A PhD dissertation is a very long and stressful project, but it is the final step for any graduate student wanting to further research their topic.

The average length of a dissertation varies from topic to topic. On average history subjects and Political Science subjects are the longest of any and are an average of 500 pages long. This is due to a lot of material that is included to help push and support their thesis. A common analogy compares dissertations to a skyscraper. The Skyscraper can be taller if you add an antenna array on top of it. This is a reference to adding bloat text and a lot of cited source text inside of it.

PhD dissertations don’t exactly have a required length, but have a general consensus to how long they should be. A dissertation can be shorter if your points are well explained. A major part of this is how your research is organized. If you narrow down all of your content to a specific point, then your paper can be more focused and shorter. This in turn takes less time to write, making the whole process shorter in the long run.

A dissertation can be as short as 100 pages if the points are properly backed up and defended. It all depends on the writing style and how in depth the research was. You want to make sure that your thesis is defended correctly, because if it isn’t then your entire dissertation can be rejected by the readers. This is bad, all of your work and research will be lost and you’ll have to start from scratch. Avoid this and properly back up your points in your Thesis.

Revisions will almost certainly take place for your dissertation. The committee reviewing it will find things that don’t quite add up, or the points you made seem to be lacking something. This will add to the time it takes to finish writing it.

The content you write about matters as much as the sources you cite. Both of these add up to the overall time it takes to write your dissertation, and can always be streamlined to make everything easier and shorter. Compression of your information, and shortening your citations both affect your papers length and the writing process’s overall time.

The PhD dissertation is important, and time should be invested into it to make sure you do it right so you avoid having to do it a second time.