how to write a thesis in one month

8 Tips to Write a Thesis in 30 Days (Bonus Tip Included)

Every student wants to know how to write a thesis in a month . Before sharing the tips that I’ve used in my writing journey, we first need to ask: is it possible to write a thesis in one month, and actually finish it? The answer to this question is yes! You absolutely can write a thesis in 30 days. And you can write your thesis, from start to finish, without the emotional distress that often comes with such a monumental task. And, before you ask, no you’re not going to pay anybody to write a thesis for you. You’re going to write your thesis by yourself.

I’ve written two Masters’ theses, a PhD dissertation and a draft of a book. Here are the 8 tips that have helped me write my thesis as quickly as possible and get to the other side.

3.1 Use Grammarly: An Online Writing Assistant

My 8 tips on how to write a thesis or dissertation in a month.

Before we start, let me say that no one is born knowing how to write a thesis. My professors were not born knowing how to write a thesis and I wasn’t born knowing how to write a thesis either.

I learned how to write a thesis. It was not easy, and I struggled a lot in writing my first thesis. That’s until I discovered what I needed to do to push through and finish writing it.

I then used those lessons and applied them to my second thesis and every writing assignments since then. Writing became fun. 

In fact, I was having so much fun writing my second thesis that I took on extra writing assignments. Hence the birth of this blog.

1. Adjust Your Expectations

If you want to finish writing your thesis in a month, the first thing you need to recognize is that you don’t need to break new grounds in your thesis for your thesis to be acceptable.

If for some reason you think you need to break new grounds, then you need to quickly adjust your expectations. The point of a thesis is to demonstrate mastery of the literature and show that you’re able to competently synthesize  and present those works persuasively.

That’s all you need to do.

If you’re aiming for more, then consider these two points:

• You don’t have the advanced training or the experience yet to “contribute” to the field. It’s certainly not impossible, but that’s not what’s expected of you in your M.A thesis (and even in your PhD thesis). In fact, if you can just slightly “advance” the research, that’s considered a great accomplishment!
• You need much longer than 30 days or 3 months or even 3 years to come up with something new. Why? Because you need to read literally everything on your subject. And that’s what you’re expected to do when you’ve already finished writing your thesis, and decided to pursue an academic career.

For these two reasons, I think it’s best to view your thesis as something that reflects what you’ve been trained to do, which is to write a good thesis using the skills you already have. You are enough and you probably already have what it takes to write your thesis. So don’t be too hard on yourself. Think of this: Just like you can’t run a marathon if you’ve been training for a 5k, you also can’t “contribute to the field” when you’re still in the process of being trained on how to write a thesis. Most probably, this is your first time writing a masters degree thesis, so take it easy. (More on writing a PhD dissertation below).

So, adjust your expectations accordingly.

Now, if you are trying to write your PhD thesis in a month, let me first say that it’s almost impossible. But if you have certain circumstances (say like a serious illness), then talk to your advisor about it and see what he/she suggests.

2. Don’t Be a Perfectionist

A professor once told me, if you want to write a perfect thesis, “you will never finish writing.” And he was right. I can’t begin to tell you just how much time I wasted trying to write a flawless thesis (AHHH!). In the end, it was not worth it. I ended up procrastinating and wasting time. I wish I could have that time back. Please, don’t make the same mistake I made.

After that emotionally draining experience, I changed my approach. I strove to write something good (and not perfect). I then got feedback on my ideas from my professors and went back and made them better. Eventually, they were, in my eyes, perfect. I was happy.

If you still think you need to be a perfectionist, consider this: there’s always more you can say about your topic. There are more examples you can discuss, more evidence to support your arguments with, and there is an infinite number of ways to organize your ideas, paragraphs and chapters to eventually turn your thesis into a “masterpiece.” You literally can go on forever writing and re-writing your thesis.

If you’re tight on time and you want to finish writing your thesis in 30 days, then do yourself a favor and focus on being done . Write something that’s good enough and move on knowing that you will get back to it later. 

So stop fixing things day in and day out. The goal is to make linear progress every single day until you’re done.

Remember, a mediocre finished thesis is better than a perfect unfinished one.

3. Take the 80/20 Rule Seriously

Each writing assignment will take you as much time as you’re willing to give it.

So if you give yourself 10 hours to write what usually takes 2 hours, then you will spend 10 hours working on it.

And the opposite is true.

If you have an assignment that usually takes 10 hours to finish, and I give you 2 hours to work on it, you will probably finish it in 2 hours.

On this basis, if you want to write your thesis in 30 days, you have to decide that 30 days is all you have to finish writing it. Be firm about this deadline, and work with the aim of finishing.

To help speed up the writing process, you can benefit from using a powerful writing assistant like Grammarly . ( Disclosure : these are affiliate links which means I will receive a commission if you make a purchase using my referral links.) Please know that I only talk about services that I believe in and can stand behind. And this is one of those amazing products that can be of tremendous benefit to you if you are looking to get over writer’s block and avoid unnecessary slowdowns .

Okay, so quickly: what should you expect from Grammarly?

Grammarly can help save you a lot of time – especially when you are stuck looking for the right word, or the right way to phrase a sentence. Grammarly gives you a list of context-specific vocabulary suggestions/enhancements/corrections and allows you to make an informed decision about what’s best in your specific writing context. This makes your writing flow better and allow you to move forward at a faster rate.

Here are testimonies by students about how Grammarly has helped them with writing their thesis.

Just downloaded Grammarly for the first time and it has transformed my essays. I sound so smart! #Grammarly #Student — Lucy Jade ANutr (@lucyj_nutrition) March 2, 2019

#WhiteSmoke online editor combined with #Grammarly Chome extension..genius… Why didn't I discovered that earlier #Writing #Thesis #PhD — Quirina de Ruiter (@QuirinaDeRuiter) June 28, 2016

Here are some statistics on how Grammarly has helped students and writers get better results.

With Grammarly, you don’t have to worry about proofreading. It will do that for you. You don’t have to worry about manually checking for plagiarism , style, punctuation, and even wordiness. Grammarly can help you do all of that and will also offer explanations for the reasoning behind each correction.

You can also use Grammarly for better and more professional sounding emails – especially when you want to email your advisor and your committee. You can also use Grammarly across pretty much all of your social media platforms including twitter, facebook, linkedin and more.

In order to get access to all the tools that will help you write your thesis efficiently, I recommend their premium plan . The total cost comes out to 2 – 3 cups of cappuccinos… it’s worth it.

4. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

Here’s a dose of realism.

As original as you would like to be in your thesis, someone has already written on your topic… and that’s a great thing!

Someone has read the same sources, summarized them and put them in their literature review. You can save yourself a whole lot of time by reading literature reviews. There, you will see exactly how they used those sources and how they might fit into your work. Consult the original sources briefly, but as much as necessary to get the main ideas out of them, and move on.

A literature review shouldn’t take you more than a week to complete if you plan to finish writing in 30 days, and that’s totally doable.

5. Complete a Quick First Draft

The fastest way to finish writing is to write quickly…duh.

What I mean by that is if you’re stuck and you can’t quite round up the paragraph or idea you’re working on, don’t dwell on it. Move on to other topics within your thesis and write them out. 

The most helpful tip that I can share with you is to force yourself to write a quick high school draft (first draft) of the entire thesis. Go all the way through until you have a completed first draft of your thesis in your hands.

This is going to be tremendously helpful for your progress because if you can see the conclusion of your thesis, you will a have better sense of which parts of your thesis need work, and which parts need to be completely cut out. 

In fact, that’s, in my opinion, the only way to know what your thesis really needs. I say this because imagine if you had spent tens of hours fixing a paragraph only to discover later on (or be told by your advisor) that you really don’t need it.

Let me tell you, it freakin sucks!

6. Journal Articles Are Your Best Friend

Journal articles are usually less than 25 pages in length and sometimes even less than 15 pages long. The best part about them: they’re succinct. You can pretty much read the abstract and you’ll know exactly what the main argument is and the strategy of the paper.

All you need to do then is to look for the evidence in the paper itself. It shouldn’t take you anything more than 3 hours to get this information out of the paper. And when you get good at this, it will take you even less than 3 hours.

Moreover, journal articles are a great way to help position your thesis within the literature on the topic, and you will have a much clearer destination when you do so.

See my post on  how to read faster .

7. Write (Your Thesis) Everywhere

If you’ve been following my blog, then you know that I champion using free time effectively.  

Plan to read or write everywhere : whether you’re waiting on a friend, waiting for the bus, or eating lunch. It will help you address what I’ve called elsewhere as the “familiarity deficit.” Read that post here . Don’t underestimate the value of that time. It will give you a much needed head-start when it’s time to sit down and work on the relevant chapter within your thesis.

The key to finishing your thesis in 30 days is to keep writing even when you don’t feel you’ve got much to say. It will come to you, just don’t give up too soon.

If you experience some mental roadblocks and you’re dealing with procrastination, then give this article a quick read to help you overcome procrastination and take action.

8. Bonus Tip – Join Online Writing Communities

Yes. Join online writing communities. They’re free and you will get a whole lot of support from people who are going through the same thing. Try Phinished . I’ve used it when I wrote my first thesis and it helped me a bunch. 

I need to caution that it is easy to spend a lot of time on Phinished reading what others have to say. You might find yourself reading page after page about the challenges others are going through: including what they’re doing to move through the process, and how far they are in their thesis writing. 

If you want to finish, then use it with the intention to finish  and not to waste more time or procrastinate.

Hope this will help you finish your thesis in 30 days!

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• Write Your PhD Thesis In One Month Or Less

Thesis/dissertation writing need not be a multi-month ordeal that makes you pull your hair out and roll up into a fetal position. The trick is to get a head start , set goals and deadlines, and work steadily—not feverishly—toward that ultimate satisfaction of handing your magnum opus to the graduate school. The first three sections of this article are devoted to ways that you can get way ahead of the curve from the very beginning of your graduate program—BEFORE push comes to shove.

1.) GET STARTED RIGHT AWAY— YES, REALLY .

NEWS FLASH: you can start working on your thesis or dissertation almost from the moment you decide on a lab/advisor .

In the beginning, there were papers …

The starting point for any newbie graduate student is to read boatloads of relevant papers so that you can learn your advisor’s repertoire of experimental techniques or areas of interest, what has been done so far in the field, what questions remain to be answered, and where your research will contribute.

Keep in mind that these seminal papers will be heavily integrated into your thesis or dissertation:

a) The introduction, in which you give all the pertinent background to set the stage for your research and make everyone on your committee (and beyond!) understand why it’s important

b) Data chapters, where previously published data lend validity to your findings, or are at least taken into consideration as you interpret your data

Let’s back up. How do you find these papers? Hopefully, your advisor will provide you with a few of the original papers that got the ball rolling. Find out what papers cite them . You can perform Boolean searches in Pubmed and Google Scholar (great tips explaining how to do this can be found at Boolean.pdf ).

Note that in Pubmed, you will need to go to “Advanced Search,” where the builder constructs the Boolean search for you (Figure 1). Pubmed offers another great strategy: you can set up citation alerts that notify you via e-mail every time one of these pivotal articles is cited. Pubmed has a tutorial on how to do this here: myncbi.html . You can control how often you receive these alerts, or adjust later based on how inundated your inbox becomes.

FIGURE 1.  PubMed’s Boolean Search builder.

Google scholar offers a similar citation alert service. Go to Google Scholar, http://scholar.google.com/ , and click on “Alerts” (see Figure 2). From the next screen, click “Create Alert” (Figure 3). You can set up alerts based on Boolean searches (Figure 4), or by author . Also, since many principal authors have varied interests, you can customize by using a combination Boolean/search-by-author approach (Figure 5). Enter your e-mail address, and you’re good to go.

FIGURE 2.  Setting up alerts in Google Scholar. First, click “Alerts.”

FIGURE 3.  Setting up alerts in Google Scholar, part 2. Next, click “Create Alert.”

FIGURE 4.  Setting up alerts in Google Scholar, part 3. Setting up your search criteria using Boolean operators.

FIGURE 5.  Setting up alerts in Google Scholar, part 4. The combined Author/Boolean operator search in Google Scholar.

ORGANIZING your boatloads of papers…

Let’s back up again. Realize that unless you are a genius, you will probably have to revisit these nuggets of wisdom several times during your graduate career, particularly when you have a better grasp on the research. Also, unless you are a genius, you will find yourself wondering, “What was that paper that explained________?” This is where being organized will save you TONS of time.

I am a big fan of saving paper and not printing out reams of articles to be read and then stuffed into filing cabinets . I highly recommend a citation management program, such as Endnote . Find out which program your advisor uses (see if he or she will let you install the program on your computer). Some departments even offer this software free of charge. Not only are all of the citations in your library searchable, but you can also file them into folders based on the subject matter (Figure 6).

FIGURE 6.  Filing papers in EndNote–beats a filing cabinet!

As you do your literature search, you download the citations into your citation manager. Most e-journals have a “download to citation manager” link. Google Scholar also recently added a very nice “Cite” function that lets you import citations directly into your citation manager (Figure 7).

FIGURE 7.  Google Scholar’s Cite function.

You can also search PubMed from within Endnote, which saves you several steps (Figure 8). In addition, the program has a lovely feature called Cite-While-You-Write that links with Microsoft Word. No more the parenthetical “ need citation !” statements in your text. With the CWYW feature, you can pull up all of the papers in your Endnote library that pertain to your text, and with the click of one button in Word—voilà! Citations inserted (Figure 9)! You can format the bibliography later, when your behemoth is completely written—yet another convenient, automatic feature.

FIGURE 8.  Searching for papers from within EndNote.

FIGURE 8.  EndNote’s Cite While You Write function.

