Frequency of feedback from supervisor on PostgraduateForum.com

Hanginthere
7 years ago

Hi everyone,

I have a quick question. How often should one write his/her supervisor a reminder for feedback? Should it be every two weeks or four weeks? I have accepted my fate, in that I have to remind my supervisor to respond to my drafts, at the same time, I don't want to appear like a pain.

Thanks in advance.

T

Tudor_Queen
7 years ago

Hi Hanginthere. Is this a situation where the supervisor has agreed get your feedback to you by a certain date? If no date has been agreed then I would strongly suggest that when you agree on a date to send him a draft, that you also both agree on a date for him to have got back to you with feedback. This is how it works with my supervisor. This way she has allotted to time to look at it and tends to get back to me on the date agreed.

That all aside, if I needed to chase I guess I'd do it on a certain day each week.

H

Hanginthere
7 years ago

Quote From Tudor_Queen:
Hi Hanginthere. Is this a situation where the supervisor has agreed get your feedback to you by a certain date? If no date has been agreed then I would strongly suggest that when you agree on a date to send him a draft, that you also both agree on a date for him to have got back to you with feedback. This is how it works with my supervisor. This way she has allotted to time to look at it and tends to get back to me on the date agreed.

That all aside, if I needed to chase I guess I'd do it on a certain day each week.

Thank you so much for your reply. My supervisor had been evading providing a clear timeline of when to expect feedback, I am I am having to chase him up to receive one. In the past, his feedback has taken between 6-2 months to receive.

Thanks for the tips about sending a reminder each week. We probably send one out today.

T

Tudor_Queen
7 years ago

OK - maybe when you meet (it is harder to say no in person) you could push for some sort of time frame? I understand that this could be tricky though depending on what kind of supervisor you have. Maybe other people on the forum will have other advice.

T

TreeofLife
7 years ago

My supervisors hated it when people chased them for feedback. I never did. I just handed drafts in with the expectation that I will get them back eventually, which was anything from the same day to a month, depending on their workloads.

However, I was lucky, others in my group took months and months to get feedback or got shouted at if they chased the feedback.

Best advice is to agree on a rough date you can expect it back when you hand it in and then drop hints about it in other meetings if they haven't got it back to you. If you don't have regular meetings, then start going to places they will be and initiate conversations that will eventually turn to convos about work because you don't have anything else to talk to them about anyway. Don't ask them about it directly if you don't expect a good response and you don't like this bad response.

P

pm133
7 years ago

Quote From Hanginthere:
Hi everyone,

I have a quick question. How often should one write his/her supervisor a reminder for feedback? Should it be every two weeks or four weeks? I have accepted my fate, in that I have to remind my supervisor to respond to my drafts, at the same time, I don't want to appear like a pain.

Thanks in advance.

Feedback for what?
For a draft paper? A few days with my supervisor but he has been known to take 18 months with other students if they have sent him a poorly drafted piece of work. I would request a meeting by the end of a fortnight if I had not heard and I would assume I had sent him crap. The meeting would be me asking himwhether it was a little crap, a medium sized dollop or whether it was a shitstorm from start to finish in which case I would die of embarassment.
I am too assertive to just passively wait for months on end.

If its for performance reasons, I would not ask him at all.

H

Hanginthere
7 years ago

Quote From Tudor_Queen:
OK - maybe when you meet (it is harder to say no in person) you could push for some sort of time frame? I understand that this could be tricky though depending on what kind of supervisor you have. Maybe other people on the forum will have other advice.

Thank you for this. I don't usually meet with him unless the feedback cannot be conveyed via email -- usually when we do not agree on changes.
However, following your initial advice, I wrote him and the response was 'thank you for the reminder'. I might have to play along until I finish the damn thing.

H

Hanginthere
7 years ago

Quote From TreeofLife:
My supervisors hated it when people chased them for feedback. I never did. I just handed drafts in with the expectation that I will get them back eventually, which was anything from the same day to a month, depending on their workloads.

However, I was lucky, others in my group took months and months to get feedback or got shouted at if they chased the feedback.

Best advice is to agree on a rough date you can expect it back when you hand it in and then drop hints about it in other meetings if they haven't got it back to you. If you don't have regular meetings, then start going to places they will be and initiate conversations that will eventually turn to convos about work because you don't have anything else to talk to them about anyway. Don't ask them about it directly if you don't expect a good response and you don't like this bad response.

I know! I have having to chase up but, I cannot remember ever getting feedback without sending tonnes of emails. It should not have to be like this, but it is.
I am not usually on campus so don't get enough chances to bump into him.

Thanks for your advice though.

H

Hanginthere
7 years ago

Quote From pm133:

Quote From Hanginthere:
Hi everyone,

I have a quick question. How often should one write his/her supervisor a reminder for feedback? Should it be every two weeks or four weeks? I have accepted my fate, in that I have to remind my supervisor to respond to my drafts, at the same time, I don't want to appear like a pain.

