Dissertation is complete!

Hi everyone! Well, as you all know, over the past 9 months of moaning about my dissertation; how many words I have to write, how long it’s going to take and how much research is involved… I have finally finished it! It’s a good feeling knowing that there’s no more research to do, theorists to find or more editing to be done! If your reading this knowing that your dissertation is also complete then you will know what I’m talking about, however if you have all of this to come, it’s so worth going through it, as you feel more independent and confident about your writing.

I think the best thing to remember when you’re writing a dissertation, is that you should make it sound like a story, a really gripping one which makes the reader to want to read on and to find out what happens at the end. Make sure there’s loads of theorists within your literature review, this is crucial as when your analysis comes around you will need to refer back to the theorists mentioned suggesting how they compare to your own findings. The literature review is one of the most important parts to the dissertation; it needs to be like an essay in a way, with an introduction, middle and conclusion. I put my theorists into themes so that it’s easier for the reader to understand what these theorists are going on about, as well as being easier for me to remember where I put them all! In total I had about 3000 words for this section which is about right if you’re word count is supposed to be 10,000 words +/- 10%. I have around 30 references in total, which might sound a bit :O if you’re used to writing essays which consist of about 8-10 references, but you will need this much by the end because of the theorists mentioned in the literature review, the books/ journals for the methodology, as well as any other theorists mentioned within the analysis chapter! I was worrying this week as I had gone up to 11,400 words but the references don’t count and that consisted of 600 words alone, so I’m in the +10%.

Other than rambling on about dissertations, I have actually had a social life! The Easter holidays ended a week ago, but I did a lot throughout them 3 weeks! In my last blog I mentioned about my birthday surprise from my parents and boyfriend and guess what it was… ALTON TOWERS! It was amazing!! The weather was sunny and there were hardly any queues, we walked onto most of the rides! Felt like we had the whole park to ourselves most of the time! It was such a lovely weekend; it was so nice to get away from everything. We stayed in the Alton Towers hotel, the rooms were huge and it was so peaceful there, the other hotel ‘Splash Landings’ was nice but the Alton Towers hotel was more for adults, it was peaceful which is just what you needed after a day of going through loops and corkscrews on the rides! I didn't really want to come home as it was so nice there, but it was my 21^st birthday the Tuesday after so there was that to look forward to! I went out for a really nice lunch with my family on my birthday, and then went to the pub that evening with some good friends :)

However ;) you are probably sitting there thinking ‘is that all she did on her actual 21st birthday?’ well, not exactly. Me and about 15 of my really good friends decided it’d be a good idea to go to a club we’d never been to before down Southend (I live in Essex during the holidays, but I have a place up here for term time). It’s called Chameleon; it’s small so you can easily find your friends throughout the night when you all go off in groups! It was such a good night out, if you ever go to Southend with some friends then I’d recommend there. We initially went to the Last Post (a very popular pub in Southend), us girls were so far gone at this point drinking our pitchers and what have you, so by the time we got into the club we were rather drunk! :P the boys were pretty drunk too actually, and I can’t quite remember the music but of what I can it was good haha!

The Easter holidays overall was a rather chilled out one, didn’t do loads of work but I made up for it this week! Now it’s on with the revision I guess *yawn*. Oh but I do have a 22^nd birthday house party to go to tomorrow! It’s retro style so that’ll be fun, it’s for my friend Jasmin’s and I’m going with some of the uni girls so I’m sure it’ll be fun. I have vowed to myself however that I’m not going to get munted as recently I’ve become the local chunderer; always throwing up the day after from all of the alcohol I had the night before. I was never like that in first year, maybe it’s because it’s a sign that I’m getting old? Who knows haha.

Anyway, I will speak to you soon about my last term at university *cry*, and my revision for 3 exams! Hope you all have a good term :)

Hayley

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