How long does it take to create a PhD Dissertation

The number of pages in a PhD dissertation varies, it’s more of a quality over quantity issue. There are not set page requirements, but it varies very widely amongst the different subjects that they focus on.

The general consensus the the length of the average PhD dissertation varies between 100 pages and 400 pages. The longer dissertations generally are on history or political science, while shorter ones are on mathematics and sciences. There are several tricks and quick things you can do that lengthen the paper to make it seem more fattened up, or in depth. This includes adding an appendix to the paper, as well as providing a lot of cited sources that are long passages.

Your research for a dissertation should be very extensive. You should be an expert on the topic or very lose to it before even writing it. The research not only supports your claims, but gives arguments against opposition. An in depth citation of various sources and quickly bloat a lacking body to the paper. Aside from the sheer size of the paper, your sources don’t have to be extensive, and can make your work easier if used sparingly, and will make your dissertation shorter. Certain cases require shorter papers, as it’s easier to defend with more concise points. The same can be said for the inverse if all of the information in the body is relevant and correctly placed.

Because the PhD dissertations are of a very narrow topic, the more specific you are of the points you make, the easier it will be to defend when it’s being reviewed. The reason history and Political science dissertations are so bloated with information and are generally longer than most other topics is because of the sheer information gathered to write such topics.

A lot of different students and professors alike tend to use an analogy of a skyscraper. You can make a skyscraper taller by adding an antenna array on top. This is much like adding an appendix to the end, giving more definitions and citing more sources in the end. It’s clever and it adds content to the end of the dissertation, but is not always necessary.

It depends on the subject of the dissertation, the usual length varies from every subject, but the length of time it takes for one to be finished varies on research speed, writing length and subject that it is on.