To not finish his Dissertation?

[AcademicTwo]

DH has a dissertation deadline in a few days, it's for a post graduate so he's been here before. He struggles with assignments and writing, I'm the opposite and it comes quick and easy to me.

We rowed yesterday and this morning it still carried over, I couldn't believe he thought he was in the right and later he apologised but now I feel this huge U turn was just to butter me up.

On some of his assignments for his degree and his previous dissertation, I've helped him flesh out what he's written, his subject is not my subject but I find it easy to waffle and add in generic sentences. But I find it boring and it takes about an hour for 500 reasonably meaningful words, when he decide to do post grad I told him I wouldn't be doing any work for him again.

He has come and asked me 20 minutes ago if I will help with the last 1500 words to flesh it out. I'm still raw from arguing and after watching the funeral all day was going to sit and do something uplifting this evening.

I feel he shouldn't have even asked me as if I say no I feel guilty for not helping.

It's a bone of contention that in the relationship he appears to do more tangible things for me - like massages - but I do the wifework he doesn't realise or see.

Regardless of the morals and ethics of him cheating and plaigerising, AIBU to refuse to help him when it's far easier for me than him to reach the desired outcome and I could remove his stress?

1500 words is not much at all. Encourage him. He's nearly there. He's done so much already. Read it say how good it is. He's just hit a wall. He's at the final hurdle. He'll feel much better about himself knowing he did it himself. Stick to your guns. Also if it fails it's not down to you. Imagine if the person grading it negatively comments on something you alone had written then he would blame you. He's so close!

Whatever job this qualification enables him to do, you won’t be there with him at his job to help him. He needs to understand his subject. If he can’t do the required written work, he shouldn’t get the qualification.

You shouldn’t add waffle and generic sentences as that won’t help the dissertation at all.

Plus it’s cheating for you to do his work, and he doesn’t deserve the qualification if he needs help (albeit this doesn’t sound helpful).

From the pov you approached this, you also shouldn’t do his work for him to enable him to do his hobby. That’s just ridiculous.

So he's managed his time poorly, spent his time on hobbies, and now wants to use YOUR spare time so that he can get finished and do yet more hobbies?

If so I wouldn't be telling him "sorry, no" I'd be telling him to fuck off!

I managed to write my masters dissertation in 5 days, with a newborn baby. I definitely would not be helping! No excuses!!

When I completed my Masters dissertation I was trying to remove 1500 words, not add them! Despite my carefully worked out word plan my research survey generated so much data that I had too much interesting stuff to discuss. There was only so much I could do with tabulation and shoving into appendices. I ended up culling some writing that was hard to let go, but in the end worked because it improved the focus on addressing the key research questions.

You can’t pad out a dissertation with waffle and “generic sentences”. It’s all about the critical analysis - my tutor would be writing “so what?!” all over the place which was annoying at the time but really helped me see that every sentence had to add value. As PP have said.

Speaking of tutors - if your DH has got to 4 days before the deadline and his tutor has not even seen drafts of the incomplete chapters, let alone a final overview of the complete document, then that will be noted. If the submitted dissertation is short and underwritten then they’ll know exactly what’s gone on. Whether your DH gets an opportunity to fix the dissertation in return for a pass grade will be at the discretion of the exam board I guess.

This, all of it.
And especially the bit about the words - if he's missing a big chunk like that then he's not got anywhere enough detail in it. I've always had to decimate mine to get down far enough. He's a cheat and you've helped.

Wtf do you mean 'these days'?? Anyone could have done this even in the good old days.

I am not sure whether to take this seriously. My son has autism (high functioning) and struggled with his dissertation, to the point he wasn't sure whether to continue. And you are wondering whether to spend an hour helping your husband cheat by adding 500 words that will help flesh out something you don't know anything about? I don't even know where to start with that. So I will add nothing.

Completely ignoring the cheating, I think its unreasonable not to help him if it's in the best interests of your joint future if you would have been persuaded without the row.

