, go for it (though personally the doing it with wine is not what I’d recommend). If that isn’t the case, and you’re genuinely wanting to go on for a PhD, you need to get urgent advice on whether you can get a more significant extension. It’s simply not possible to produce a distinction level Master’s dissertation (which you’ll need to get accepted onto a PhD) in a couple of weeks. In fact, I’d doubt you could manage a C-grade piece of work in that time.

I'm doing a PhD and feel the same. It becomes a weight and when you've low drive, just knowing where to start is a huge hurdle. But, I've learned writing is like going to the gym.

First, You need to warm up: write about something that interest you or something that just rolls off the keyboard. I wrote an email to a friend about where I recommended she visited in Cornwall next week for example. Now, you're in a flow.
Next, a session: Look at your work. What is required for each section, word count and 3/5 bullet point. Then you can expand, add further notes when you feel like it. When you've finished a session, pull up a sticky note saying what to do when you next open the laptop. This is your cool down, it marks the end of a session so you can switch to something else knowing you've parked your work and don't need to think about it for a bit. Try it for a few days. If you really are still struggling, speak to your supervisor. Your mental health is more of a priority than a mark. Good luck.

"One of the other tricks is to pretend that it’s a Mumsnet post - just think what would I put in a man post to ecplain to them [one of the sections] and talk it out in your head just like you’re about to post on here."

This is excellent advice. Sometimes if I (an academic who has written numerous articles and supervised loads of dissertations) am struggling with my own writing, I do this. Or I'll turn on my phone's voice memo app and talk about my topic - I try to imagine that I'm explaining the argument or the methodology or my findings or conclusions or whatever to a slightly nerdy friend, as if we were sitting in the pub and they had asked me to talk them through it. Later on I will look at what I've written or listen to what I've said, and convert that into more academic prose.

Writing in academic prose can cause huge writer's block: I find that lots of people benefit from expressing themselves first in much more conventional, casual language -- they can then use the editing process to convert their material into academic prose.

Write conversationally, edit academically.

Good luck!

In solidarity, this is me settling in for my session this afternoon. I’m planning to turn my random assortment on notes, quotes and half ideas and turn them in to my final chapter!

Oh and I meant to say by all means take the outlines , mind maps and plans to walk through with your supervisor.

But everything I write sounds stupid and irrelevant, I can't explain why this is

But now I feel this is shit and like I got the wrong end of the stick?

You are in what is a recognised stage of writing original work. Please be reassured that pretty much everyone goes through it.

It's because you know 'everything' about your topic, you are allowing yourself to forget that not everyone knows as much about it as you do. That might be why you feel what you have to say is trite. It might feel that that for you but for the rest of the world.... your conclusions will be genuinely new. This is especially true for cross subject area research.

Trust yourself, you have a story to tell, so tell it. Exactly the words of a supervisor to me in 1984.

Ask for supervisor for more detailed feedback, that's their job not just telling you something is wrong. How is it wrong, how does it need to be different.

Another thing I found useful was to write the conclusion. Then pull together everything that had led me to that conclusion in the form of a simple mind map.

Conclusion in a few words in a circle in the middle of a page of pager. Draw lines from the circle to the lower level things you know. Start to classify these into broad categories of your structure introduction methodology literature search results conclusions what needs to be researched next etc

Getting away from liner planning while still getting words on the page really helped me.

All the very best. 😀

I sympathise with you OP - I too have an assignment to write, which I've been hiding from for far too long.

I'm taking some of the advice on here on board, some great words of wisdom here!

That's a fantastic link @ChipInTheSugar kind of makes me want to have something to write!

Mine is due in 5 days and I'm panicking....these suggestions have really really helped so thank you everyone.

You just have to work through that 'rabbit caught in the headlights' phase that paralyses you.

Easier said than done as I'm in that phase right now.

I would print YY58 on a sheet of A4, hang it on the shelf over my desk and give it a sharp flick every time you hit a glitch.

Come on OP! You can do it. Imagine how good typing that last word will feel. In just 2 weeks you'll suddenly be bored as you won't have anything to do

You're very welcome! It can really help you structure your sections. Good luck!