A supervisor who gives a $#!t will intervene quite heavily, for one simple reason.

PhD failures do not look good on their record and it is their interests as well as yours that you pass. If that means a heavy dose of rewriting of students theses, as many of us have found out so be it!!!

Mackem_Beefy, I get what you're saying but ideally supervisors should be guiding rather than doing.

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Hi All

Am really glad I sparked a debate!

While I don't feel that I am in a sausage factory I do feel that a supervisor should guide not force things. It's probably me who is pushing for submission. I think my supervisor would be happy for me to take it slower and submit after Christmas. However, I'll have no money then, hence why I want it earlier. I also agree that a fail doesn't look good. Although a lot of what my supervisor changes is academically tighter than my efforts, some of the changes are just downright picky. I wish I had thought of password protecting my work before this! To do so now would probably raise both her eyebrows. I told her I was uncomfortable but she seems to think it's common practice and has blightly continued to rephrase things despite my objections. Now as was suggested I am trying to match her style of doing things with limited success :$ Even though I'm uncomfortable I just have to submit sooner rather than later so will probably have to ignore my misgivings. I never thought it would be like this though.

:-( Ross

Ross, please do not be hard on yourself. You've made your feelings clear to your supervisor and if they haven't taken that on board there's little you can do and besides you're not alone. I think you've shown integrity which is great but it's beyond your control and so try not to feel bad about it.

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Agreed, however, a good many of us have seen how far the boundaries of the guidance concept can be stretched. I was basically told I wasn't to submit until my supervisor was happy with it. :-)

My meaning remained in the thesis, except one small area where he said a certain point was not possible. I acquired a paper that supported my argument and I switched back to my original point in a subsequent paper.

I can't wait to get out from under my sup and stretch my writing legs a bit :-) I've been told by other academics that I write really well and clearly. I've submitted a few publications with sup with varying degrees of success. I really want to see how far a publication, without her tinkering, would get!

I think that's important Sneaks. Your supervisor is just one person but if more than person is telling you otherwise then you should take take heed and gain confidence from that.

Mac, you worked really hard on your PhD, seriously put the hours in close to submission, and so it was a PhD very well earned, in my opinion. It's always good to get the input of others who have went through the process and emerged on the other side.