PhD theses may not exceed 100,000 words but you are encouraged to prepare theses of no more than 80,000 words. In some disciplines, PhD theses are shorter than 25,000 words. Master's theses may not exceed 50,000 words. The word limit counts footnotes but excludes words in tables, figures, reference lists, bibliographies, and appendices and other endnotes. If it is normal in your discipline to include references or bibliographic details in footnotes (such as the requirements of the Australian Guide for Legal Citation) then it is not necessary to include the footnote references in the word count. However, any other text in the footnotes will need to be included in the word count.

 

If the word limits are not exceeded, the length of the thesis is at your discretion, taking into account the advice of your supervisor and Head of School. A thesis that exceeds the word limit must be supported with a letter by the Head of School outlining the reasons for length of the thesis.

The Graduate Research School does not set a lower limit because some disciplines are less text-based than others and produce comparatively low word count theses that describe substantive and high-quality research (i.e. some areas in maths and physics).