2) Intermediate documents: the thesis/dissertation proposal and grant applications

Think of your thesis or dissertation proposal and any grant applications as being a big first step toward the first chapter of your final document: the introduction. Preparation of these documents entails a thorough review of pertinent literature to set the stage and explain the rationale for the research you are proposing. So by this logic, you should have taken a very large bite out of the first chapter of your thesis or dissertation by the time you take your preliminary exams.

3) Methods: you do them every day, why not take the time to write them up?

In the STEM fields, theses and dissertations require a chapter devoted to methods. You have your own set of experimental and/or statistical techniques that you presumably learn from your advisor, then troubleshoot and tweak based on your specific needs. You know how you write detailed notes on the conditions of each experiment every time you do them in your lab notebook? (RIGHT?!) This is all information that you can take even an hour per week to write up in your thesis document. Check out the previous papers from your advisor to get ideas on wording, and then re-work it so it’s your own (citing relevant papers, of course). By the time you actually for-real start writing your thesis or dissertation, your methods chapter can be practically done already!

4) After the greenlight…careful planning and sticking to a schedule!

You’ve received the greenlight to “start” writing your thesis or dissertation from your committee. Now what? Well, you have a good chunk of the intro done already, right? Your chapter 2 is practically done as well! Be sure to check out the deadlines not only for getting your document to your committee, but also for depositing it with the graduate school. Wouldn’t it stink to defend your thesis in April, but not graduate until December because you missed the deadline?

Now, I will tell you a huge time-saving tip . Before you start (well, continue) writing, find a colleague who has recently turned in their thesis or dissertation and still has their final word document kicking around . Ask your colleague for permission to use their document in the following way: you are not going to copy anything in that document… EXCEPT THE FORMATTING.

You know the part where the clerk at the grad school pulls out the ruler and measures your margins, page number position and other random stuff while you hold your breath? All of that will already be in your colleague’s word document. Why re-invent the wheel? Just use the document as a template—delete ALL of the text and leave the margins and other formatting alone. (Of course, check over everything carefully before you deposit your document!) Anything you’ve written up to this point can easily be pasted into the template.

Next, agree upon deadlines : “I’ll have chapter 1 to you by________.” If you have been working ahead on your document and your reference library as described above, it should take you about a week to finish up chapter 1 (your introduction) and chapter 2 (methods). Can you do a chapter per week for each of the remaining chapters? Put the deadline in your calendar, and stick to it. Then, based on how much time you are still expected to spend in the lab, decide a set number of hours per day that you will spend on nothing but writing.

I would suggest asking your advisor for blocks of time to hole up at the library, or wherever it is that you do your best work . Then do it. You will be working weekends, no doubt, but try to work steadily and avoid all-nighters. Adjust as necessary—you may need to have an additional meeting with your advisor to request more time away from lab.

Do have a colleague read your document installments before you give them to your advisor . Run spell check and do all the basics before you offer up your baby to the red pen of death. If you really struggle with writing, or if you are not a native English speaker, there are services out there that will clean up your document on a by-the-hour basis. Spare your advisor the frustration of correcting simple errors.

Now, a caveat.

Just because you have a deadline that you are sticking to like an embedded tick does not mean that your advisor will adhere to similar deadlines in getting you edits and feedback . Many advisors, bless their hearts, are procrastinators (erm…busy with grant deadlines, writing their own papers, editing, and other important stuff that advisors do). Don’t sweat it… the ball is now in your advisor’s court, and you will now move steadily on to the next installment.

Which is due by __________in your calendar.

3) BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!

And this time I do mean “backup”—as in your document. There is NO excuse for losing your thesis or dissertation . You should have MULTIPLE copies saved: on your computer, in Dropbox, on an external hard drive, etc. These copies should be clearly marked with dates in case you have to revert back to a prior version. They should also be marked after being edited by your advisor or others.

4) The final weeks

This will be a stressful time unless you are extremely lucky. It usually goes something like this: “Move this section to page 89.” Then two days later: “Put it back where it was.” Your advisor is stressed too—so try to take everything in stride.

If at all possible, try to get your thesis printed off for your committee a day or two in advance . This allows a cushion for the inevitable printer meltdown or copier jam. In my case, I got my final edits at 11 pm the night before my dissertation was due. Luckily, there weren’t a lot of changes to make, and there were no printer fiascos. I finished the edits by midnight and had the whole thing printed off by about 2 in the morning. Although I won’t say that I wasn’t completely stressed out and about to melt down myself…

You want your dissertation to look nice for your committee and to be easy for them to handle and write in . I’m a fan of bindings—I used three ring binders with pockets so that I could also include a CD with a copy of the document. But that’s not for everybody. Spiral bindings are just as good, but again, require planning because you’ll have to take your stack of documents somewhere like FedEx Kinkos. Even though it can be like herding cats to track down all the members of your committee, try to personally deliver your documents to them—not only for security’s sake, but to remind them of who you are.

I kid. Sort of.

5) After the defense

You may have loads of changes to make to your thesis or dissertation based on your committee members’ comments . You feel elated and relieved to have your defense over with. After the effects of the all-night post-defense bender have worn off, try to work diligently on the edits so that you don’t run up against the grad school’s deposit deadline. Make an appointment for a pre-check of your document to catch any formatting errors well in advance of the deadline.

Once you have deposited your thesis or dissertation with the graduate school (congratulations!), investigate how many bound copies you need. Most departments require a bound copy, as will your advisor. Then you need one, of course, and then there’s your parents…

University towns usually have at least one book bindery in addition to services on campus. There are online services as well—but be careful to check their ratings. You generally have to figure up the number of color-copy and high-resolution pages you have versus regular black and white. You send this estimate along with a digital copy of your dissertation and your selections for binding color, lettering, etc. There is something deeply satisfying about finally holding that beautifully bound book—that YOU wrote—in your hands at last.

In summary, it is possible to write your thesis or dissertation in under a month with good preparation, organization, and planning . The end result makes it all worthwhile. Keep in mind that if you move on to a postdoc or any other position that requires writing papers and grants, these same strategies apply.

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How to Write a Bachelor’s Thesis in a Month

Every student in every Bachelor’s program has to write a major paper. It has to be better than good. It’s essentially an accumulation of everything you have learned—or rather, using what you have learned to explore your own perspectives and ideas.

There isn’t exactly a magic formula for creating an amazing thesis, but there is a structure you can follow to do it in a timely manner. More than likely, you’ve had all semester to write your paper, but you have procrastinated. But, it is not a problem! We know how to write it in a month. Proceed!

The first week is perhaps the most important. It’s when you will come up with all your ideas and narrow them down to one. This decision will impact the rest of the month greatly. Make sure to choose something you have a personal interest in!

• Make a list of potential topics or questions you have within your field of study;
• Narrow them down until you have one that interests you the most. If you have two, after you do the next step you should be able to choose between them;
• Start doing some background reading on the chosen topic or topics;
• Come up with a question you plan to answer in your paper;
• Answer the question in one sentence. Here is your thesis statement.

By now, you have to perfect your thesis statement (although you can amend it later), and move on to the next step. During the second week, you’ll need to focus on all your resources and start creating an outline.

• Go to your local library or school’s library and gather some valuable resources to find out some information to research the issue of your paper;
• Scour online academic database for articles as sources too;
• Pull out some important points or quotes you would like to include in your thesis;
• Make a reference page in accordance with whatever style you are asked to write in (APA, MLA, etc.)
• Organize your ideas into a preliminary outline;
• Make a more formal outline with notes about what you are going to talk about.

Halfway through! Great work is not so far! Now comes the bulk of the project—sit down and actually write it all out.

• Using your outline, flesh it out! There’s no easy way to do this, you just have to sit down and write;
• To space it out, you can write a section or two of the paper each day;
• When you finish, see if you want to move some paragraphs or content around. This is the start of the editing process.

Now you have the working draft, you need a final one by the end of the week. This week’s tasks include making final edits and getting a peer to read your paper.

• Complete the editing process by checking for spelling and mechanical errors;
• Read your bachelor’s thesis paper out loud to make sure it sounds good;
• Give it to a friend, peer, or family member to read over and see if they can find any mistakes or if they understand it clearly;
• Hand it in and go celebrate!

Do not waste any minute more! Get down to writing the paper and hand it in on time. If you are unable to complete your paper on time, don’t despair. ThePentsers will help you. ThePensters.com is a perfect place to buy thesis papers written by experts according to your instructions. Here you can find hundreds of essay writers for hire spanning in over 60 academic disciplines. Good luck!

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• How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

• Start with a question
• Write your initial answer
• Develop your answer
• Refine your thesis statement

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Table of contents

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

• Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
• Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
• Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .

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Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

• Why you hold this position
• What they’ll learn from your essay
• The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

• In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
• In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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• Appeal to authority fallacy
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A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

• Ask a question about your topic .
• Write your initial answer.
• Develop your answer by including reasons.
• Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, August 15). How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved August 1, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/thesis-statement/

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A complete guide to writing a master’s thesis

Speak right now to our live team of english staff.

If you’re reading this because you have been accepted onto a master’s programme that requires you to write a thesis – congratulations! This is a very exciting time in your life.

Hopefully what we’re about to tell you doesn’t come as too much of a surprise – as part of your master’s course you are going to be spending a considerable amount of time working on a single written submission. In fact, your master’s thesis may be the longest and most detailed piece of writing that you have ever been asked to complete.

With that in mind, getting some guidance before you begin is an important first step.

As you progress through your degree, you may have questions on exactly how to write a master’s thesis and are thus looking to obtain some thesis writing tips to help you on your way.

This post is designed to provide you with a comprehensive guide to writing a master’s thesis in the UK context. It will help you not just now, but will also be something you can refer back to throughout the duration of your master’s studies. If you haven’t already, we strongly recommend bookmarking this post so can you find it easily when you inevitably have questions during the thesis writing process.

In this post, we’ll clue you in to some strategies best suited to master’s students trying to complete a thesis. We’ll focus on what to expect at each stage, including creating a working plan, doing your reading, undertaking research, writing your master’s thesis, editing it, and leaving time to finish and proofread.

Hopefully, by the time you have finished reading, you will have the confidence and motivation to get going on a path that will lead to ultimate success in your thesis writing.

Start with a plan (and stick to it)

OK, we realise we may be teaching your grandma how to suck eggs here – starting with a plan is the obvious first step in any piece of academic writing.

And yet, as good as everyone’s intentions may be when students start writing a master’s thesis, circumstances (nearly) always arise that make sticking to the plan much more challenging.

So, first tip: when writing your thesis, make sure that your plan is flexible , and allows time for dealing with unexpected circumstances.

Next, reconsider your research proposal. It is likely you had to write one before you were accepted onto your master’s programme. If this was your first time producing a research proposal, you may read it back now and find it’s a little over-ambitious in its claims about what you planned to do. It’s a common trap to fall into, so don’t despair! Book some time with your research supervisor to determine whether your research proposal is actually realistic for your master’s thesis. If you claimed that you were going to do qualitative interviews of 200 participants across the UK, and you only have a year to complete your master’s, you might want to rethink your project and scale it to something that is achievable and not setting you up for failure.

Another tip on supervisors: make sure that you ask them questions about their expectations throughout the thesis writing process. Will they want to see drafts of your chapters as they’re written? If the answer is yes, finding out these dates will help you to develop a plan to achieve this without scrambling at the last minute.

Another tip for planning how to write your master’s thesis is to set yourself a goal of doing a little bit each day. Framing your thesis in your mind as a long-term project with a deadline very far away in the future will only encourage you to put off writing it. Then ‘far away in the future’ will all of a sudden be ‘next month’ and major panic will set in, and the lack of time at your disposal will make for rushed, compromised writing.

Set yourself milestones: a realistic plan for writing certain chapters by certain dates. Then within these milestones, commit to writing an amount of words per day, or per week. Then be disciplined and stick to your plan. Avoiding procrastination isn’t easy, but will very much work in your favour in the long run.

A final tip when devising your plan: it is easy to go back and delete words that you do not need during the editing process. Conversely, having to add thousands of words at the last minute will be stressful and sometimes impossible. Plan to start writing early, and budget for, say, 1000-2000 words every day. Not only will you then reach the full word count of your master’s thesis quickly, but you’ll leave yourself plenty of time to edit it, remove sections that aren’t working, and add more words that strengthen the overall assignment, all long before the deadline arrives.

Do your reading

The trick here is to find a balance between reading enough and not spending too much time doing so. There is so much reading to do and it can be easy to drift off topic.

Doing your reading and producing the final literature review are important components of a master’s thesis, but if you spend too much time reading there won’t be ample time for the data collection process and the writing up phase.

Here are some steps you can take to ensure that your reading process is both effective and efficient.

Step 1 – Understand your research questions

The first step in the reading phase of your master’s thesis is knowing what research questions you are trying to answer. Hopefully you have identified these questions with your supervisor before you started to work on your thesis. If you do not have a clear research question, your reading strategies will be severely hindered.

There are certain databases that are going to be more relevant to your area of study. Getting research from these databases is going to streamline the writing process for you to ensure that your project is focused within the context that it needs to be. A research librarian can likely help you focus this search, making the process significantly easier.

Step 2 – Make reading easier

There are several challenges associated with reading. First, it is easy to get distracted, especially if your reading material is lengthy and complex. So you want to keep your reading blocks short and sweet. ‘Chunk’ your reading. Spend 20 to 25 minutes reading without distraction (it hurts we know, but putting your phone on flight mode and leaving it in another room will ultimately help) and then take a 5 to 10 minute break (on your phone, if you must!) before starting up again.

