Hi all,

I had a my supervison meeting a few days ago and even though I've worked really hard in submitting a few draft chapters, I've basically been told that I need to completely re write them and start again :(

Desperately trying not to take it all so personally!!

Supervison was a mixed bag- ie that I can't write, problems with setence structure etc etc,

One of my supervisors started laughing at my chapters at one point which was exactly helpful- and just started to make me feel worse!

Despite the criticism, they have given me a clear outline of what needs to be included so I guess thats positive! On the upside, they did say all of the content is there it just needs to be taken out from all of the additional wrong or inadequate stuff.

I think I'm just too close to my work and they think I have a massive wood through the trees problem! :( As anyone else been told this?

They have been so critical I don't think I'll get a good reference from them at all. It doesn't exactly help with my levels of motivation either! I've basically worked really hard for nothing!! (well probably not for nothing, but thats how it feels!).

I'm also losing my desk space to members of staff in a few weeks time and will have to move back home during my write up year.

Has anyone else had such level of criticism? Could anyone offer some advice in getting rid of the 'wood through the trees' problem? I'm really worried that I''ll receive a poor reference from them which will affect my job applications which I'm currrently writing!

Hi Pineapple

Sorry to hear you've received such negative feedback - can be very depressing and demotivating! I think it's terrible that they laughed at your work - that's not at all helpful. But at least you do know what to do to fix it, so that's good!

I also have a 'wood for the trees' problem, and really, it's hard not to, when we spend so much time on this one particular piece of work. I try and overcome this by leaving a decent amount of time between drafts, so that when I come back to the work I'm looking at it anew. I also try and keep the main question in mind, and the elements I'm looking for, and how these all add up to the bigger picture - all fairly obvious tactics. I also think that that's what supervisors are for, to help us when we get too bogged down!

Cheer up, you're making progress. Everything you write gets you a step closer, and we need to write rubbish first for the good words to follow. And don't worry about a reference - you're doing a PhD, not failing, and so are doing some things right! Just keep going. 

Hi Pineapple,

sorry to hear about the way you received your feedback, this must be demotivating, especially taking into account that you have worked so many hours (as per your previous posting).

On the other hand, perhaps, there is a link between the remarks that you have written too much, that the essentials are there, but hidden, and that you had 15 hours working days. The risk is indeed, that if you write so many hours that you get plenty of writing but possibly at the expense of quality and structure.

Maybe you should step out of what you have written and on a blank piece of paper write down that you really want to say: What has my research shown? Why is that important? What are the implications?

Based on that create the structure, using bullet points: What goes in the main text?, what is the conclusion?, what are the recommendations? Then think about the introduction.

This does not have to take long, perhaps a few hours, put it away, think again the next day etc. until you are fully happy with it.

Then, and only then, cut and paste relevant(only those!) areas from you old text into this new structure.



:-)

Usually, the supervisor may be having a bad day or is not attuned to the subject matter and is just doing supervision for the extra pocket money. This results in frustration for the candidate and wonders whether one is a failure or not. However, it is not the supervisee that is at fault as more often it is the case of the non-committed supervisor who is probably thinking of issues like finances and buying the latest luxury mansion.

Gosh, sounds like you've had some bad experiences! Couple of things - academics where I live don't get paid extra for doing supervision - it's part of their job, and they take on as many or as few students as they think they can manage. Secondly, they also do not get paid all that well - certainly not in respect to the hours they put in. Sure, there are some that coast along and do as little as possible, but the ones I know work extremely hard, with lots of unpaid overtime, and certainly do not have mansions. They'd make more in the private sector - people don't go into academia for the money.

This happened to me, with the slight difference that I was told by letter, because my supervisor had moved 500 miles away, so I didn't even a chance to have a proper discussion about things. I found it quite devastating. On the plus side I started writing *really* early, so had plenty of time to start again. But that didn't make it any easier.

In part I think the criticism in my case was fair. There wasn't enough analysis in my writing, it was just like a sequence of interesting things strung together. But I didn't get as much help as I should have done in fixing it, although my supervisor gave (in the letter) quite clear advice about how to fix this, which I tried to follow. But I couldn't discuss things properly with him because he was at such a distance, and my supervision was obviously lacking.

Good luck. You've got a first draft. It's something to work from. The next draft shouldn't be as hard, even if you do a major rewrite.

Hi Pineapple - It sounds to me as if you need a bit of time off! I agree with Rick, working 15 hour days and 6/7 day weeks won't help with the wood for the trees problem, and it'll make you more likely to resent the PhD process. If you have a problem with sentence construction you can deal with that quite easily, just get some books on writing stye such as the Williams - Ten Lessons in Style and Grace and put some time into reading them; I just did, and it really does work miracles, and will save you time in the future.

My supervisor also made a joke about my sentence constructiion once, but he didn't mean it malliciously - what I'd written really was funny! We both do it about my work now - I'm learning, and sometimes my mistakes are funny, seeing the humour is a good way to make progression a positive experience. However, I can see that with frazzled nerves, and if it's a group of them taking the mickey, then you would be hurt. All phD students go through this: we are all learning and wouldn't be students if we didn't need to rmedy our mistakes, so I realaly wouldn't worry about references because of this. It's only a first draft; they're meant to be crap!

It's good that they're giving you thorough feedback and clear guidelines, my first supervisor never did this.

I think you ought to take some time off and reassess the amount of hours you put in each day/week. Have some fun, and that'll help you get some perspective - I do belly dancing and that takes my mind completely away from my work!

I hope this helps and isn't too blunt, I've tried to give you an honest response and be as helpful as possible.

Don’t worry, take it easy. It is all part of being researcher, dear. Just amend ur draft as what is required, u shd be fine. Frankly every written chapter is indeed hard work of many draft copies. Once u get ur doc, kindly tell that supervisor of yours whom laughed at you, ‘’U shd feel ashamed of urself’’ Any supervisor who laughs at research student’s work frankly aren’t qualified to be one. Retaining motivation of the research student is part of supervisor’s obligation. How could he/she do that by laughing off.
Cheers;-)

======= Date Modified 15 Aug 2009 19:45:19 =======
Thanks for your messages everyone!

I think maybe I'm not looking after myself as much as I could do and perhaps my work is starting to suffer as a result. I'm not going to come into the office tomorrow- I think I might just have a day with completely NO work- which will be strange!

My supervisor started to laugh at the way I was phrasing things- in terms of bad sentence structure and spelling errors. My other supervisor (who is far more experienced and is a professor) and myself were not laughing! I know the less experienced supervisor (although she has about 10 years experience of supervising PhD students!) is under a lot of pressure at the mo so maybe her mind was elsewhere, but I just felt myself sinking into a dark hole of feeling rather thick and stupid whilst her laughs got louder and the criticisms became more harsher as she basically went through sections which i've spent hours on which I thought were important as 'why have you included this...get rid of this'...etc etc :(

Most of it was negative, but on the flip side, they commented that I've completed the right analyses and included everything that needs to be included, it's just that the right content is and embedded in too much detail, too much sign posting, poor expression and far too much detail on the bigger project.

But I guess that's the way my supervisors work- they push their students hard in order for a pass at the end of the day! Perhaps us students just get demoralised and unmotivated as a result! :( but I'll keep going and I'll keep trying. Yes I might not like the criticism, at least I know where I stand!

I still feel rather numb and demoralised as a result though. I'm struggling enough to stay motivated as it is!!

Sounds to me like there's a major up side to all this (though of course I understand how demoralising it must have been to sit through that meeting): you've clearly overestimated the level of detail required, and have been writing/working too much as a result. So next time you come to draft a chapter, you can take it easy and write a lot less!;-)