Let me add one small point.
It is not reasonable that those who undertake a PhD by/from/through practice, whose research and work is in designing, should then be expected also to write a thesis of the same length as a theorist.
Otherwise, I agree with David.'s general tone,, though not his proposal that 40k words is likely to be a minimum, in practice. A thesis should indeed be as long as it needs to be. Standards of length are essentially irrelevant. I heard of a mathematician who got a PhD for a half page long proof. My own PhD in cybernetics had many secondary elements padding it out, but the substance of the PhD was 54 pages long, with lots of space and I've no idea how few words.
Ranulph
On 5 Dec 2009, at 16:45, David Durling wrote:
> On 5 Dec 2009, at 1:43 pm, regina wrote:
>
>> Please let me correct myself on one thing I pointed out earlier:
>> science/ tech PhDs are of course not in the range of 20k but rather
>> 40k words, thus comparable to practice-oriented design PhDs.
>
> I concluded long ago that discussion about the number of words that might comprise a written thesis is rather pointless. Various universities have quite different regulations: some insist on a minimum number of words, some have a maximum number of words, some are picky about appendices or CD/DVDs as part of the thesis [as book], some have strange rules about reducing the number of words if there is practice (that is designing) as part of the PhD. Some get themselves in a fix over 'theory-based' PhDs as opposed to mixed-mode or project-based study (though I am less sure that anyone really understands what any of these terms might mean).
>
> The written thesis should be as long as it needs to be. The thesis [as argument] has to cover at minimum a certain range of topics such as: context and problems; establishing prior art and what is happening now (literature review); the research design (how I will do it); the research project (survey or whatever); analysis; and coming to some conclusions (including explaining clearly what is the contribution to knowledge and limits to the work).
>
> Whatever the project, I doubt that it can be explained successfully in less than say 40,000 words of thesis [as argument], though there might well be 50-100 per cent more stuff added as appendices, depending on the nature of the investigation. These days, the appendices might be a CD or DVD. Or possibly a web resource? In the more descriptive areas, a thesis might have to be rather longer.
>
> As an examiner I am looking for whether the research has been conducted rigorously, and whether the argument is sound and well supported by evidence, rather than counting the word length. My advice to my students is to focus on getting the flow of argument stated clearly in as few words as possible.
>
> Regards,
> David
> .........................................................................
>
> David Durling FDRS PhD http://durling.tel
> .........................................................................
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