Furthermore, whilst there is a lot of reading to do, it is unrealistic to spend your whole day doing it. Earmark just a portion of the day for reading, then make sure that you have other things that you can do with the rest of your time (like completing your ethics forms, or starting to create your research instruments). By dividing up your time, you are going to be able to keep your focus for longer, making you more productive and efficient overall.

Step 3 – Take good notes

It’s always worth remembering the forgetting curve – ah that’s a paradox if we ever saw one. The forgetting curve is the amount of information you will forget as time passes. It can be quite steep, and after a month passes you likely won’t remember much about what you have previously read. This could lead to disaster when writing up your literature review, so make sure that you take good, thorough notes throughout the reading process.

A good idea is to build out an excel spreadsheet or other list that documents your reading in a detailed and organised manner. You can keep track of key information, such as:

• Location of research
• Sample size
• Research methods
• Main findings

Not only will this help slow the curve of your inevitable forgetfulness, but crucially, it will also make referring back to your reading much easier when you move on to writing your overall literature review.

A note to remember: not everything that you read will end up in your literature review. The purpose of reading is to make sure that you, as a researcher, understand how your project is positioned within your area of study. The literature review explains this to the reader but in much simpler terms. So to reiterate, the reading process is for your own benefit, not solely to find studies to include in your literature review.

Do your research

Even if you did research as part of your undergraduate work, research for a master’s thesis is a whole different story. As an undergraduate, your project was likely quite small or it was significantly guided by a faculty member; as a master’s student, this is typically your first opportunity to do research on a topic that you have chosen to pursue. While this is an exciting step, it also means that you are accountable for your actions.

Your research type and tools

The first step in the research process is deciding on what type of research you will do. Is it going to be qualitative or quantitative? Maybe it will be a combination of the two. You have likely documented this in your research proposal, but your answer to this question will have implications about how you will organise and analyse your data once it is collected.

Regardless of what route you choose, you will need software to help you manage your data. Many universities have free data management software tools available, and if that is the case for your institution then use them –tools available otherwise can rack up quite a hefty bill.

The most common tools are SPSS, which deals primarily with quantitative data, or NVivo which focuses more on qualitative measures. There are numerous other software packages available, and your supervisor may have suggestions about which management tool is most suitable for your project.

Planning ahead for better outcomes

The second step in the process is to think about timing and distribution. If you are planning a qualitative study, perhaps using interviews, remember that you will need to transcribe all of the words that are contained in the interview. While some programmes allow speech-to-text translation, it is not always accurate. The process of transcription takes considerable time, and therefore, as a researcher, you should consider how many participants you are looking to have in your project.

While a quantitative project may not have the same level of detail in the data input process, there are likely to be more participants and a wider range of outcomes. As a researcher, you must recruit these participants and ensure that they meet the criteria for inclusion. Finding people who are willing to participate in this type of project (often volunteering their time for free) can be challenging, and so as a researcher, it can be useful to have a minimum number of participants that you believe (based on past research) will give you findings that can be reliable and valid within your context.

It is also worth mentioning that you will likely end up with a lot of data, much more than can actually be presented in your master’s thesis.

One of the challenging pieces of the research process is deciding which findings make the cut for your thesis and which get saved for a later date. While your data are probably very interesting to you, it is important that you do not overwhelm the reader or deviate from the research questions that you set out to answer.

To sum up, the process of actually carrying out research and distilling it for the writing part of your thesis takes time. You need to carefully plan your research steps to ensure not only that you cover everything you intend to, but that you also do it in good time, leaving yourself ample space in your schedule to write up your thesis.

Write your Master’s thesis: the right structure

It’s helpful to start here by going over the structure of a master’s thesis. The precise way that different master’s theses are structured is largely going to depend on the discipline area. But most of the time, empirical dissertations follow a format including:

• Table of contents
• List of tables/figures
• Introduction
• Literature review
• Methodology

Before you start writing

Before you start to write, draft an outline of your approach to each section including the word count you expect to have (total word counts also vary by discipline).

Within each section you should also include all the major subheadings that you plan to include in the final version.

Before writing any of the sections, meet with your supervisor to ensure that your outline generally conforms to their expectations. Supervisors are the experts in the field and have likely seen many master’s theses, so they will be able to tell you if you are on the right track.

Beginning to write

It’s worth noting here that the order in which you write all the sections of your master’s thesis can vary depending on your process and preferences.

Once you have a detailed outline, there is no rule that says you have to start with the introduction and end with the conclusion. While the reader will inevitably read your thesis this way, you are free to write the ‘easy’ sections first and then move on to ones that you find more challenging.

For many students, beginning with the methodology chapter makes the most sense, as this allows the project to be framed around the steps that you, as a researcher, will take. The methodology usually includes:

• The research question(s).
• Any hypotheses that you might have.
• Your theoretical framework, and the methods that you will use to collect your data.
• Often, but not always, it includes ethical considerations, especially if you are working with human participants.

For many writers, the methodology chapter is written prior to the collection of data, whereas other chapters may be written after the data have been collected and analysed.

The same can be said for writing the literature review . For some writers, the literature review begins to take shape early in the project, but others choose to leave the writing until after data collection has occurred.

Both strategies have value. Writing the literature review early can give a researcher a clear indication of what data already exists and how this could relate to the potential project. The downside is that if the findings from the current project do not match the historical findings from the literature, the whole chapter may need to be revised to better align with the current findings.

Leaving the literature review until after the data collection means a bigger gap between when the reading was actually done for the project and the writing up period, meaning that the sources may need to be consulted repeatedly. In addition, leaving all the writing to the end of the project may seem tedious for some writers.

Another element that you will need to consider is how to present your findings . For some researchers, combining the findings and discussion sections makes logical sense, whereas for others, this presentation makes the chapter unwieldy and difficult to read.

Staying on track

There is no universal approach to writing a master’s thesis, but there are a lot of people out there who are willing to help you along the way. You will put yourself in a really good place if you seek advice at multiple stages in the process and from multiple different sources.

Your university library is going to be a useful source for research and reference, whereas your supervisor can give more discipline-specific advice on writing. Your university will likely have a writing centre too that can offer suggestions on how to improve your writing and make sure that you are staying on track. Making appointments at your writing centre can also help with accountability, as you will have to actually complete parts of your writing in order to discuss them with others.

Finishing and proofreading

When you write those last few words of your conclusion and you have made it to the end of your thesis (hopefully in one piece – you, not the thesis), there may be a sense of finality. It’s a huge feat you’ve just overcome and for that, you deserve a pat on the back.

But finishing writing your master’s thesis is a little like reaching Camp 4 on an Everest summit trek. Without wanting to sound too ominous, there is still a considerable amount of work to do – chiefly, putting the finishing touches on your thesis through editing and proofreading .

Hopefully, during the process of writing your thesis, you sent drafts to your supervisor for review. These drafts may have included individual chapters or various sections within the data set that required clarification. Your supervisor would have provided feedback on these drafts either through written or verbal comments. It is essential that you keep track of these comments, as they will become crucial for the final stages prior to submission.

There are two ways that you can approach the editing of your master’s thesis. Both have value and it depends on how you view the process of writing. These are:

• Individually edit sections as they are returned from the supervisor.
• Edit at the very end, so that the editing can be consistent across sections.

With the first strategy, the editing process is broken up into manageable chunks, but at the end you will have to go back and re-edit sections to improve the clarity and flow.

With the second strategy, you may be able to achieve better flow, but the number of edits at the end may seem overwhelming and take up considerable time.

These challenges bring us back to the importance of a timeline. Leaving several weeks for the editing process is necessary because editing can take longer than you think . Also, once you have made these necessary edits, you will need to go through and proofread your document to make sure that the fine details are consistent across chapters. This includes things like making sure acronyms are clearly defined, tables are appropriately numbered/titled, that punctuation and syntax are accurate, and that formatting and alignment is consistent.

Something you may find challenging during the finishing process is knowing when to stop. With writing there are always changes that can be made – ideas or sentences that can be written just a little bit better or slightly more clearly. You could spend years (really!) refining your work – writing and rewriting sections to make them exactly how you want them – but the simple fact is: you do not have time for that.

Use the time that you do have for editing your thesis to the best of your ability, but also be willing to say “this is good enough” and submit your work.

Handing something in that you have worked diligently on for a long time is a truly satisfying feeling, so try to cherish that moment when it comes.

Also, it goes without saying but is always worth the reminder: the expert editors we have on board here at Oxbridge Editing can not only relieve a phenomenal amount of effort in this final hurdle of your assignment, but, thanks to their experience and skill, they will also ensure your thesis is flawless and truly ready for submission. You can find out more about thesis editing here .

Final words

Hopefully, by reading this post you have identified some tips for writing your master’s thesis that you can apply in your own context.

While the finished product will vary by discipline, the strategies listed above can apply across a wide range of contexts.

Above all else: start early and stick to the plan.

There are many examples of master’s dissertations that you can refer to for guidance so that you can identify the appropriate thesis structure for your project. By doing a little bit each day and by keeping track of your reading, you can ensure that you remain organised and efficient with your work.

Remember that writing your master’s thesis is your first opportunity to demonstrate to the academic community that you are a proficient scholar in your field. A UK master’s dissertation is no easy task, but there are lots of people and resources available to help you. Take guidance from your supervisor and use the facilities that exist on your university campus, including the writing centre and the library.

Best of luck!

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How to Write a Research Paper in a Month?

How to write a research paper in a month: a step-by-step guide with timeline.

Writing a research paper is one of the challenging tasks in research, but with proper planning and organization, it can be accomplished within a month. While the timeline may seem tight, this article will guide you through a step-by-step procedure to efficiently write a research paper in just 30 days. By following this timeline strictly, one can successfully navigate the research process and produce a high-quality paper .

Learn how to write a research paper in just one month with our comprehensive step-by-step guide. This timeline-based approach will help you manage your time effectively and achieve efficient results. Discover research tips, writing techniques, and valuable strategies to stay organized throughout the process. Enhance your research productivity and successfully complete your paper within the given deadline.

Step 1: Choose an Engaging Topic (Days 1-2):

• Selecting an intriguing and research-worthy topic is the first crucial step.
• Spend some time brainstorming ideas, exploring academic journals, and consulting your professor or advisor.
• Ensure your topic is specific, manageable, and aligns with your field of study.

Also Read: How to Choose the Right Title for a PhD thesis and Research Paper?

Step 2: Perform In-Depth Research (Days 3-8):

• Dedicate a significant portion of time to conducting thorough research.
• Utilize academic databases, online libraries, and reputable sources to gather relevant information.
• Take detailed notes and organize your sources using a citation management tool such as EndNote or Zotero.

Also Read: Top 5 Free Reference Management Software for Research

Step 3: Develop a Solid Thesis Statement (Day 9):

• Based on your research, craft a clear and concise thesis statement that summarizes your paper’s main argument or focus.
• Your thesis statement should be specific and supportable with evidence from your research.

Also Read: What is a Thesis Statement -Example

Step 4: Create an Outline (Days 10-11):

• Construct a well-organized outline that serves as a roadmap for your paper .
• Divide your research into sections and sub-sections, ensuring a logical flow of ideas.
• This step will help you maintain coherence throughout the writing process.

Also Read: A Simple Thesis Outline for Your Research

Step 5: Write the First Draft (Days 12-23):

• Begin writing your paper based on the outline you created.
• Aim to complete a specific number of pages or sections each day, keeping in mind the deadline.
• Focus on expressing your ideas and arguments clearly, avoiding perfectionism during this initial draft.

Also Read: 12 Steps to plan, draft, write, and finish a PhD thesis or dissertation?

Step 6: Revise and Edit (Days 24-25):

• Once the first draft is complete, take a break for a day to gain a fresh perspective.
• Return to your paper and start revising it critically.
• Pay attention to sentence structure, grammar , and clarity.
• Eliminate any unnecessary information and ensure that your arguments are supported by evidence.

Also Read: Editor for Thesis Images – Online Free Photo

Step 7: Seek Feedback and Revise Again (Days 26-27):

• Share your paper with peers , professors, and experts to obtain valuable feedback.
• Consider their suggestions and incorporate necessary changes into your paper.
• This step helps improve the overall quality of your work and ensures it meets the required standards.

Also Read: Eight Effective Tips to Overcome Writer’s Block in PhD Thesis Writing

Step 8: Proofread and Finalize (Days 28-29):

• Proofread your paper meticulously, checking for spelling errors, typos, and formatting inconsistencies.
• Ensure that your paper adheres to the specified citation style (APA, MLA, etc.).
• Verify that your references are accurately cited and cross-checked with your citation management tool.

Also Read: 9 Free Proofreaders and Grammar Checkers for Thesis

Step 9: Write the Abstract and Introduction (Day 30):

• Craft a concise abstract that summarizes the key points of your paper.
• Then, write an engaging introduction that introduces the topic, provides background information, and presents your thesis statement.
• These sections should capture the reader’s attention and provide a clear context for your research.
• Finally, submit the paper to a reputed journal.

Also Read: Example of Abstract for Research Paper – Tips and Dos and Donts

10 Tips to Write a Research Paper in a Month

1. Plan your time

Create a realistic timeline that outlines the tasks you need to complete at each stage of the research paper writing process.

2. Select a focused topic

Choose a research topic that is manageable and aligns with your interests and available resources.

3. Conduct efficient research

Utilize online databases, academic journals, and credible sources to gather relevant information quickly. Take organized notes to streamline your writing process.

4. Develop a strong thesis statement

Formulate a clear and concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or objective of your research paper.

5. Create an outline

Structure your research paper by creating a detailed outline that includes the introduction, main body paragraphs, and conclusion. This will help you maintain a logical flow throughout your writing.

6. Break it down into smaller tasks

Divide your research paper into smaller, manageable tasks such as literature review, data analysis, and drafting different sections. This approach will make the writing process less overwhelming.

7. Stay focused and organized

Maintain a distraction-free work environment, organize your research materials, and keep track of your sources to save time when citing references.

8. Write regularly

Set aside dedicated time each day for writing. Even if it’s just a small portion of your paper, consistent progress will help you stay on track.

9. Edit and revise

Allocate time for editing and proofreading your research paper. Check for clarity, coherence, grammar, and spelling errors to ensure a polished final product.

10. Seek feedback

Share your draft with peers, professors, or writing centers for valuable feedback. Incorporate suggestions and refine your paper further for a well-rounded research outcome.

By following these tips, you can effectively write a research paper within a month while maintaining a high standard of quality and academic integrity.

Conclusion:

Writing a research paper within a month is an achievable goal if you follow a systematic approach. By allocating time to each stage of the process, from topic selection to final proofreading, you can efficiently complete a well-researched and well-written paper. Always stay focused, organize your thoughts, seek feedback, and revise your work. With determination and proper planning, you can produce a high-quality research paper that contributes to your field of study. Happy researching!

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How to write a thesis statement + examples

What is a thesis statement?

Is a thesis statement a question, how do you write a good thesis statement, how do i know if my thesis statement is good, examples of thesis statements, helpful resources on how to write a thesis statement, frequently asked questions about writing a thesis statement, related articles.

A thesis statement is the main argument of your paper or thesis.

The thesis statement is one of the most important elements of any piece of academic writing . It is a brief statement of your paper’s main argument. Essentially, you are stating what you will be writing about.

You can see your thesis statement as an answer to a question. While it also contains the question, it should really give an answer to the question with new information and not just restate or reiterate it.

Your thesis statement is part of your introduction. Learn more about how to write a good thesis introduction in our introduction guide .

A thesis statement is not a question. A statement must be arguable and provable through evidence and analysis. While your thesis might stem from a research question, it should be in the form of a statement.

Tip: A thesis statement is typically 1-2 sentences. For a longer project like a thesis, the statement may be several sentences or a paragraph.

A good thesis statement needs to do the following:

• Condense the main idea of your thesis into one or two sentences.
• Answer your project’s main research question.
• Clearly state your position in relation to the topic .
• Make an argument that requires support or evidence.

Once you have written down a thesis statement, check if it fulfills the following criteria:

• Your statement needs to be provable by evidence. As an argument, a thesis statement needs to be debatable.
• Your statement needs to be precise. Do not give away too much information in the thesis statement and do not load it with unnecessary information.
• Your statement cannot say that one solution is simply right or simply wrong as a matter of fact. You should draw upon verified facts to persuade the reader of your solution, but you cannot just declare something as right or wrong.

As previously mentioned, your thesis statement should answer a question.

If the question is:

What do you think the City of New York should do to reduce traffic congestion?

A good thesis statement restates the question and answers it:

In this paper, I will argue that the City of New York should focus on providing exclusive lanes for public transport and adaptive traffic signals to reduce traffic congestion by the year 2035.

Here is another example. If the question is:

How can we end poverty?

A good thesis statement should give more than one solution to the problem in question:

In this paper, I will argue that introducing universal basic income can help reduce poverty and positively impact the way we work.

• The Writing Center of the University of North Carolina has a list of questions to ask to see if your thesis is strong .

A thesis statement is part of the introduction of your paper. It is usually found in the first or second paragraph to let the reader know your research purpose from the beginning.

In general, a thesis statement should have one or two sentences. But the length really depends on the overall length of your project. Take a look at our guide about the length of thesis statements for more insight on this topic.

Here is a list of Thesis Statement Examples that will help you understand better how to write them.

Every good essay should include a thesis statement as part of its introduction, no matter the academic level. Of course, if you are a high school student you are not expected to have the same type of thesis as a PhD student.

Here is a great YouTube tutorial showing How To Write An Essay: Thesis Statements .

ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

How to generate, capture, and collect ideas to realize creative projects., how to write a dissertation thesis in a month: outlines, outlines, outlines.

2010-05-23 Daniel Circus Ponies Notebook , Doing Science , Learning to do Science , Science , Scrivener , Tools , Writing 41

“Writing a book is an adventure: to begin with it is a toy and amusement; then it becomes a master, and than it becomes a tyrant; and the last phase is just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude – you kill the monster and fling him to the public.” Winston Churchill

Last year I took a vacation for a month to write my dissertation thesis. And it took me that one month to come up with the first draft, which made it into the final version with only minor alterations (but a lot of error checking ). While the lack of major alterations might be in part due to my academic advisers (and my) wish to finish the work as soon as possible, I think the major part of this is due to the way it was written, or rather structured.

Doing a dissertation thesis is a major project, the writing itself is a different but not less complicated animal. I think it is a mistake to start writing in sentences unless you know the structure and the content. Once you write sentences, they stick together and are hard to change. And I think it is nearly impossible to write a 200+ pages work if you do not structure it beforehand, and there is a great way to do so: Outlines.

Most people know outlines from school. Many teachers try to give this valuable hint for exams. Plan what you write before you start writing. An outline for a dissertation is similar, but not quite the same. For one thing, it is much more detailed .

How detailed? Well, everything you want to write later should be included in it, without the actual sentences. Metaphorically it should contain the bones of the text, the whole skeleton, and hints for everything else. This means

• the order you want to write the different pieces of information that make your theory
• the notes you made about your studies, the design, the participants, the instruments, the procedure
• the results of any statistical analysis you made
• the ideas for and the issues you want to raise in the discussion

It also includes any notes you do not want to forget and any ideas, e.g., for further studies even if you cannot realize them (a valuable hint from my informal academic adviser: you will have ideas of things you want to realize but you cannot realize everything, so make notes and raise these points in “future work”).

Given that the outline only contains the information, but not the sentences, it is easily changeable. And once you get in the flow of adding flesh to the bones, you can write really fast. An additional benefit of using outlines: I used the same outline as a basis for the articles I wrote about my dissertation. The outline also allows you to focus only on the relevant part by using the hierarchical structure: You can arrange the information similar to the structure you use for your PhD thesis and simply fold in the parts you do not need at the moment. This way, thousands of lines of text become easily manageable. For example, you can fold the parts between the introduction and the discussion to write parts of the discussion while simulateneously seeing parts of the introduction. Sure, you could do something similar with Word’s “split view”, but not as easy and with this focus on the parts you want to see.

Personally, my outline for my dissertation was a 66.5 MB Circus Ponies Notebook file, containing 333,215 words (> 2.2 million characters, equivalent of about 1305 pages). I made sure to write down everything I did, the results of any analysis, etc. It was more or less structured in the way I wanted to write my dissertation. With this outline next to my writing program ( Scrivener ), it was possible to come up with a good first draft within a month. Why? Because I first read the whole outline, taking care to move the information that did not fit where it was to the correct place, then sorted each sub-point (e.g,, theory, results of Study 1) in the correct order, and then used this sorted outline that contained all the information I needed to write it as a guideline to write that chapter. Given that the sources were marked in the outline (see Academic Workflow ) I did not have to check other sources for the actual writing. I didn’t even have to re-check statistical printouts — it was all in that one huge outline (and then in a smaller one that dealt only with the chapter).

I created the outline before I started to write, during the last year of my PhD. But thinking back, it would have been much easier to create the outline during the whole PhD thesis time, as soon as the topic and the first experiments were decided. Noting the decisions (and the reasons for doing so), the results, etc. while planning and doing the studies would have made it much easier in the end, but it also worked this way.

So, I can only highly recommend creating a detailed outline prior to writing and using it for the writing process. It makes an insanely complex work manageable. 🙂

• Circus_Ponies_Notebook
• conveying_ideas
• infrastructure

15 Comments

I received a question regarding the transfer of notes from other programs to Circus Ponies Notebook:

Hi Daniel! My name is Chris and I´m working on my dissertation manuscript for my MD at the moment. I´m using Scrivener for writing, Bookends as BibRef tool for Scrivener and Papers for getting and sorting my papers. Yet, I´ve done a lot of work, writing on my self and using associated project scripts of my Institute. My question is, how can I import the manuscript´s status quo of Outline, BibRef and Content into CPN for not losing so much time by starting again from the beginning… Thx a lot, Chris

Hmmm, if I understand the question correctly you are currently using three different programs for writing your dissertation (Bookends, Scrivener and Papers) and now you want to create an outline in CPN … good question … hmm, first, do you really want to take a step back? An outline makes sense to organize the material you have in a red thread and collect all information in one place that you can use (with Scrivener) to write you dissertation in one go. At the moment, you already have written text … hmmm …

Okay, it’s difficult to say (will be influenced by a lot of factors I don’t know, like the rules of your field for dissertations, the time you have left, your goals, your working habits, etc. pp.) and I wouldn’t bet my dissertation on it, but I would probably go alone the lines of this:

1. What is the problem? Do I have problems making a coherent package out of my material? In this case, going back to an outline might be one way to solve it. If, however, I’m just not motivated to write, I don’t want to finish it or I’m looking for some other thing to do, I’d grind my teeth and punch through writing the way I did before.

2. If it’s the first case and now I have to put my material in one CPN file, I’d create one outlining page, start with the sections of the dissertation (title page, abstract, introduction …), highlight them, and then manually copy the text I have already written into this outline. The reason is that if the structure is a problem (it usually is), you need little cells of text (one argument per cell) that you can organize hierarchically and move really easily. You can try to automate it by copying your whole text first (depending on the fonts you have used, e.g., for formulas or the importance of formatting you have already used by compiling a draft from Scrivener and using this as a starting point), then paste it into a pure text editor (like TextWrangler) and then copy it onto the notebook page with “Edit – Paste – Paste Text as Outline” to avoid switching between two applications, but the division into cells you’ll have to do yourself.

3. While pasting I would use the situation to make notes (using a cell on its own with text in another color). You might have some ideas what to do and what you still need to check, use that moment.

x. optional: If I need the references as keywords (only if you want to write what they have said as text and keep the reference in the margin) I’d copy all references (only author and year or however they are cited in the text in your discipline, mind the Miller 1999a, Miller 1999b, etc. if one author has published multiple papers in one year) at the end of the outline, and then — for each reference — highlight it in the text (not the cell) and make a keyword out of it (assign as keyword). This way CPN already knows the keywords and I can assign them to the margins easily (you have to leave at least one occurrence of the keyword in the file, so give the references a top cell like “refs” and fold this in and keep it at the end of the outline where it doesn’t bug you. But this is a large step backwards in the process, as I would tag cells with only one reference. This means splitting up/copying sentences if you refer to multiple sources.

4. Then I’d resort the cells in a fitting order. I’d make sure that the whole structure has a hierarchical order and let’s me easily see the gist of the different sections (summaries in the higher cells). I’d make sure that the whole picture is coherent and invest work in the parts that aren’t. Perhaps changing the structure, perhaps hitting literature again.

5. Once I’m sure I have a coherent work that is “enough” to get me the grad I need (for me: “magna cum laude” to stay in research, which luckily worked out) and after checking with my supervisor, I’d write the whole text (I can recommend taking a month off and copying the text sectionwise into a new CPN file and then checking the order again. If you stumble during writing it’s often the order/structure that’s a problem. Try to catch this first.)

6. While writing I’d put the text citations into the text (or use the Reference Manager that you have assigned to Scrivener). After writing the text, if I did the references manually, I’d put in the references at the end of the document.

But like said, I’d only do this if structure really is a problem. CPN is great for making an outline that really deserves the name — that contains all the information in one huge structure you need to write. A good outline (yup, like said, this means manual work) allows you to see the structure on the higher levels, allowing you to fold in the sublevels and concentrate on whether your arguments make sense. This is often lost in the text.

One important aspect: Keep your papers (with notes regarding the papers) sorted the way you did it (if it works for you). The dissertation is a project that will be finished. The outline you create for writing it can be used as a starting point for articles and future work, but one day you’ll have to go back to the place you have sorted your papers in. I have tried using CPN for organizing papers I read and while some aspects worked really well (like tagging each cell with the reference) it got slow fast. I switched to a Wiki (and highly automated some functions with Javascript/PHP, i.e., Ferret) to make it usable. Currently I have over 1000 papers/books/whatever in my literature section — DokuWiki can handle it, CPN would probably have been slow as hell. So, whatever you do, use CPN’s outline function to get the structure in order and get all your material for this project in one place if you need to, but keep your literature in a separate collection.

I hope this answers your question.

Best regards

This is the third often read posting I have in my blog. I think (and am pretty certain) that outlines, especially using Circus Ponies Notebook, helped me — or rather enabled me — to finish not only my diploma thesis but also my dissertation thesis, not only in a month but ever . I’m curious, what are your experiences? Did it work for you? If now, why? If you found another solution, what worked for you? It would be nice to hear a comment from you if you have read this posting. 🙂

Very useful. Concerning your most recent comment: I think it’s the third most read article in your blog because it’s the number 1 google search result for : how to write a dissertation thesis in 1 month –> which brought me here.. Add millions of other lazy bastards who work at the last minute and voila!

thank you for the comment — I didn’t know that Google liked this posting that much, cool 🙂

Best regards (and good luck for your thesis)

PS: The writing took one month, the preparation for the writing phase took a little longer. 😉

I commend your spirit and your nice expressions. I do really enjoy every single word you wrote. I’m working right now on my thesis and I’m totally frustrated, bored, don’t know how to finish it and how to manage my time. What you wrote made me think that writing a thesis is not so hard but it needs time, outlining and most important optimism!

Thanks for sharing this with us.

Thank you for the positive feedback 🙂

I think it’s quite normal to feel this way when doing a dissertation thesis — there are many crises (e.g., Dissertation Crises , or Dissertation Crisis — Past the Mountain ) and while a dissertation is (supposed to be) difficult, it’s good to keep it in perspective. For example:

“A PhD is a stepping stone into a research career. All you need to do is to demonstrate your capacity for independent, critical thinking. That’s all you need to do. A PhD is three years of solid work, not a Nobel Prize” Maths–Eng/Female/18, in Mullins & Kiley, 2002

“Das Kapital wasn’t Marx’s thesis: and my PhD thesis doesn’t have to be my life’s work. It’s a training ground.” catspyjamas on phinished.org

“The only good dissertation is a DONE dissertation.” Capella faculty quote

So, if you are stuck, perhaps creating an outline will help. And like Churchill said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” I wish you the best 🙂

Hi Daniel. I read your story about your thesis writing and understood you write about 333000 words in just one month,how did you do that?I am a PhD student in engineering really struggling with my writing up, I almost have not written anything because of my depression problems. I have about a month and half to submit, I have no limit but want to write at least 100 pages except the bibliography and appendices. I appreciate if you advice me how to do it.many thanks Hannah

Mai I mention here that I do have outlines and kind of know the structure of thesis writing.

Hoi Hannah,

nope, writing 333k words in a month would be a feat beyond me. 😉 I created the outline during my dissertation prior to sitting down to write the thesis. What I did write in that month was the dissertation thesis itself which was 250 pages long and had about 71000 words. I did not use all the material I had in my outline and the hierarchical structure made it possible (and fairly easy) to select among the material I wanted to use.

Regarding your case — difficult. If you have a depression (in the clinical term, not in the colloquial meaning), then this should probably be a priority (and not my field of expertise, that’s something for the local health service). Regarding the writing — personally it helped me a lot to use the outliner to create a content outline . This goes beyond the structure — it externalizes all what you want to write and allows you to resort the content in the structure that fits best, without starting to write sentences that stick together. Then you can focus on the criteria on scientific writing (e.g., Alley’s criteria, see here or the other postings in that series ). However, there is a huge risk here if you have a deadline looming: It stays pre-text for a long time. For me writing the thesis from the content outline was quick (I can type with 10 fingers and am reasonably fast), but it was easy for me to sort the material and I had no looming deadline. So, using the same strategy might be a way that might work, but nobody can guarantee success.

All the best

Well i completed my thesis in few weeks, but i adopted a unique method, I had the draft out sourced and when i got it back i made my own changes to it and it was ready. I used [URL REMOVED] They were right on money and topic

Normally such a comment would be sorted into the spam folder, but after removing the I’ve approved it to make a point. Outsourcing is not a unique method — it’s unfortunately common with some people who think they can buy an academic degree. Well, some are paying for college and some will pay for others to do their work later, so why not for the thesis too? Well, because it’s plagiarism. Unless you stated that you used a ghostwriting service in your thesis — which I doubt that you did, because any university worth the name would not accept that work as yours — you lied about who did the work. And the academic work should be your own. Not only did you not learn the necessary skills — nope, seeing the result is easy, doing it on your own is something completely different — you betrayed yourself of the chance to do a difficult high-level piece of work. Something like this is frequently a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you blew it. The funny thing, I am willing to bet that in the future — give it 5 to 10 years — some hackers or whistleblowers will make the customers of these ‘services’ public. Or Google/Plagiarism software will improve so much that it will detect these kinds of plagiarisms. And then a lot of people who thought they could buy their title, or a huge chunk of the work necessary will lose it. So, congratulations, you not only blew an academic adventure that you could have had with the right mindset, you also put a time bomb in your CV. Tick-tock-tick-tock … have fun.

Love, love, love your comment to Jenni. Writing my dissertation is proving to be extremely hard but mainly because I want it to be the best possible representation of my body of knowledge. The idea of outsourcing a dissertation is ridiculous. Sooner or later the truth will come out. If Jenni had her “own details” to begin with, she should have used them to produce her own work!

Thank you, I doubt that it will change anything given that “she” seems to be the companies ad/spam person (received another spam message disguised as “PhD student testimonial”), but perhaps other readers will think twice on “outsourcing” the work. 🙂

Thank you, very useful, informative articles. I only have one question is how to write an essay on a topic that you do not know and do not lose face? How to write a good informative article in a short period of time and not to make mistakes? In internet many articles which give different advice, such as, this article https://thesiswhisperer.com/2011/03/24/how-to-write-1000-words-a-day-and-not-go-bat-shit-crazy/ , but they can not really help me and answer my questions. I study at the Institute and I need in a short time write a good dissertation. Now I do not know what to do … looking for a different article in internet about thesis writing. There I found this article http://phdify.com/blog/how-many-chapters-in-a-dissertation on how to write a dissertation, but it do not tell me how to write a dissertation 2 months. Can you give me some good advice?

Hoi Jenifer,

the only (honest) advice I can give you is to talk to your advisor. They (and the committee) are the ones determining what is necessary for your dissertation. I am recommending this because it seems to me that the problem is not how to write a certain amount of words, or how to write a thesis in a certain amount of time, but because I think there is some confusion about what the dissertation is about. And I might be wrong here! I think for most writing tips to work you have to be clear about what your contribution in your thesis is — and for that you need discussions with your supervisor. Once that is determined, you can do an outline (as I would recommend) or use Mewburn’s tips.

(And as for outlines — yup, I think there are great, but they will not work for everyone. They are an option you should know about. And while I did write my thesis in a month — the first and nearly final draft that is — I did it with an outline I had created during nearly three years of studying.)

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[Advice] I need to write an undergraduate thesis in one month

It needs to be about 40 pages long, dealing with literary representations of people with disabilities. Since I started the project, I've fallen out of love with the whole premise. I have about 8 or 9 pages written so far. I've continually procrastinated since the beginning of the semester along with a lot of work for my other classes. If I don't get this done in addition to my other work, I won't be able to graduate in the time I had planned to.

My problem is the basic college procrastination issue - I avoid doing the thing and it becomes a bigger thing. I know that it is still very reasonable for me to create something decent on time, but whenever I think about my thesis it fills me with this massive anxiety. Any suggestions on dealing with this?

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How to Write a Research Proposal: (with Examples & Templates)

Table of Contents

Before conducting a study, a research proposal should be created that outlines researchers’ plans and methodology and is submitted to the concerned evaluating organization or person. Creating a research proposal is an important step to ensure that researchers are on track and are moving forward as intended. A research proposal can be defined as a detailed plan or blueprint for the proposed research that you intend to undertake. It provides readers with a snapshot of your project by describing what you will investigate, why it is needed, and how you will conduct the research.  

Your research proposal should aim to explain to the readers why your research is relevant and original, that you understand the context and current scenario in the field, have the appropriate resources to conduct the research, and that the research is feasible given the usual constraints.  

This article will describe in detail the purpose and typical structure of a research proposal , along with examples and templates to help you ace this step in your research journey.  

What is a Research Proposal ?  

A research proposal¹ ,²  can be defined as a formal report that describes your proposed research, its objectives, methodology, implications, and other important details. Research proposals are the framework of your research and are used to obtain approvals or grants to conduct the study from various committees or organizations. Consequently, research proposals should convince readers of your study’s credibility, accuracy, achievability, practicality, and reproducibility.   

With research proposals , researchers usually aim to persuade the readers, funding agencies, educational institutions, and supervisors to approve the proposal. To achieve this, the report should be well structured with the objectives written in clear, understandable language devoid of jargon. A well-organized research proposal conveys to the readers or evaluators that the writer has thought out the research plan meticulously and has the resources to ensure timely completion.  

Purpose of Research Proposals  

A research proposal is a sales pitch and therefore should be detailed enough to convince your readers, who could be supervisors, ethics committees, universities, etc., that what you’re proposing has merit and is feasible . Research proposals can help students discuss their dissertation with their faculty or fulfill course requirements and also help researchers obtain funding. A well-structured proposal instills confidence among readers about your ability to conduct and complete the study as proposed.  

Research proposals can be written for several reasons:³  

• To describe the importance of research in the specific topic  
• Address any potential challenges you may encounter  
• Showcase knowledge in the field and your ability to conduct a study  
• Apply for a role at a research institute  
• Convince a research supervisor or university that your research can satisfy the requirements of a degree program  
• Highlight the importance of your research to organizations that may sponsor your project  
• Identify implications of your project and how it can benefit the audience  

What Goes in a Research Proposal?    

Research proposals should aim to answer the three basic questions—what, why, and how.  

The What question should be answered by describing the specific subject being researched. It should typically include the objectives, the cohort details, and the location or setting.  

The Why question should be answered by describing the existing scenario of the subject, listing unanswered questions, identifying gaps in the existing research, and describing how your study can address these gaps, along with the implications and significance.  

The How question should be answered by describing the proposed research methodology, data analysis tools expected to be used, and other details to describe your proposed methodology.   

Research Proposal Example  

Here is a research proposal sample template (with examples) from the University of Rochester Medical Center. 4 The sections in all research proposals are essentially the same although different terminology and other specific sections may be used depending on the subject.  

Structure of a Research Proposal  

If you want to know how to make a research proposal impactful, include the following components:¹  

1. Introduction  

This section provides a background of the study, including the research topic, what is already known about it and the gaps, and the significance of the proposed research.  

2. Literature review  

This section contains descriptions of all the previous relevant studies pertaining to the research topic. Every study cited should be described in a few sentences, starting with the general studies to the more specific ones. This section builds on the understanding gained by readers in the Introduction section and supports it by citing relevant prior literature, indicating to readers that you have thoroughly researched your subject.  

3. Objectives  

Once the background and gaps in the research topic have been established, authors must now state the aims of the research clearly. Hypotheses should be mentioned here. This section further helps readers understand what your study’s specific goals are.  

4. Research design and methodology  

Here, authors should clearly describe the methods they intend to use to achieve their proposed objectives. Important components of this section include the population and sample size, data collection and analysis methods and duration, statistical analysis software, measures to avoid bias (randomization, blinding), etc.  

5. Ethical considerations  

This refers to the protection of participants’ rights, such as the right to privacy, right to confidentiality, etc. Researchers need to obtain informed consent and institutional review approval by the required authorities and mention this clearly for transparency.  

6. Budget/funding  

Researchers should prepare their budget and include all expected expenditures. An additional allowance for contingencies such as delays should also be factored in.  

7. Appendices  

This section typically includes information that supports the research proposal and may include informed consent forms, questionnaires, participant information, measurement tools, etc.  

8. Citations  

Important Tips for Writing a Research Proposal  

Writing a research proposal begins much before the actual task of writing. Planning the research proposal structure and content is an important stage, which if done efficiently, can help you seamlessly transition into the writing stage. 3,5  

The Planning Stage  

• Manage your time efficiently. Plan to have the draft version ready at least two weeks before your deadline and the final version at least two to three days before the deadline.
• What is the primary objective of your research?  
• Will your research address any existing gap?  
• What is the impact of your proposed research?  
• Do people outside your field find your research applicable in other areas?  
• If your research is unsuccessful, would there still be other useful research outcomes?  

  The Writing Stage  

• Create an outline with main section headings that are typically used.  
• Focus only on writing and getting your points across without worrying about the format of the research proposal , grammar, punctuation, etc. These can be fixed during the subsequent passes. Add details to each section heading you created in the beginning.   
• Ensure your sentences are concise and use plain language. A research proposal usually contains about 2,000 to 4,000 words or four to seven pages.  
• Don’t use too many technical terms and abbreviations assuming that the readers would know them. Define the abbreviations and technical terms.  
• Ensure that the entire content is readable. Avoid using long paragraphs because they affect the continuity in reading. Break them into shorter paragraphs and introduce some white space for readability.  
• Focus on only the major research issues and cite sources accordingly. Don’t include generic information or their sources in the literature review.  
• Proofread your final document to ensure there are no grammatical errors so readers can enjoy a seamless, uninterrupted read.  
• Use academic, scholarly language because it brings formality into a document.  
• Ensure that your title is created using the keywords in the document and is neither too long and specific nor too short and general.  
• Cite all sources appropriately to avoid plagiarism.  
• Make sure that you follow guidelines, if provided. This includes rules as simple as using a specific font or a hyphen or en dash between numerical ranges.  
• Ensure that you’ve answered all questions requested by the evaluating authority.  

Key Takeaways   

Here’s a summary of the main points about research proposals discussed in the previous sections:  

• A research proposal is a document that outlines the details of a proposed study and is created by researchers to submit to evaluators who could be research institutions, universities, faculty, etc.  
• Research proposals are usually about 2,000-4,000 words long, but this depends on the evaluating authority’s guidelines.  
• A good research proposal ensures that you’ve done your background research and assessed the feasibility of the research.  
• Research proposals have the following main sections—introduction, literature review, objectives, methodology, ethical considerations, and budget.  

Frequently Asked Questions  

Q1. How is a research proposal evaluated?  

A1. In general, most evaluators, including universities, broadly use the following criteria to evaluate research proposals . 6  

• Significance —Does the research address any important subject or issue, which may or may not be specific to the evaluator or university?  
• Content and design —Is the proposed methodology appropriate to answer the research question? Are the objectives clear and well aligned with the proposed methodology?  
• Sample size and selection —Is the target population or cohort size clearly mentioned? Is the sampling process used to select participants randomized, appropriate, and free of bias?  
• Timing —Are the proposed data collection dates mentioned clearly? Is the project feasible given the specified resources and timeline?  
• Data management and dissemination —Who will have access to the data? What is the plan for data analysis?  

Q2. What is the difference between the Introduction and Literature Review sections in a research proposal ?  

A2. The Introduction or Background section in a research proposal sets the context of the study by describing the current scenario of the subject and identifying the gaps and need for the research. A Literature Review, on the other hand, provides references to all prior relevant literature to help corroborate the gaps identified and the research need.  