Thanks in advance.

Feedback for what?
For a draft paper? A few days with my supervisor but he has been known to take 18 months with other students if they have sent him a poorly drafted piece of work. I would request a meeting by the end of a fortnight if I had not heard and I would assume I had sent him crap. The meeting would be me asking himwhether it was a little crap, a medium sized dollop or whether it was a shitstorm from start to finish in which case I would die of embarassment.
I am too assertive to just passively wait for months on end.

If its for performance reasons, I would not ask him at all.

No, this is for my chapters. I have never sent a draft of articles that I hope to publish to him for feedback because of how late it takes him to respond to my thesis drafts. I have so far submitted four articles for publication (two published in Elsevier) without running it through him -- the topics are not directly linked to my PhD, so I just rely on the journal's editors for comments.

I have tried everything including drafting a timeline to get him to agree to something, but nope, the response has always been ' I will let you know when you can get feedback'.

T

Tudor_Queen
7 years ago

And then he doesn't let you know... how helpful!

H

Hanginthere
7 years ago

Quote From Tudor_Queen:
And then he doesn't let you know... how helpful!

Yeap!
I probably have to send another reminder before I get something back.
The waiting has been draining because at first, I thought it was because my work was not up to scratch. However, based on feedback I have received from others, the problem is not the quality of my work, rather his ability to provide feedback on time.

Thank you for your input.

M

muspectrum
7 years ago

Beginning to wonder if Hanginthere and I share the same supervisor as I had the same problem. I got R and R and the stress of this, the massive resubmission fee and full-time job led me to just not being contactable/not reminding him of stuff for an entire month. Then he wondered if I was still alive and all was sorted...until the post office lost my thesis after the uni sent it to examiners, but thats another story.

So, not ideal, but maybe just the silent treatment will work?

H

Hanginthere
7 years ago

Quote From muspectrum:
Beginning to wonder if Hanginthere and I share the same supervisor as I had the same problem. I got R and R and the stress of this, the massive resubmission fee and full-time job led me to just not being contactable/not reminding him of stuff for an entire month. Then he wondered if I was still alive and all was sorted...until the post office lost my thesis after the uni sent it to examiners, but thats another story.

So, not ideal, but maybe just the silent treatment will work?

That must have been very frustrating. I don't have a job, so you can imagine that I go through a period of two months of doing nada.
I try to continue with research and lit review, just not getting anywhere with setting a timeline for feedback.
I do not want to make an official complaint, so I guess I have to continue to manage until I submit next year (likely June).

I appreciate your feedback and wish you all the best.

On a positive note, I guess he is helping me identify the sort of academic I do not want to be.

P

pm133
7 years ago

Quote From Hanginthere:

Quote From muspectrum:
Beginning to wonder if Hanginthere and I share the same supervisor as I had the same problem. I got R and R and the stress of this, the massive resubmission fee and full-time job led me to just not being contactable/not reminding him of stuff for an entire month. Then he wondered if I was still alive and all was sorted...until the post office lost my thesis after the uni sent it to examiners, but thats another story.

So, not ideal, but maybe just the silent treatment will work?

That must have been very frustrating. I don't have a job, so you can imagine that I go through a period of two months of doing nada.
I try to continue with research and lit review, just not getting anywhere with setting a timeline for feedback.
I do not want to make an official complaint, so I guess I have to continue to manage until I submit next year (likely June).

I appreciate your feedback and wish you all the best.

On a positive note, I guess he is helping me identify the sort of academic I do not want to be.

Inhad a friend once who paid another academic to review her thesis because she was sick to death of the lack of urgency of her own supervisor. Is this an option for you?

H

Hanginthere
7 years ago

Quote From pm133:

Quote From Hanginthere:

Quote From muspectrum:
Beginning to wonder if Hanginthere and I share the same supervisor as I had the same problem. I got R and R and the stress of this, the massive resubmission fee and full-time job led me to just not being contactable/not reminding him of stuff for an entire month. Then he wondered if I was still alive and all was sorted...until the post office lost my thesis after the uni sent it to examiners, but thats another story.

So, not ideal, but maybe just the silent treatment will work?

That must have been very frustrating. I don't have a job, so you can imagine that I go through a period of two months of doing nada.
I try to continue with research and lit review, just not getting anywhere with setting a timeline for feedback.
I do not want to make an official complaint, so I guess I have to continue to manage until I submit next year (likely June).

I appreciate your feedback and wish you all the best.

On a positive note, I guess he is helping me identify the sort of academic I do not want to be.

Inhad a friend once who paid another academic to review her thesis because she was sick to death of the lack of urgency of her own supervisor. Is this an option for you?

I would if I can afford it, but I am sure I can't.

I have also found that even when I send a chapter to someone else for feedback, my supervisor's feedback is usually.

Thank for the suggestion though, probably something to reflect on.