Steve Tippins explains that dissertation length varies by discipline: history dissertations run longer than math ones. A one-page math dissertation once solved a problem no one else could. Your committee sets the actual length, not some average you find online.
A question I get frequently is, "How long should my dissertation be? How many pages does it have to be?" Really, there isn't a simple answer to that. Let's talk about the length of a dissertation. There is no perfect number for your dissertation length. First of all, it's going to depend on your discipline. History might be a lot longer than mathematics. I've actually heard— I've not seen this— I've heard of a mathematics dissertation that was 1 page. How does that possible? Well, what I was told is that this person solved an intractable math problem that had never been solved before and was able to do it in one page. And if that's the criteria, great, they finish, they're done, they've completed a dissertation. However, for most of us, our dissertation is going to be more than a page. You can go online and go into Google or ChatGPT or anyone else and say, hey, what's the average length of a dissertation? And they'll give you a number, but it's kind of meaningless because ultimately your committee is going to be the answer.
