Tips on How to Finish your Thesis on Time
Believe it or not, you can avoid late nights and last-minute slides when you do your degree thesis if you make decisions that anticipate eventualities. In this article, we will explain how you can finish it on time and without too much stress. Finishing the thesis on time is something that most achieve, but not all do it gracefully. If you want to save yourself moments of unnecessary stress, do everything in advance.
For that to be possible, you must create an organizational system and be faithful to it. In many cases, having a Bullet Journal to assign individual tasks by chapter, based on the correction of supervisors and the rules of the university has helped and the relief is immediate when you manage to discard concerns.
There is nothing better than having a well-deserved break before your thesis defense and that can only be achieved when you do everything in advance and finish it faster than expected. Here is how you can save yourself a lot of sleep even if you have procrastinated.
1. Make lists of requirements
Taking into account the requirements of your university, those demanded by your tutor, and those inherent to the research methodology can drive anyone crazy. If you want to get out of bureaucratic matters. At this point, you should know that it is okay to ask questions and not assume anything. A mistake that we all make is to assume that things are a certain way, because “it is the most logical thing”, but it turns out that the guidelines of the research works are somewhat orthodox, so make lists.
2. Have a notebook just for the thesis
About the previous point, buy a notebook and use it only for the annotations related to your thesis. Write the requirements, possible bibliographic references, the advice of your tutors and tasks related to proceedings, payment of fees, interviewees, application of instruments, and, by assumptions, ideas, and conclusions that as an observer and participant you have detected during the investigation.
3. Have the preliminaries ready
The preliminaries are those parts of the research work such as the covers, the summary, the dedication, the acknowledgments, the indexes, the letters, annex format, and others. Although it seems silly, they fall on a large part of the bureaucratic requirements that you cannot leave last, because doing them in a hurry or at the last minute can lead you to make mistakes. Prepare them without pressure.
4. Update your references daily
Every time you get relevant information or quote an author, get in the habit of immediately placing it in your bibliography or electronic references. And the best way to do that is by writing them in the format required by the university. Don’t copy and paste the names and links with the lazy promise that you’ll fix them later. Do it in one!
5. Choose caring supervisors
One of the reasons why many thesis students are late with their work is due to a lack of timely advice. When you choose a tutor, let yourself be carried away by the good references of others instead of how well you like him or how good he is teaching.
It turns out that not because he is a good teacher, does he mean that he knows how to guide you with your thesis. A responsible tutor should attend to you at least once a week and leave no time for doubts until the next meeting.
6. Create a fixed schedule
If you are someone who works best for you in the mornings, afternoons, or at night, you should consider those aspects. During the next few months, create a fixed schedule to write on your thesis. You can dedicate an hour or two a day to it. If you work on your research every day you will never feel exhausted. On the contrary, you will divide everything into small tasks, and you will not have to stay up late or do everything too quickly to avoid mistakes.
7. Make revisions
Doing a graduate thesis teaches you a lot about writing, research, and analysis. As you learn, your speech improves, and the work acquires a clear orientation of where it could end. That is why you should take the opportunity to take a look at what you had already done months ago and determine if it maintains the same discourse and if it is consistent with what you have done so far.
8. Don’t
think twice and define your thesis topic: you could come up with many new ideas and interpretations of the topic of your thesis, but if you do not delimit the topic as soon as possible, you will end up swimming in a sea of new possibilities that will only delay your work further. So, ask your thesis advisor to help you narrow down the topic as soon as possible.
9. Do not wait to have great ideas to start
Do not wait to have innovative and creative ideas before starting, it is better to get going first, the great ideas will come along the way and you can use them at the best time.
10. It is not necessary to start with the introduction
It is not necessary to start with the opening paragraph, as it may take us a long time to find the perfect introduction. When you have developed the entire body of research, it will be easier for you to write an interesting introduction that piques the reader’s curiosity.
11. Start a search plan for information sources
The research phase can be very extensive if you are not sure where to start. It is advisable to take some time to carry out a search plan, consulting on online pages the places where you could start and end, ensuring that your visits to libraries or interviews with specialists are not lost.
12. The organization of information is vital
Do not fill yourself with information, organize it and make cards that will be of great help to cite them at the right times.
Set a realistic time goal: Define the goal time to finish your thesis project, as realistic as possible, considering any incident that may arise along the way. Having a clear closing date will help us motivate ourselves.
13. A daily work goals
Define how much content you can advance for each day. Considering the total number of days, you have decided to finish your project, then decide how much is the minimum you should work per day. In this way, you will dose your work and you will not abuse your limited effort per day.
14. Create an adequate space to work
It is not surprising to prepare an ideal environment to carry out your thesis, since order, concentration, and peace will be key so that you can work in the best way.
15. Conclude the research
Do not go around the bush when developing your conclusion, the idea is to highlight everything you have developed, it is not about finding new topics that leave ideas open and may confuse the reader of your research.
16. Clear your mind
Finally, do not forget to spend time at leisure or do other types of activities. These will be of great help to not saturate our concentration and have a better performance during our thesis preparation.
If you like this article, see others like it: