Hi fellow PhD. students.
This is my first post on this forum.
I am currently doing a Phd. part time in telecommunications while working full time as a network engineer. I am on my third year and I believe my progress has been good so far.
My supervisor is a very busy man but he manages to always come back to me on time with very helpful feedback about my work.
Recently, however, I've been quite frustrated. He has always profusely reviewed my work, making heaps of corrections and finally after too much suffering, deciding that the paragraph, article, etc. has been completed and even instructed me to submit it or move on. So far so good, right? I mean this is what you would expect from your supervisor. Heaps of feedback, draft after draft and really hard work. He has though recently started to change his mind or finding errors that he has not seen before. There is even this case where after multiple revisions he encouraged me to submit a finalized paper. I did it just before the deadline (which was extended btw) and I felt great. However, one week later just when I was getting ready to enjoy my weekend with my wife, he then came back to me and pretty much asked me to redo the whole already submitted paper. I appreciate the feedback and I believe that he is actually right, but makes me wondering why he did not see all these fundamental issues before.
Sorry about the long post. Just wondering whether this is normal. Now I am facing a very tight deadline which I don't think will be able to meet.

Thanks,

aleruri

I understand that you are frustrated but really you have three choices; do the work, submit a flawed paper or don't submit the paper. You are a free agent but personally, if it was me, and I couldn't make the deadline, I'd not submit it (withdraw the previous version), and just email your supervisor to say that you agree, the paper still needs work and that you'll submit it instead to the next suitable conference or whatever it is. There's no point submitting something you agree is very flawed - it will only damage you.
I actually think you have had supervision that goes above and beyond what can be expected from what you say. You really shouldn't be continuing to submit work to your supervisor that requires so much reworking. But that's my opinion. I will say though that as an academic now receiving student drafts, if the presentation is poor meaning that I am stuck redrafting paragraphs to ensure that they are understandable, then yes I might miss bigger picture flaws, because my critical eye has been distracted by the need to copy edit. Academics aren't omniscient - they have moments of distraction and miss things. It sounds like you have an incredibly conscientious supervisor, so I really wouldn't rock the boat by complaining about this. Many PhD students would kill to have that kind of supervisor.