Post Proposal Feedback Updates

Good evening, readers!


My grade for my Dissertation Proposal came in last week, prompting me to make this update informing you of any changes I will be making in light of recent feedback.

So, first of all, as it will be the first thing on most of your minds, my grade: it wasn't very good. A pass, of course, that's why I'm still going ahead with my dissertation, but still a low mark.



If you're not interested in why, then please skip the next few paragraphs.



Personally, I feel that my poor grade was due to a misunderstanding on my part regarding the word count. So, we were given a form with quite large fields for us to fill in and a long list of marking criteria at the bottom for us to refer to, which we then returned in full with all of our information on the dissertation.

We were also told that there was a hard word count limit, and if we went over that then the proposal would be declined.

Like an utter fool, I assumed that the rest of the form, the field headings, the explanations, and the marking criteria all counted toward the word limit. So, of course, I stripped out everything from my proposal that wasn't absolutely necessary, cutting the word count down to exactly the limit, but also removing almost all of the content.

When I handed the proposal in, it was apparently more than five-hundred words beneath the actual limit, was worded strangely in places, and included far less information than the tutors were looking for.

So, that's that. In future, I really need to actually ask about these things. I've asked for a chance to resubmit the proposal, but have been declined.



Alright, done with that. Moving on.



Following the feedback from the proposal, and other, earlier feedback, I have updated the Marking Criteria post to explain more about some of the less clear points, namely the provide more of an explanation about some of the points. Namely, I have expanded the explanation of my interpretation of "good coding practises", and reworded parts of the rest of it to be more specific and objective, rather than leaving it to the reader's interpretation.

Unfortunately, I can't directly tie any of the rest of the feedback given to me to anything other than a lack of content in the proposal itself. It was commented that my Dissertation title ("My Not-So-Brief Introduction to C#: A Series of Mini Projects") implies a lack of clarity and discipline; I intended for this to be informal and seem more friendly to the reader, though I can't really argue with the marker. Informal isn't going to help me in my career later down the line if I ever show this to a potential employer, but I'm not certain if I can change the name at this late stage. Something to ask about, I think.



Well, all things considered, that was a poor start to my dissertation. Other than the changes I've already made and attempting to alter the name to something more professional and descriptive, I can only do my best to work hard at the dissertation itself, and produce enough good quality work to make up for this.

I hope you have a cheerful time until the next post, readers.