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(Writen by Paul Maddox, Copyright 2001.)

Lady's and gentlemen of the class of 2001, write your dissertation.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, writing your dissertation would be it. The long-term benefits of writing your dissertation has been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of Word 2000. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of Word 2000 until hell freezes over. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of Word 2000 and recall in a way you can't grasp now how shit Word really is, period. Edit for DOS is not as bad as you imagine.

Don't worry about the hand in. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to write an equation using superscripts and underlining. The real troubles in your dissertation are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you before
you print out the final-final-final copy ready to hand in.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Do some work.

Don't be reckless with your backups. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Spellcheck.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you've written more words, sometimes you've written less. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with Word 2000's word counter.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the moaning from your supervisor. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old drafts. Throw away your new drafts.

Waffle.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your dissertation. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 21 what they wanted to do with their dissertations. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds failed their dissertations miserably, and lied that they got a 1st with honours.

Get plenty of service packs. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when you're praying to Mr Hewlett and Mr Packard that the Deskjet 700 can spell check whilst printing.

Maybe you'll get a 1st, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have a bastard inspector, maybe you won't. Maybe the system will die at 11:40, maybe you'll realise at 11:42 you brought your Quake CD instead of your project. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your dissertation is half bollocks. So is everyone else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Who needs a degree anyway? Dustbin men make a good wage these days.

Dance, even if you have nowhere else to do it than the labs.

Read the project guide, even if you don't follow it.

Do not read PhD theses. They will only make you feel stupid.

Get to know your bugs. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your colleagues. They're your best link to good websites offering random papers to rip off.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few will print out your dissertation when your printer is buggered at 4am on the morning of the hand-in. Work hard to bridge the gaps between your dissertation and one that will get a good mark, because the older you get, the more you need to prove something to the smart-arse wiz-kids of tomorrow.

Live in the labs once, but leave before it makes you smell. Live in the library once, but leave before it makes you do work. Sleep.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Your dissertation will be crap. Inspectors don't care. You, too, will get an ok-ish degree. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were an under-grad, dissertations were good, inspectors gave a damn and companies respected 2:2's.

Respect your 2:2.

Don't expect anyone else to write your dissertation, unless you pay them. Maybe you have a similar dissertation from last year. Maybe you'll have a thesis. But you never know when it may be spotted as plagiarism.

Don't mess too much with your Word styles, let's face it, they never work anyway.

Be careful whose advice you buy, and get your money's worth from online paper mills. Dissertations are a form of nostalgia. Writing them is a way of trying to show you know something, recycling the few fragments of knowledge you DO have, and writing them in a semi-sophisticated way.

But trust me on writing your dissertation.