Q3. How long should a research proposal be?  

A3. Research proposal lengths vary with the evaluating authority like universities or committees and also the subject. Here’s a table that lists the typical research proposal lengths for a few universities.  

Q4. What are the common mistakes to avoid in a research proposal ?  

A4. Here are a few common mistakes that you must avoid while writing a research proposal . 7  

• No clear objectives: Objectives should be clear, specific, and measurable for the easy understanding among readers.  
• Incomplete or unconvincing background research: Background research usually includes a review of the current scenario of the particular industry and also a review of the previous literature on the subject. This helps readers understand your reasons for undertaking this research because you identified gaps in the existing research.  
• Overlooking project feasibility: The project scope and estimates should be realistic considering the resources and time available.   
• Neglecting the impact and significance of the study: In a research proposal , readers and evaluators look for the implications or significance of your research and how it contributes to the existing research. This information should always be included.  
• Unstructured format of a research proposal : A well-structured document gives confidence to evaluators that you have read the guidelines carefully and are well organized in your approach, consequently affirming that you will be able to undertake the research as mentioned in your proposal.  
• Ineffective writing style: The language used should be formal and grammatically correct. If required, editors could be consulted, including AI-based tools such as Paperpal , to refine the research proposal structure and language.  

Thus, a research proposal is an essential document that can help you promote your research and secure funds and grants for conducting your research. Consequently, it should be well written in clear language and include all essential details to convince the evaluators of your ability to conduct the research as proposed.  

This article has described all the important components of a research proposal and has also provided tips to improve your writing style. We hope all these tips will help you write a well-structured research proposal to ensure receipt of grants or any other purpose.  

References  

• Sudheesh K, Duggappa DR, Nethra SS. How to write a research proposal? Indian J Anaesth. 2016;60(9):631-634. Accessed July 15, 2024. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5037942/  
• Writing research proposals. Harvard College Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. Harvard University. Accessed July 14, 2024. https://uraf.harvard.edu/apply-opportunities/app-components/essays/research-proposals  
• What is a research proposal? Plus how to write one. Indeed website. Accessed July 17, 2024. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/research-proposal  
• Research proposal template. University of Rochester Medical Center. Accessed July 16, 2024. https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/pediatrics/research/documents/Research-proposal-Template.pdf  
• Tips for successful proposal writing. Johns Hopkins University. Accessed July 17, 2024. https://research.jhu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Tips-for-Successful-Proposal-Writing.pdf  
• Formal review of research proposals. Cornell University. Accessed July 18, 2024. https://irp.dpb.cornell.edu/surveys/survey-assessment-review-group/research-proposals  
• 7 Mistakes you must avoid in your research proposal. Aveksana (via LinkedIn). Accessed July 17, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-mistakes-you-must-avoid-your-research-proposal-aveksana-cmtwf/  

Paperpal is a comprehensive AI writing toolkit that helps students and researchers achieve 2x the writing in half the time. It leverages 21+ years of STM experience and insights from millions of research articles to provide in-depth academic writing, language editing, and submission readiness support to help you write better, faster.  

Get accurate academic translations, rewriting support, grammar checks, vocabulary suggestions, and generative AI assistance that delivers human precision at machine speed. Try for free or upgrade to Paperpal Prime starting at US$19 a month to access premium features, including consistency, plagiarism, and 30+ submission readiness checks to help you succeed.  

Experience the future of academic writing – Sign up to Paperpal and start writing for free!  

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• How to Cite Social Media Sources in Academic Writing? 
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Where Harris stands on Israel, abortion, climate change, education and the economy

[Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misstated Harris' proposed 2019 climate plan investment levels. The correct estimate is nearly seven times more than Biden's current proposal.]

Vice President Kamala Harris has emerged as the Democratic party’s presidential frontrunner after Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid Sunday.

Most Democrats have backed Harris, who announced her 2024 campaign for president shortly after Biden penned a letter explaining his decision to exit the 2024 race. Depending on who you ask, Harris is viewed as a moderate or a progressive reformer.

A former prosecutor, Harris was elected San Francisco’s district attorney with a “tough on crime” message in 2003 and worked in that role for seven years. She became the state’s attorney general in 2011 and served until 2017, when she was elected to represent California in the U.S. Senate.

Text with USA TODAY: Sign-up now and get answers to all your election questions.

More: Election 2024 live updates: Endorsements rush in for Harris; Trump attacks begin

Harris launched her own unsuccessful presidential campaign at a rally in her hometown of Oakland, California in 2019. She dropped her bid for the White House and joined President Joe Biden’s ticket in August the following year. In 2021, she was sworn in as vice president.

Decades in the public spotlight and on the public record, here is what we know about where Harris stands on key issues:

Foreign Policy

As Biden’s second-in-command, Harris has largely stood behind his foreign policy positions, but there are signs she could be tougher on Israel over the war in Gaza than the president.

Harris has not given reason to believe she will deviate much from Biden on issues relating to China , for example. She is also unlikely to sway from supporting Ukraine. Harris said earlier this year that Russia has committed “crimes against humanity” in Ukraine over the last two years.

Harris has not directly opposed Biden’s staunch support for Israel, but has expressed sympathy for the more than 38,000 Palestinian lives lost during the conflict. She was one of the first high-profile members of his administration to call for an immediate temporary cease-fire in March. She acknowledged the “immense scale of suffering” in Gaza and said the Israel-Hamas war is a “humanitarian catastrophe” for innocent civilians.

Harris’ support for women’s access to abortions has been a focal point of her tenure as the country’s first female vice president. She embarked on a nationwide Reproductive Freedoms Tour earlier this year to draw attention to attacks on abortion access following the Dobbs decision . She attended her first stop in Wisconsin on Jan. 22, the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade .

Harris proposed federal protections that would limit state abortion restrictions during her first presidential campaign. Under her proposal, states would need to clear laws regulating abortion with the Department of Justice, which would need to confirm they are constitutional before taking effect, she explained in 2019 .

“How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest?” Harris asked during a visit to a Minnesota Planned Parenthood clinic in March. “We have to be a nation that trusts women.”

Harris has traveled on an Economic Opportunity Tour this summer to defend the Biden administration’s economic policy and attack former President Donald Trump’s economic agenda.

While on tour, she touted legislation passed during Biden’s time in office, including the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act . Harris has tried to emphasize that wage increases have outpaced inflation since the pandemic and made the case that Trump has plans to give more tax cuts to the rich.

“Donald Trump gave tax cuts to billionaires,” she said in a June social media post . “President Joe Biden and I are investing in the middle class and making sure billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.”

The vice president has made clear that climate change is a key issue a Harris administration would seek to address.

While running for president in 2019, she proposed a climate plan with a $10 trillion price tag — nearly seven times more than the $1.6 trillion Biden has invested in addressing the issue. She also called for a ban on fracking.

As a senator, she co-sponsored the Green New Deal , which called for a dramatic increase in the production of renewable fuels, including wind, solar, and hydropower sources. The 10-year mobilization plan pushed for a transition to energy systems less reliant on generating greenhouse gases, which are the primary contributors to climate change.

Harris has been an advocate inside the Biden administration pushing for the president to forgive student loan debt , which became a staple of his domestic policy agenda.

As a senator, she co-sponsored Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ legislation to make two-year college free for all students and waive tuition for middle-class students attending four-year public universities.

At a Pride Month event last year, she criticized Florida’s 2022 “Don’t Say Gay” law banning educators from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary and middle school classrooms. Shortly after she announced her presidential campaign Sunday, the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Harris.

Rachel Barber is a 2024 election fellow at USA TODAY, focusing on politics and education. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @rachelbarber_

Netflix Stock Plunged After $7M Donation to Harris Campaign?

One outlet claimed netflix's stock fell 40% and the company lost $2 billion in four hours as a result., taija perrycook, published july 26, 2024.

About this rating

This satirical claim was made with allusions to a real donation by Reed Hastings — the chairman and former CEO of Netflix — to a super PAC that supports U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Although it has some basis in factual events, the bulk of the details were invented.

In July 2024, reports alleging that Netflix 's stock plunged after the company or its CEO donated millions to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign went viral. One outlet, The Dunning-Kruger Times , published an article specifically claiming the company's stock fell almost 40%, losing $2 billion in four hours, as as result. The article began:

Netflix Loses Big after Big Donation Announcement: "It was a Huge Mistake" You've probably already heard the news, patriots. Netflix, the company long associated with the Obamas, has gone fully woke and donated $7 million to the Kamala Harris campaign. In return, the American people canceled subscriptions at an alarming rate and the company lost billions in market cap overnight. Unfortunately, there's no credible source to back any of the stories up. We asked Netflix Director of Democrat Propaganda, Joe Barron, and he told us he's questioning the whole thing.  "I'm not so much questioning it as calling it complete and utter bullhonkey," said Barron, "Netflix couldn't care less if the MAGA cult that swore they canceled their subscriptions because Obama swear they're canceling them again. These aren't serious people. They're morons."

The claim also made its way to The Dunning-Kruger Times X page:

The posts alluded to a real donation: As Snopes reported , Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings told journalists he had donated $7 million of his money to a super PAC that supports Harris. (The streaming service itself did not make such a donation, and Hastings' contribution was not made directly to Harris' campaign. Hastings stepped down as Netflix's CEO in 2023 but remained its chairman.)

However, the details of the Dunning-Kruger Times item were not accurate. The article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows:

Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical.

For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.

Patriot, Flagg Eagleton-. 'Netflix Loses Big after Big Donation Announcement: "It Was a Huge Mistake"'. Dunning-Kruger-Times.Com, 26 July 2024, https://dunning-kruger-times.com/netflix-loses-big-after-big-donation-announcement-it-was-a-huge-mistake/.

By Taija PerryCook

Taija PerryCook is a Seattle-based journalist who previously worked for the PNW news site Crosscut and the Jordan Times in Amman.

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30-Day Thesis Writing Challenge: Proven Techniques to Finish Your Dissertation in One Month

Embarking on a 30-day thesis writing challenge may seem daunting, but with the right strategies, it's entirely possible to complete your dissertation within a month. This article outlines proven techniques that can help you accelerate your thesis completion, manage your time effectively, enhance your writing skills, navigate the emotional aspects of the process, and prepare for success after submission. These insights are drawn from the experiences of past students, academic research on PhD productivity, and the services provided by coaching experts.

Key Takeaways

Adopt a structured writing routine and set realistic goals to complete your thesis efficiently within the tight timeframe.

Utilize productivity techniques like the Pomodoro Technique, minimize distractions, and employ time-saving templates to maximize writing sessions.

Enhance your writing by overcoming common challenges and using literature review and theory cheat sheets for quick reference.

Maintain mental balance and reduce stress through mindful practices, while building a support network to cope with the isolation of thesis writing.

Prepare for post-thesis success by planning for your defense and leveraging your dissertation to open up future academic and professional opportunities.

Strategies for Accelerated Thesis Completion

Setting realistic goals and deadlines.

Embarking on a thesis writing journey requires a clear roadmap. Setting realistic goals and deadlines is crucial for maintaining momentum and ensuring timely completion. Start by breaking down your thesis into manageable sections and assign a deadline to each. This approach not only structures your workload but also provides a sense of accomplishment as you tick off completed tasks.

Identify the main chapters and sections of your thesis.

Estimate the time required for each part, considering research, writing, and revision.

Set deadlines that are challenging yet achievable, allowing for unforeseen delays.

Remember, the key to success is consistency. Regular progress, even if small, keeps the thesis moving forward.

Regularly review and adjust your goals as needed. Life's unpredictability may require you to be flexible with your plan. However, avoid extending deadlines too frequently, as this can lead to a cycle of procrastination and stress.

Adopting a Structured Daily Writing Routine

A structured daily writing routine is pivotal for managing time effectively during the thesis writing process. By establishing a consistent schedule, you can ensure that each aspect of your work receives the attention it requires.

Create a Realistic Schedule: Develop a detailed schedule that outlines specific blocks of time for research, writing, and other aspects of the thesis process.

Consider the following steps to build your routine:

Identify your most productive hours and dedicate them to writing.

Allocate time for reading and synthesizing literature.

Schedule regular breaks to maintain mental clarity.

Set aside time for chapter outlines and feedback sessions.

Remember, flexibility is key. Life's unpredictability means your routine should accommodate occasional adjustments. However, maintaining the core structure will provide a sense of stability and progress.

Utilizing One-on-One Coaching for Personalized Guidance

Embarking on the journey of thesis writing can often feel like a solitary endeavor, but it doesn't have to be. Personalized coaching sessions tailored to your unique needs can provide the focused guidance and support that is often missing in traditional academic settings. A dissertation coach acts as a personal trainer for your academic pursuits, offering not just critical feedback but also strategies for building confidence and resilience.

Accountability : Regular check-ins keep you on track.

Customized Support : Tailored advice for your specific challenges.

Progress Boost : Structured discussions to enhance your writing.

With a dedicated coach, you can transform the thesis writing process from a daunting task into a structured and manageable project. You'll write more, worry less, and be on a clear path to graduation.

Whether you require assistance with chapter outlines, intense supervision, or simply an accountability partner, a one-on-one coaching program is designed to maximize your results. Each student's journey is unique, and so should be the support they receive. By addressing your specific pain points and struggles, a dissertation coach ensures that your academic potential is fully realized.

Mastering Productivity and Time Management

Prioritizing tasks with the pomodoro technique.

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management tool that can be particularly effective for thesis writing. It involves breaking down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, followed by a short break. This method helps to maintain a high level of concentration by providing regular, scheduled breaks to refresh the mind.