But if you think deeper down that he intended you to do the work all along then thats a bigger thing and may be a LTB.

Ultimately if you dont want to LTB then you probably best see past the spat.

I'm wondering what kind of dissertation it is that you can waffle in TBH. Obviously not a STEM subject.

I mean it's too easy for lazy people with no academic skills and no particular interest to get a PhD. Instead of being an indicator than the person has increased knowledge in their field, it's now merely an indicator that a person has enough wealth and leisure to be able to drag themselves through a few years of fucking around. Like all academic qualifications since about 2000, it is meaningless.

It doesn't sound like he's doing a PhD.

OP, don't do it. It's cheating and, if anything, it's likely to make the dissertation worse. What you could do (which might actually be helpful and falls within the norms of not cheating) is read through what he has written and point out anywhere that you can't follow the argument so that he can improve it himself. But if he's annoyed you, you don't have to do that.

I've done marking on Master's assignments and honestly, it's really obvious where someone is just waffling to make up the word count. It's a waste of everyone's time.

It sounds like there's some perceived imbalance in your relationship over the handling of shared responsibilities related to the relationship, family, household, and childcare (if applicable). It's definitely worth having a cooperative conversation about what each of you is doing to see if you need to rebalance the load. That can wait the few days until his deadline has passed, though, as it's been an ongoing issue.

His academic work is NOT a shared responsibility; it's his responsibility. As he's down to the last few days and worried about finishing, he simply needs to put everything else he can aside and make and follow through on a plan to get his work done. If you can pick up some of his family/household responsibilities just for the next few days (have him tell you explicitly WHAT is taking up his time that he could potentially offload), that's great. He's also very obviously going to have to put his hobby aside until he has "free time" again; it will still be there. Honestly, a lot of this stuff is very basic common sense; at this stage he MUST know what he needs to do.

YABU to refuse to help, but YANBU to refuse the specific type of help he's asked for.

Who is paying for this qualification?

Totally irrelevant question I know.

Can't believe I felt bad for helping to paper mache a cell for DS. 🤣

If it was a phd it would be a thesis not a dissertation surely?

I mean it's too easy for lazy people with no academic skills and no particular interest to get a PhD

Really?
I don't believe you.
We could all do a PhD if that was the case.

DD did a STEM undergraduate degree and found her dissertation very difficult.

Where did OP say her husband was doing a PhD?

That's right, she didn't. She said he was doing a "post graduate dissertation" which is probably a Masters but could also be a PG certificate or diploma.

Having recently been through the process of putting together a research plan for my on Masters dissertation, there was very little "fucking around" involved. I wish. Unless you include hours in archives, days wrestling with tudor documents and weeks ploughing through the literature on the topic as "fucking around".

Do people get away with waffling at Master's dissertation level? My supervisor was brutal in regard to this when i turned in my draft.

Depends what sort of Masters maybe? A MA on poetry or religion or something maybe has more potential for waffle, a MSc where you're doing your own research and evaluating and analysing your findings, not so much.

A dissertation doesn't need any waffle or generic sentences. Just hand it in as it is. If it's too short he needs to add more substance.

I finished my MA dissertation with Covid and with my mum in ICU, so seriously ill we didn't know if she'd survive. He needs to crack on and do it himself.

Not usually, no. The people assessing the work aren't idiots, they'll know when someone is waffling in lieu of actual content.

Most students have the opposite problem of having to condense too much material down. The rule for my masters was 50 pages for the main content (excluding appendices etc) and I just squeezed in at 55 pages + literally hundreds of pages of appendices.

No, you shouldn't do the work for him. If he's not intelligent enough to do the Masters dissertation himself then he shouldn't be doing the post grad. Best he finds out his limitations now.

You need to have a stern talk about the division of household jobs asap.

Oh no, have you got a migraine from all the x you had to do because he was at his hobby...