Thesis timeline

A thesis is usually late because the plan was built forwards while deadlines work backwards. Enter the date of your defence or submission and you get a plan calculated backwards — the date by which the literature has to be in place, the date your supervisor needs the first full draft, and the date the paper has to be proofread.

You can add the plan to your calendar, copy it or print it. The tool runs in your browser and sends nothing to a server.

If you enter the date of the defence, the plan puts submission three weeks earlier, which is how long committees usually need to read the paper. If your faculty prescribes a different period, enter the submission date instead.

Why plans break

In practice a schedule collapses in three places, and none of them is the writing itself:

• Your supervisor’s time. Reading a full draft takes two to four weeks, and longer in the summer. That time is not yours and cannot be compressed.
• Collecting data. A survey that needs a hundred responses rarely closes in a week. If you need institutional approval, count on extra weeks.
• The second round of revisions. Almost every paper goes through two rounds of comments, while most plans allow for one.

How to read the plan

Phases marked with a diamond are points, not periods: the first draft to your supervisor, submission and the defence. The other phases get a duration calculated from the total time available, so a short deadline compresses everything proportionally. If less than six weeks remain, the tool warns you.

If your paper has no research of its own, clear that checkbox — the time set aside for methodology and data analysis is redistributed to the literature review and the writing.