Work Session (25 mins): Focus on a single task or aspect of your thesis.

Short Break (5 mins): Step away from your work to relax.

Repeat: Continue with subsequent Pomodoro sessions.

Long Break (15-30 mins): After four Pomodoro sessions, take a longer break to recharge.

By alternating sessions of focused work with short breaks, the Pomodoro Technique sustains concentration and prevents burnout, making it an ideal approach for the intense period of thesis writing.

Remember to adjust the lengths of the work and break periods to suit your personal rhythm and the nature of the task at hand. Some may find longer work sessions or shorter breaks more productive. The key is to find a balance that keeps you engaged and prevents fatigue.

Minimizing Distractions and Maximizing Focus

In the quest to complete a thesis in 30 days, minimizing distractions is as crucial as the writing itself . Distractions come in various forms, from digital notifications to personal commitments, and tackling them requires a strategic approach.

Identify Distractions : Start by listing all potential sources of interruption. This could include social media, emails, or household chores.

Create a Distraction-Free Zone : Designate a specific area for writing where interruptions are kept to a minimum. This might mean a quiet room or a library.

Set Boundaries : Inform friends and family of your writing schedule so they can support you by respecting your focused time.

Use Technology Wisely : Employ apps that block distracting websites during your writing periods.

By creating a structured environment and setting clear boundaries, you can cultivate a space that supports deep focus and productivity.

Remember, the goal is to create a sustainable writing practice that allows for intense concentration. Regular breaks are also important to maintain mental clarity and avoid burnout. Use techniques like the Pomodoro Technique to intersperse writing with short, restorative breaks.

Implementing Time-Saving Templates and Tools

In the race against the clock, utilizing templates and tools can significantly expedite the thesis writing process. Templates serve as a structured starting point, eliminating the need to create documents from scratch. For instance, a 'One Page Writing Template' can streamline the drafting phase, while a 'Literature Review & Theory Cheat Sheet' provides quick references to support your arguments.

The use of tools like 'Viva Questions Template' and 'Introduction Chapter Cheat Sheet' not only saves time but also ensures consistency across different sections of your thesis. Here's a list of some valuable templates that can be integrated into your workflow:

Research Paper 1.0

Literature review template

Thesis Work Template

AI-powered Reading List

Research Paper Tracker

By adopting these resources, you can focus more on the content of your work and less on the formatting and organizational aspects, which are often time-consuming.

Remember, the goal is to work smarter, not harder. Templates and tools are there to assist you in maintaining a steady pace throughout the thesis journey, allowing you to meet your deadlines with confidence.

Enhancing Writing Skills and Effectiveness

Overcoming common writing challenges.

Thesis writing is a complex task that often involves navigating through a maze of intellectual challenges and writer's block. Don't overwhelm yourself ; it's normal to get stuck during the process. Instead of viewing these challenges as insurmountable, approach them with a problem-solving mindset. Here are some strategies to help you overcome common writing hurdles:

Identify the specific issues that are hindering your progress. Is it the structure of your thesis, or perhaps stress and anxiety?

Break down large tasks into manageable pieces. Tackling a chapter outline or a single section at a time can make the task less daunting.

Seek feedback on draft chapters from peers or a reading group. Collaborative input can provide fresh perspectives and valuable insights.

Utilize templates and cheat sheets to streamline your writing process. These tools can save time and help maintain consistency across your document.

Remember, every thesis writer faces challenges. The key is to find strategies that work for you and to keep moving forward, one step at a time.

If you're an ESL student or struggling with the nuances of academic writing, consider seeking one-on-one coaching. Personalized guidance can address your unique needs and help you improve your writing skills more effectively.

Leveraging Literature Review and Theory Cheat Sheets

Efficiently navigating through the vast sea of literature is a cornerstone of thesis writing. Utilizing literature review and theory cheat sheets can streamline this process, saving you invaluable time. These cheat sheets serve as quick reference guides, summarizing key theories and findings relevant to your research.

For instance, a well-organized Literature Review Catalog can help you keep track of various studies, their methodologies, and outcomes. Consider using a template like the Grad Coach's free literature review catalog template , which allows you to manage your literature review in an intuitive spreadsheet.

By systematically categorizing literature, you can easily identify gaps in research and align your thesis to address these areas effectively.

Here's a simple list of cheat sheet types that could be beneficial:

One Page Writing Template

Literature Review & Theory Cheat Sheet

Viva Questions Template

Introduction Chapter Cheat Sheet

Remember, the goal is not to cut corners, but to work smarter by having essential information at your fingertips.

Improving Clarity and Cohesion in Academic Writing

Achieving clarity and cohesion in academic writing is essential for conveying complex ideas effectively. Signposting language is a powerful tool that guides the reader through your argument, making the structure of your thesis apparent. It includes phrases like 'On the one hand,' 'In contrast,' and 'As a result,' which clarify the relationship between ideas.

Parallel structure is another key element that enhances readability. By maintaining a consistent pattern in lists, comparisons, and series of ideas, your writing becomes more fluid and easier to follow. For example:

Use similar grammatical structures for items in a list

Keep verb tenses consistent when discussing related concepts

Match the tone and style across different sections of your thesis

Lastly, maintaining consistent verb tenses throughout your thesis is crucial. It ensures that your reader clearly understands the timeline of research events and arguments. A common mistake is to fluctuate between past and present tenses, which can confuse the reader and disrupt the narrative flow.

By focusing on these strategies, you can significantly improve the quality of your academic writing, making your thesis more persuasive and comprehensible.

Navigating the Emotional Landscape of Thesis Writing

Finding mental balance and reducing stress.

Achieving mental balance during the thesis writing process is crucial for maintaining productivity and well-being. Incorporate relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, or yoga into your daily routine to help manage stress levels. These practices can ground you and provide a much-needed break from intense cognitive work.

Establishing a consistent self-care routine is not just beneficial; it's essential for sustaining the long-term effort required in thesis writing.

To effectively reduce stress, consider the following points:

Identify your stress triggers and develop strategies to mitigate them.

Set aside time for hobbies and activities that bring you joy and relaxation.

Ensure you get adequate sleep, as it is vital for cognitive function and stress management.

Regular physical activity can help to release tension and improve mood.

Remember, taking care of your mental health is as important as advancing your academic work. By finding your balance, you can enhance your focus and productivity, leading to a more successful thesis completion.

Coping with Isolation and Building a Support Network

Thesis writing can often feel like a solitary journey, but building a robust support network is crucial for maintaining momentum and well-being. Engaging with peers, mentors, and professional coaches can provide the camaraderie and guidance needed to navigate this challenging process.

Peer Support : Regularly connect with fellow students to share experiences and advice.

Mentorship : Seek out faculty or professionals who can offer insight and feedback on your work.

Professional Coaching : Consider personalized coaching for targeted support in areas like stress management and writing skills.

Remember, the support you choose should be tailored to your specific needs and challenges, ensuring a program that maximizes your results.

Structured discussions, whether through video or phone-based coaching, can significantly boost your progress. These sessions should challenge you, make you think, and provide the resources to overcome PhD hurdles. A flexible program, geared towards success, can include help with chapter outlines, feedback on draft chapters, and advice on structuring your work. It's essential to have an accountability partner to maintain focus and direction.

Celebrating Milestones to Maintain Motivation

Recognizing and celebrating each milestone in your thesis journey is crucial for maintaining motivation. Break down your thesis into smaller, manageable sections and set milestones for each. When you reach a milestone, take the time to celebrate your progress. This could be as simple as taking a day off, enjoying a favorite activity, or treating yourself to something special.

Outline chapter completion

Data collection finish line

Draft revision success

Celebrating these achievements helps to create a positive feedback loop that reinforces your hard work and dedication. It's not just about the end goal; it's about acknowledging the effort and progress along the way.

Remember, each milestone is a step closer to your ultimate goal. Celebrate your achievements to keep the momentum going and to remind yourself that every step forward is a victory in its own right.

Preparing for Post-Thesis Success

Planning for the mock-viva exam.

The mock-viva exam is a crucial rehearsal for the actual viva voce, where you defend your thesis before an examination panel. Prepare a clear and concise presentation that encapsulates the essence of your research, anticipating potential questions and criticisms. Practice is key to boosting your confidence and refining your defense strategy.

Understand the structure of the viva exam and the types of questions you may face.

Arrange mock sessions with peers or mentors to simulate the actual experience.

Review feedback from these sessions to identify areas for improvement.

Remember, the goal of the mock-viva is not just to survive the ordeal but to emerge with a deeper understanding of your work and how to present it effectively.

In addition to practice, consider the following resources to aid your preparation:

One-on-One Coaching

Workshops and Writing Retreats

By taking these steps, you'll be well-equipped to handle the pressures of the viva and demonstrate the value of your research.

Transitioning from Student to Scholar

The journey from being a graduate student to becoming a scholar is a pivotal phase in any academic career. It marks the transition from student to scholar , from following to leading in your field. This transformation involves not just the completion of your assignment, dissertation, or postgraduate thesis, but also a shift in mindset and responsibilities.

Recognize the difference in roles and expectations.

Develop a professional identity within your discipline.

Engage actively with scholarly communities.

The transition is an opportunity to reassess your path toward academic employment and to redefine your professional identity.

For many, this period is about learning to navigate the new terrain of academia without the safety net of student status. Those who do not continue in academia face the challenge of recalibrating their professional identity, a process that can be both daunting and liberating. The skills and expertise developed during this time are invaluable, whether they lead to a career within academia or beyond its borders.

Leveraging Your Dissertation for Future Opportunities

Your dissertation is more than just a requirement for graduation; it's a platform that can launch your career to new heights. The importance of the relevance of your dissertation topic cannot be overstated ; it is the cornerstone for future academic and professional pursuits. The first step in the process is to consider one's area of study and professional interests. From there, it is recommended to come up with preliminary ideas that align with both current academic discourse and industry needs.

By strategically selecting a dissertation topic, you create a bridge between your academic achievements and potential career paths. This foresight can significantly influence your employability and opportunities for post-thesis success.

Here are some ways to leverage your dissertation for future opportunities:

Identify potential career paths that align with your research.

Network with industry professionals during conferences and seminars.

Publish your findings in reputable journals to establish credibility.

Use your dissertation as a portfolio piece when applying for jobs or grants.

Consider further education or certifications that complement your research.

Remember, your dissertation can serve as a testament to your expertise and dedication. It's a unique opportunity to showcase your skills and knowledge to future employers or academic peers.

Embarking on the 30-Day Thesis Writing Challenge is a bold step towards conquering the monumental task of completing your dissertation. By identifying your pain points, setting clear goals, and adhering to a structured plan, you can significantly increase your productivity and write more effectively. Remember, the journey to obtaining your PhD doesn't have to be prolonged by unnecessary burdens. With the right techniques, support systems like coaching, and a focus on mental balance, you can navigate the doctoral journey with confidence. Whether you're utilizing templates, seeking one-on-one coaching, or attending workshops, the key is to maintain momentum and stay committed to your end goal. As you implement the proven strategies discussed, keep in mind that early completion not only aligns with academic incentives but also positions you for success in the job market. Write more, worry less, and graduate sooner—your thesis is within reach, and the finish line is closer than you think.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are common challenges faced during thesis writing, and how can i overcome them.

Common challenges include time management, writer's block, and maintaining motivation. Overcoming these can be achieved by setting realistic goals, adopting a structured writing routine, and seeking personalized guidance through coaching.

How can the Pomodoro Technique help me with my thesis writing?

The Pomodoro Technique can enhance productivity by breaking work into focused intervals, typically 25 minutes, followed by short breaks. This can help you maintain concentration and prevent burnout during prolonged writing sessions.

What types of templates and tools can save time during the writing process?

Time-saving templates include one-page writing templates, literature review and theory cheat sheets, introduction chapter cheat sheets, and viva questions templates. Tools like reference management software can also streamline the writing process.

How can I maintain mental balance and reduce stress while writing my thesis?

Maintaining mental balance can be achieved by scheduling regular breaks, practicing mindfulness or relaxation techniques, and building a support network of peers, mentors, and professionals to share your experiences and challenges.

What is a mock-viva exam, and how should I prepare for it?

A mock-viva exam is a practice defense of your thesis, simulating the questioning you'll face in the actual viva voce. Preparation involves reviewing your work thoroughly, practicing potential questions, and receiving feedback from advisors or coaches.

How can I leverage my dissertation for future opportunities after graduation?

You can leverage your dissertation by publishing your research in academic journals, presenting at conferences, networking within your field, and highlighting your specialized knowledge and skills when applying for postdoctoral or industry positions.

7-Day Bachelor’s Thesis Writing Plan: How to Succeed Under Tight Deadlines

Innovative Research Proposal Ideas to Kickstart Your Next Project

50-Day Plan to Finish Your Bachelor's Thesis: Expert Techniques and Advice

How to Write an Effective Research Proposal: A Guide for Scholars

40 Days to Bachelor Thesis Excellence: A Student’s Blueprint

Conquering Bibliography Fears: Mastering Citations in Thesis Writing

Maintaining a Healthy Diet: 9 Tips for Busy Student Life

Mastering Presentation Skills: Expert Tips for Engaging Talks

How to Start Writing Your Thesis: A Step-by-Step Guide

Healthy Habits: Essential Wellness Tips for Busy Students

Thesis Action Plan

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Money blog: Deliveroo teaming up with B&Q; supermarket cafes and restaurants where kids can eat free this summer

Welcome to the Money blog, your place for personal finance and consumer news and tips. Send us your Money Problem or consumer dispute in the box below - but remember to leave your email or phone number or we won't be able to help.

