Krashty - in the last two weeks, i've been reading around the next chapter and structuring it depending on the possible outcomes that i can follow. But without feedback, there is nothing else I can do apart from keep reading. i have considered getting help on my supervisor issues, but i have already changed my sups once. I didn't change my second supervisor and this supervisor remains complacent and has no clue about my research. my first one is really good in my general field, but lacks interest in my work.

I guess, i've just decided to stick with them and try and find different ways to work. the usual, wait for feedback and then develop leads does not seem to work in my situation coz the leads just never come. a lot of people in my department have this problem and some resort to just getting on with the thesis - and usually finish in four years earliest - coz usually it turns out wrong leads were followed therefore a year or more was spent doing the wrong stuff. i just wish things were different. anyhow, i've emailed my supervisor. lets see what happens.

Its difficult waiting for feedback./ My tactic is - as soon as I give something in, I make a date to discuss teh chapter in the meeting. Usually give 3 -4 weeks. The week before usually remind them abotu the meeting, day before say i am lookingfoward to discussing feedback in next meeting. It usually helps if you take teh lead. It depends on your supervisor - do they know how vitla your feedback is? You cant expect them to read your mind. They need to be told....

thanks guys. i think one of my mistakes has been not setting deadlines for my supervisor. i usually assumed two weeks would be enough for them to come up with feedback and so i spent the two weeks working on other stuff. i just didn't make it clear to them that i expected feedback in two weeks so they decided to take their time. now i find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. how do you set deadlines for a supervisor? what do you say? 'i hope to hear from you in two weeks?' erm, 'how about two weeks for feedback?' erm, ' when am i going to get feedback..' how do you do it? i have tried emailing a time plan which i tried to follow and they decided not to follow. it explicitly said i would submit on a particular date and start the next chapter by a particular date.

driven2insanity - thanks for that. i will probably do that at my next meeting. they know how important the feedback is coz they are the ones who require that each chapter depends on the outcome of the previous. my supervisors aren't the structured type where the student has a clear picture of the thesis structure. we did come up with one earlier, but again it was dismissed on the basis that each chapter would depend on the results of the previous. you all know what happened the last time i asked if i could continue with my work before the next meeting - my supervisors said i shouldn't coz my work is irrelevant. that 'irrelevance' turned out to be an unclear result and i had to do it again to try and find another result.

re "how do you set deadlines for a supervisor?" I wouldn't dare - I'd be yelled at.

I usually ask 'when can I expect feedback' when I submit something or 'does x weeks give you long enough if I set up a meeting on a x day'. I then make the meeting plans (time, place and date) straight away and confirm all details by e-mail. Then like driven2insanity said I e-mail about a week before to say looking forward to discussion about my work and feedback. It's a bit irritating but it does put you in control of the process. If your sups aren't going to be helpful, try talking to as many people (other lecturers and students) as possible to get feedback on your work. Even if they aren't in your field they can provide great insights (well I've found that anyway).

If you can get a meeting with your sups I would put as the first item on the agenda to agree a working process - how submission of chapters and feedback will work. Thats what I did with my sups and it seems to have worked ok.

Having said that - my supervisors will have the meeting with me but wont have read my work. SO at the end of the day..... its all relative!!! GOOD LUCK!

that made me laugh driven2insanity. I remember in my first year I had taught courses with 2 essays due and my supervisor (also my boss) was reading my essay on the way out for a meeting with my other supervisor. All good so far - the only problem - the essay had been submitted, marked and we were going to discuss the mark and feedback given by the external! So, you're right - no magic solutions. Good luck Jojo!

My supervisor is terrible. He said it would be more "efficient" if I got other people to read it first so it was more polished before he read it. I'm sure he's wasn't thinking of my interests when he said that. I find he is easier to pin down in person, if I stand in his office and try and make a meeting. I say I want a meeting to discuss X. He ignored a recent email. I ask for a timeframe, but try to do it in a way that I suggest he's busy, won't have time to read it, and asking when he would time to read it. Do you have any good postdocs who could help you? Luckily we now have a good one.
Could you do references, find out about thesis binding/format, do contents, abbreviations, diagrams?
I wrote dates on the chapters I gave him out of interest, one took 1-2 months, the other only about 1-2 more. He said he would read it by Friday 4 days later lol

I'm guessing feedback times are discipline specific. I'm a humanities student: I arrange a date to meet my supervisor, email her my work about two days beforehand, then she'll read it in time for our meeting so we can discuss any problems/issues that arise from it. Does no one else work like this?

my supervisor used to take weeks....

Your comments make me realise I am very lucky. My supervisor will give whole chapters back within a day. Sometimes I get emails with corrected chapters from him at 1.30am. That just makes me feel bad. We joke to his wife that he must have his laptop set up on his bedside table and how does she feel about it.

When he travels overseas for conferences, he takes any writing we want him look at to read and correct on the plane. He sits with a glass of red wine in one hand, and his mouse doing Tracked Changes in the other hand. I guess being 24 hours by plane from the rest of the world has its advantages!

My supervisor usually keeps my stuff for months until someone else in the department show interest in what I am doing and ask to read it. It works magic! The day after chapter/essay or paper is corrected!

My supervisor is also very good and feedback times vary - a month if I'm not in a hurry, two weeks if we're having a meeting to discuss the work (and I submit it in time by email). I'm also social sciences (education and technology). I think two to three weeks seems about reasonable for your situation JoJo, assuming you're full-time. Best thing would be just to chat with your supervisor about reasonable times for feedback, etc. at your next meeting, just indicate you like to know where you're going. What you need to bear in mind, though, in these situations is that supervisors often have more than one PhD student to mentor (mine, for instance, has 8) as well as their own research (deadlines, experiments, papers, RAE pressures, etc.) and, if they teach, courses, exams, etc. to manage as well.