I have to have an end of year report in by tomorrow, up to 4 pages long. I'm a first year and all we've been told in rather vague terms is:
Your statement "should indicate the present state of your research (such as details of papers or chapters written, and any external presentations at conferences, etc.), what training you have undertaken, what you are proposing to do next, and when you expect to complete your research and submit your thesis".
My second supervisor told me it was just a box ticking exercise and to get it all done in a brief business manner. I got on and answered all the bits and sent a draft to my primary supervisor a couple of days ago, figuring it was pretty much done. She's just sent it back with lots of things to change including most of the section on my plans for upgrade (which will be after the summer sometime). Particularly she's emphasized that I have to get down a secure methodology - one of the problematic areas I've just started thinking about since I think it has to change from my original proposal - whereas my second supervisor said not to worry about that at the moment as I was really panicking about trying to get it done for this report. All my primary sup has implied is that I just need to get on with it (I work on literature so it's all much more vague than many disciplines) which is totally unhelpful.

What I'd been told was just mainly box ticking by one person has turned into a major undertaking which I can't get done by tomorrow!

I'm really concerned and wondered if anyone could give me any suggestions about how I should be looking at this end of year report. My work's fine and I thought I was on top of everything, but now it seems there are major gaps in what I should have done by the time of submitting this report. :-(

======= Date Modified 04 Jun 2009 15:35:55 =======
I feel for you, it is always annoying when supervisors have different approaches/perspectives on things like that - there is no pleasing everyone. Considering you have limited time left before submitting the report, just do what you can. As much as possible, do treat it in a business manner, i.e. keep it brief where possible, but also try and include some points from your first sup, even if you cannot go into as much detail as your first sup would like. I presume at some point you will have a panel meeting (or similar) to discuss the report (??), which will then give you the opportunity to express your understanding/awareness what still needs to be done. And maybe by then you have done more reading and you are clearer about the methodology(?).

Most importantly: Don't panic, prioritise and do/write what you can in the time left.