Friday 2 August 2024 07:31, UK

Top money news

• Morrisons 'sorry' over signs saying bread was 'made from scratch'
• Deliveroo is teaming up with B&Q
• What now for your mortgage - and the wider market - after rate cut?

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• Ed Conway analysis : Critical turning point as rate cut for first time in four years
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• Tax rises Labour could introduce in the autumn budget
• What you can do if landlord won't fix mould - but it's risky
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• Basically... Do you need a mortgage broker?
• Money Problem : Can I put thousands I've saved in my spouse's ISA?
• Best of the Money blog - an archive of features

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Morrisons will remove its in-store bakery signage after admitting its "made from scratch" claim wasn't totally accurate.

The retailer has "advised all stores" to take the signs down after Real Bread Campaign submitted a trading standards complaint about them on 12 June.

Such products are often made by third parties and rebaked in stores and Real Bread Campaign argued that Morrisons was "failing to tell shoppers which bakery products were manufactured elsewhere".

It was also omitting to tell shoppers which products were frozen between manufacture and sale, plus which products were manufactured overseas, it said.

Morrisons told Sky News: "We make the majority of our bread and rolls from scratch in 450 of our in-store bakeries.

"However, for some of our more specialised items, we work with trusted bakeries, who supply quality products which are baked using ovens in store. 

"We apologised for the incorrect signage which was on display and instructed our stores to take it down. We're proud to have 1,300 skilled bakers and provide over 40% of the bakery apprenticeships in the UK."

The summer holidays are in full swing, with children facing an exciting six weeks off school in the sunshine (or the rain, it is the UK after all).

Many supermarkets and restaurants have deals available during the holidays to take some of the pressure off parents needing to feed their hungry youngsters.

Here are some of the supermarket offers out there:

Children can eat for £1 at Asda cafes all day, every day - not just during the summer holidays.

There's no minimum adult spend or purchase required with this one.

Options include penne pasta, fish fingers and chicken nuggets.

Children and adults can grab a free bowl of cereal every day at Morrisons cafes.

No minimum spend is required but the offer is limited to one bowl of cereal per customer, per day. The offer is only on until 4 August, so you'll need to get in there quick!

As well as this, Morrisons is also offering children a free kids meal when they're with an adult spending at least £4.50 on a meal.

Kids can eat for free at a Tesco cafe when an adult makes a purchase and scans their Clubcard.

The offer is available on weekdays until 30 August in England and Wales and until 16 August in Scotland.

There is no fixed minimum spend required.

Sainsbury's 

Children can grab a hot main meal or lunch bag for free when accompanied by an adult buying a hot meal from £5.50 in its cafes during the summer holidays.

The offer is valid until 3 September.

According to the supermarket, its kids meals are suitable for youngsters aged five to 10.

At Ikea, children can get a meal of pasta with tomato sauce, or mac and cheese, with a soft drink for 95p.

Other kids meals are priced at a reasonable £1.50.

This one's available every day from 11am, except for Fridays.

As well as supermarkets and stores, some restaurants are offering cheaper meals for children during the summer break.

Here are a few of the best offers we've found...

Bella Italia

Kids eat for free all day on Thursdays and for £1 between 4pm-6pm Sunday to Wednesday at Bella Italia restaurants.

The offer is available with the purchase of any adult main.

Beefeater and Brewers Fayre

Two children can get a free breakfast every day with one paying adult.

The Real Greek

Children can get a free meal on Sundays with an adult spending more than £10.

The offer is available to all children under 12, and is only valid for dine-in.

Kids can help themselves to a free kids buffet every day until 3pm when quoting the code SUMMERKEF.

They have to be with an adult spending at least £10 on other food to get the unlimited pizza, pasta and salad offer.

The buffet can be upgraded to include a bottomless soft drink and unlimited ice cream for an extra £2.

Children are offered a free kids' bento box all day at Yo! Sushi restaurants when dining with a full-paying adult spending at least £10.

The offer is available until 30 August. A maximum of three children per booking can eat for free.

Las Iguanas

Children can get a free meal from the kids' menu with an adult ordering a main course.

The offer, for children up to 12 years old, excludes the lunch menu and is only available for customers with the My Iguanas app.

TGI Fridays

Children eat free with every adult main meal purchased.

The offer is available all day every day for members of its Stripes Rewards scheme.

Deliveroo has partnered with DIY giant B&Q, giving customers in London access to delivery of more than 600 products.

The partnership is launching in nine B&Q Local stores - in Camden, Harrow, Palmers Green, Streatham, Sutton, Tooting, Wandsworth, Wood Green and Staines-upon-Thames - later this month.

Customers will be able to get indoor and outdoor paint, painting tools, plumbing wares, electricals and bathroom fittings, tools and hardware delivered straight to their door. 

Deliveroo said the service could help, for example, anyone "tackling an emergency job that needs a quick fix".

"There is a huge home improvement market in the UK and our data shows that customers want the convenience of being able to order everything from paint brushes and paint to tools for delivery in as little as 25 minutes," said Eric French, chief operating officer at Deliveroo. 

Amélie Gallichan-Todd, supply and logistics director at B&Q, said the service was aimed at "helping customers to get their home improvement products in the most efficient, and convenient way possible, by meeting increasing consumer demand for speed, convenience, and mobile access". 

Every Friday we take an overview of the mortgage market, speaking to those in the industry before getting a round-up of the best rates courtesy of the independent experts at  Moneyfactscompare.co.uk . 

The only place to start this week is the Bank of England's decision - finally - to cut the base rate from 5% to 5.25%, where it had been since last August.

It's the news people due to remortgage had been waiting for - although the Bank cautioned rates wouldn't fall as quickly as they rose.

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said that in practical terms, those due to remortgage will be looking at a deal around the 4% mark.

This is a leap for many from the 2-2.5% mark - but significantly lower than the peak of upwards of 6% in 2022.

"It means the jump in rates is going to be painful, but they don’t have quite the same gap to clear as those who remortgaged before them – who faced a rise from less than 2% to more than 6.5% in some instances," she said.

It's worth noting here that no one expects rates to return to the ultra-low levels of 2009 to 2021 - instead, markets think they'll eventually settle at between 3-4%.

David Hollingworth, from L&C Mortgages, told the Money blog that many lenders had already priced in a cut, but...

"Yesterday's decision to cut a little sooner than many had previously anticipated should only help to add further weight to those reductions. We can therefore expect to see further pricing improvements in fixed rates, as lenders continue to fight hard to gain a share in a very competitive market."

He went on: "Perhaps one of the biggest boosts will be to consumer confidence, underlining that they can finally look ahead to an easing in rates, albeit potentially gradual. 

"That will be important reassurance to many that have been scarred by the turbulent and volatile periods in the mortgage market over the last couple of years."

An immediate impact of a base rate cut - and we saw Santander reflect this - is likely to be on variable rates that people fall onto if they don't have a deal at the end of their current fix.

Moneyfacts finance expert Rachel Springall said: "According to UK Finance around 700,000 fixed-rate deals due to end in the second half of this year. Those that fall onto a Standard Variable Rate (SVR) will need to find surplus cash to cover higher repayments, and recent research suggests some consumers are not sure what a revert rate entails. 

"Research from Mortgage Advice Bureau found that one in four (27%) prospective buyers have heard of SVRs but don’t fully understand them."

This week, we asked Moneyfacts to hone in on the remortgage market - these are the best rates available...

Moneyfacts also looks at what it calls "best buys" - which considers not just the rate, but other costs and incentives. These are their top picks this week...

Here's a round up of some other consumer news that's been happening while our focus has been on interest rates...

US fast food giant Taco Bell is expanding the use of artificial intelligence to take orders at hundreds of its drive-thrus.

The voice AI system - which interprets customers' orders based on voice recognition - has been in development for more than two years.

The Mexican-themed chain is already operating the system at more than 100 sites across 13 US states.

TalkTalk is likely to default on its debts, a ratings agency has warned.

The broadband provider has been moved from a "substantial" credit risk to a "very high level" risk after the ratings agency Fitch cut the company's credit rating.

The company has two repayment deadlines in November and February last year and owes £1bn to lenders.

Earlier, reports emerged that TalkTalk founder Sir Charles Dunstone was trying to finalise a £200m lifeline as the company tries to avoid a collapse.

A mattress company has agreed to change its sales practices after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it misled customers about price reductions and put unfair pressure on them to make quick purchases.

The company has now signed formal commitments known as undertakings. It has committed to action, including:

• Genuine discount claims : Simba Sleep will ensure any "was" price is genuine - in other words, that they actually sell a sufficient volume of the product at that price before using it as a "was" price;
• Countdown clocks:  Simba Sleep will ensure that any countdown clocks used on its websites are clear, specify prominently which products they apply to, and do not give consumers a false impression that they must act quickly (or that when the clock ends the product will revert to the "was" price) if this is not the case.

There's good and bad news for the chancellor in today's interest rate cut, analysts have suggested.

The cut has been possible because inflation has fallen to target 2%. Rates are elevated to discourage spending and encourage saving - when this happens, price rises tend to slow.

Laith Khalaf, head of investment analysis at AJ Bell , says the cut to 5% "marks a significant victory in the fight against inflation", but there's still some way to go.

Most importantly, "we haven't spun off into an inflationary cycle like in the 1970s", he says, meaning Rachel Reeves can breathe somewhat easy on that front. 

"But inflationary pressures are still lurking. The energy price cap is expected to rise this winter, public sector pay agreements might push up prices, and a second Trump presidency in the US could stoke further global inflation through tax cuts, tariffs, and tough immigration controls," he says. 

"The bad news for Rachel Reeves is the Bank of England reckons economic growth will remain limp, with GDP growing by just 0.8% over the next year," Mr Khalaf says. 

He caveats that by noting that the Bank is not well known for optimism in projections. 

"This is evidenced by the fact the Bank has just upgraded its forecast for economic growth over the last 12 months to 1.5%, from 0.5% only three months ago."

Many of you will know that while today's decision is great news for those with a mortgage, it's not so good for savers.

That being said, the cut today may not do as much damage as some may fear. 

We spoke to Mark Hicks, head of active savings at financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown, to explain why...

"A rate cut is never going to be music to the ears of savers, but this shouldn't do too much damage - the market was split on whether we were going to get a cut, so decisive action from the Bank of England is going to mean some banks bring rates down slightly, especially among easy access accounts, but we're not expecting massive movements," he says. 

He says what really matters is what happens around expectations of rate cuts in the future. 

"If the Bank of England decides to cut rates twice and then pause, we should see minimal disruption to the savings market," he says, but "more consistent rate cutting of four or more would drive greater savings rate change".

What savers should be looking at

As it stands, the market is currently not predicting any significant falls for savers. 

"At the moment, the highest easy access rate and one-year fixed rate accounts still pay over 5%, so savers can still beat inflation by an impressive margin," Mark says.

The highest easy access rate on HL Active Savings is 4.67% and the highest fixed rate is 5.06%, he adds. 

"When you add in the effect of the current cashback deal, this takes it to 5.26%."

Mark says if you don't need the cash for a while, fixed term rates offer the best returns from a risk reward perspective, "so it's worth securing a rate by considering a fixed rate deal while these rates last". 

Money blog regular David Hollingworth, associate director at L&C Mortgages, has taken a look...

Tracker rates

Those on tracker rates will feel the most direct and immediate benefit. The mortgage rate is directly pegged to base rate so will naturally reflect the cut in base rate. You should receive confirmation of when that will come into effect and the new payment in due course. 

Trackers have remained a relatively niche part of the market as base rate has held firm until today. I don't expect to see a sudden shift toward trackers but if the door opens to further cuts we may start to see more interest in base rate trackers as we head into next year.

[Editor's note: Hargreaves Lansdown forecast a saving for those on trackers of £28 per month. There are around half a million such households.]

Variable rates

There's also some potential relief for those on standard variable rate. These are not directly linked to base rate but the hope will be that lenders will pass through the full cut to SVR, even though they are not obliged to do so. We've already seen Santander announce that it will be cutting the SVR.

This has potential benefits for all borrowers as lenders will often stress their affordability based on a rate above their SVR. If SVR eases it should help to temper the stress rates as well, which could give a little more leeway on the amount lenders can offer.

Fixed rates

Fixed rates are where the majority of borrowers have been heading. Rates have already been edging down with small but frequent cuts helping to nudge five-year deals close to and even under 4%. 

Today's decision to cut a little sooner than many had previously anticipated should only help to add further weight to those reductions. We can therefore expect to see further pricing improvements in fixed rates, as lenders continue to fight hard to gain a share in a very competitive market.

Borrowers should secure a rate and can then keep a close eye on rate movements to capitalise on any further movement, while avoiding any risk of drifting onto an expensive variable rate.

The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee is now asked how low we could go in terms of interest rates, and whether the public can expect a drop, eventually, to near 0% - like before COVID.

"I think it's reasonable to say that it's unlikely we're going back to the world we were in in 2009 and the point at which we started raising rates," Andrew Bailey says. 

He says that's because the economic outlook of that time was driven by massive shocks - like the financial crash.

"We will be somewhere around where the neutral rate will be - which will be lower than we are at now," he says, not going into any further specifics. 

Markets expect that neutral rate to be between 3-4%.

Sky's data and economics editor Ed Conway  asks the Bank chief what he means when he says the base rate is still in "restrictive territory" and when we can expect this to change.

"We look at restrictiveness in terms of where we think growth is," Andrew Bailey explains.

He says if you look at the Bank's forecast for GDP, growth is "picking up".

"We're still below potential and we do have a small output gap opening up in the forecast," he says.

"I think that's one way of capturing the fact that there is still a restrictive setting in that sense and we think that is appropriate given we have to ensure the persistence of inflation is taken out of the system," he says.

He says "there is a way to go".

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