/ icon and title message
I am roughly seven weeks away from a submission deadline. I've had minimal contact with my supervisor (two emails with extremely brief, if encouraging comments). I have sent him three chapter drafts so far, the last of which he has not commented upon, even though he received it over three weeks ago.

Contact with him has been discouraged, so I am waiting in anguished silence and trying to maintain a respectful distance.

This is extremely frustrating. In spite of his encouraging words, I have received no advice so far. By the time that he offers it, my deadline will be, I imagine, significantly closer.

Given his vast wealth of supervisory experience, I am wondering if this is standard practice?

I am tempted to be idealistic and imagine that he has much faith in me, but I dread a situation where I receive a grade that falls short of my standards.

Given his eminence both inside and outside my institution, I feel totally powerless.

Sounds difficult, is this a Masters dissertation you're submitting? Is there any specific reason that contact with him has been discouraged (eg personal problems)? Its the summer holidays so could he have gone away for a few weeks? Its annoying, but if you feel you can carry on for the time being I'd leave it another week then maybe send another email? Is there any other tutor you could see? Something similar happened to me shortly before my undergrad dissertation submission and I sent a quick email to my personal tutor and she asked him to contact me...he'd been away and had so many emails to go through when he got back that he hadn't seen mine. He was very apologetic about it and helpful afterwards, I know that approach wouldn't work for every situation but I'm sure your supervisor doesn't mean to have not replied, do you generally get on well with him?

Hi Leopardi

I was in your situation about a week ago - my MA deadline is 1st September, and I'd sent my first chapter to my main supervisor at the start of July, and also to my second supervisor who had agreed to help me with this one chapter before he went on holiday at the end of July. Anyway, my first supervisor initially emailled me to say she was looking forward to reading it - I then had to wait three weeks for another email, which was only to say that we should have a meeting, in *another* two weeks time. I'd also sent her my second chapter draft by now, but the first meeting for feedback wasn't going to be until literally a few weeks before the deadline by this point, which was worrying in case my work needed a major overhaul. As for my second supervisor - he never got back to me at all and is now presumably on holiday.

I sent a concerned email regarding this to my main supervisor but didn't receive a response - I was also still waiting for her to get back to me regarding what time we were supposed to meet, even though she had proposed the meeting two weeks ago. The day before the meeting, I finally got a response to say she'd been on holiday (hadn't told me she was going) and not to worry, we were meeting as planned the next day. However, we never did actually meet, because she rang me a couple of hours before the meeting to say that everything was fine with what I had written, and to just keep going with it and not to worry about coming in to see her.

On the one hand, this is good news. On the other, it makes me think that she hadn't actually read the chapters at all until just before the meeting, otherwise she could have told me this weeks ago - which again makes me think, what if the chapters hadn't been fine and had needed substantial re-writing? There wouldn't have been much time to do it!

Regarding your current situation - I don't know if this is normal for MA supervision, but it does seem like I've had a similar experience (and I am less than impressed with it). If I was in your situation, I would just schedule a meeting to see him asap and explain that you need some feedback - otherwise you might end up in my situation, where he forgets to get back to you at all :-/

Hi Leopardi

Your supervision is, quite frankly, just not good enough. It's great to have a renowned academic, but as you point out, not much use to you if you can never see him. He's agreed to be your supervisor and he should meet his obligations. And personal contact with him has been discouraged? That sounds completely outrageous to me!! What kind of supervisor is that?:-s That's hopeless. Good supervisors don't mind being approached - often! - and give feedback promptly. You obviously don't want to jeopardise your relationship with him, which is completely understandable, but you probably do need to send him another email, requesting an urgent meeting and outlining your concerns.

Easy for me to say don't put up with it - but really, you should be getting better quality supervision. Get some advice from you postgrad association too before you call/email him.

You might be brilliant Leopardi and he might not have any criticisms of your work!...but I find it odd that he hasn't provided any specific feedback. My supervisor drives me mad with all the changes she wants - many of which seem really nit-picky at the time. But inevitably she's right and my work is much better for her comments. I think you need to see him in person to double check that you don't need to make any amendments.

======= Date Modified 18 Aug 2009 17:56:45 =======
Since my original post about this issue I received emails from my supervisor. The first expressed enjoyment. I asked him would it be possible for us to meet. He ignored my request. I sent him more material and he offered vague comments about a slight need to improve my focus in certain paragraphs. He has not specified anything about which paragraphs he was referring to. I repeated my desire for us to meet and asked him if he could offer particular suggestions. He then told me we could meet at some point in the future.







:-(:-s:-(:-s:-(:-s

My supervisor eventually took an active stance on my work. In the meantime I got an academic from another institution to read it. I received very positive feedback from that individual. My supervisor has also told me that it is work of the highest quality, but would not speculate as to my eventual grade - he insists that I should be proud of it regardless.

While I cannot expect him to tell me what grade he has in mind (given the necessity for collaboration with an external examiner), I am worried about the possibility of falling short of my standards (my overall grade at present is a high first), especially given the total inadequacy of supervision I received for roughly 75% of my research time.

Now that I'm on the verge of submission (he told me that no further changes are required) I am likely to fret over the coming weeks.

I would be interested to hear the opinions of other members on this issue.

Hi Leopardi

Glad to hear that your supervisor finally gave you some feedback - I managed to meet with my supervisor eventually too and she told me basically what yours has told you, that my dissertation was good and that I should be proud of it - there were no major changes to make, and like you, I'd completed most of it without much supervision. My supervisor actually told me that she had been unclear as to what my project was actually about until I finally gave her the first draft of it about a month ago! (This is my fault though - I am very poor at articulating my ideas in person as opposed to on paper).

Also like you, I'm on track for a distinction and my supervisor knows what high expectations I have of myself, so I don't think she would have praised my dissertation as much as she did if she didn't think it was also worthy of a distinction - because of this, I'm feeling fairly confident about getting my final grade in October. Does your supervisor also know that you are aiming for an overall distinction? I think it's reasonable to say this to him and ask on this basis if there is anything you can do to improve the dissertation further - this is what I did with my undergraduate supervisor, as I wanted to make sure that we both knew what standard of work I was aiming for so that she could advise me accordingly.

I'm sure you have nothing to worry about - as long as you know that you've done your best, that's the main thing. Good luck - let us know how it goes!

======= Date Modified 27 Sep 2009 00:10:10 =======
Following the submission of this dissertation, I'm left with niggling worries, which have been worsened by a couple of annoying errors. I had some technical problems prior to printing this work and getting it bound. In a state of panic, I hurried to get it completed. I listed the same item twice in my bibliography and I later noticed two paragraphs which were unevenly spaced. Could anyone please tell me if those errors are likely to have much of an impact on my grade?

In a word, no. These are (a) unlikely to be noticed and (b) if they are are unlikely to take up the head space of your marker, so don't let it take up yours.