I am looking for some advice:

I hope to submit my thesis by Christmas. I have it all written and am editing and proofreading it at the moment. I did a lot of interviews around the country and transcribed everything myself. I am quite pleased with my findings and actually think that some of them say something quite useful! BUT my worry is that my supervisor keeps re-writing some of my writing and I am wondering if anybody else has had this problem. To be honest what she writes and how she phrases things is usually much better than me but it makes me feel uncomfortable. I am also worried that it will be obvious that there are two voices in the text when I submit and it comes to my viva. I am actually now editing some of the chapters trying to mirror her way of doing things.

If anybody else had this issue, what did you do? My work is now a total mixture of my words and hers and probably would be impossible to sift out her words from mine. She has retained ALL my findings and ALL my analysis which I suppose is something. Has anybody already out the other side of their PhD ever been asked in their viva 'is this completely your own work?' I mean isn't that one function of the viva?

I'd really appreciate anybody's thoughts on this. I know it's my work but it's easier said than done to say 'hands off'. I'm worried that she thinks the way I write won't pass. Until now I hadn't really been worried about the writing aspect of things, more the analysis - now it's both :-(

Thanks for reading

Hey Ross! I suppose it depends on how extensively she is re-writing it. Is she just re-phrasing a few things or changing a few words, or is she literally re-writing a lot of it word by word? My PhD sup was very particular about written work and she'd sometimes re-phrase the odd sentence or substitute one word for another, but it certainly wasn't enough to make it read very differently. Most of the time I couldn't see that there was anything wrong with the original version, but I guess everyone has preferred ways of phrasing things and preferred words etc. However, it sounds like she is doing a lot more than just a few minor edits, and I can understand why you're uncomfortable with it. Can you stick to just making the changes that are absolutely necessary? Or can you tell her that you're worried about how much she is changing? She's not really doing you any favours anyway, because after your PhD you will need to be independent with your writing- it's unlikely that someone will be on hand to go through and re-write everything. You probably won't be asked in the viva if your thesis is all your own work, but you will have to sign documents to say that it is. Best, KB

Thanks for your reply Keenbean. It's more than a few words but not quite a re-write but still I don't like it. Not sure what I will do or what I can do. She knows I'm not happy about it but has persisted doing it anyway.

Can see why you are uncomfortable about her rewriting. Could you try redrafting the passages your supervisor has rewritten in your own words, in effect taking her rewriting just as an indicator that this passage doesn't read well in the original* and that she has provided one idea for paraphrasing rather than using her rewritten text directly. It may just be that your supervisor is being overenthusiastic in pushing her personal writing style onto you. Could you get a second opinion on a chapter from your other supervisor as well?

*this sounds like I'm agreeing that you should worry about your writing style - I don't necessarily, just that most writing can benefit from coming back to re-look at it after a bit of a break.

Thank you Clupea, you make some really good points. I have been changing some of her words here and there. Some of her expressions quite frankly I don't like. While I can see that her writing is better than mine I don't think that necessarily means mine is not acceptable. The trouble is all the revisions are being done electronically so she just changes them, we don't talk about them first. It's a bit of a mess really.

I can directly relate to this, as my supervisor had a habit of rewriting large sections of text. Fortunately, he wasn't computer savvy, so it wasn't done electronically without my knowledge. Also, his writing style was at that stage better than mine, as I had to learn how to write in an academic style and I have a feeling this is what you'll have to do to match her.

I mentioned the large number of corrections and changes my supervisor was making to my supervisor to my predecessor who was there as a post-doc whilst I was writing up. My predecessor said just let him have his way, as that way I'd be rid of the thesis and be submitted alot quicker. I wanted it also to be my work rather than his, however, I see in retrospect had I had my way I'd probably be hit by major corrections and the whole process dragging on for at least another six months.

The question is do you want it written up and finished with or do you want this to drag on for even longer with her either getting her way any so you can submit and get it over with? Or do you want to be hit with more extensive corrections because you kept things how you want them and the examiners perceive there to weaknesses in your work?

It sounds like she's doing her job as a supervisor, albeit a little overzealously.

If you still get hit with corrections and it's something she's done, at least you know it not one of your bits that the examiner didn't like.

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

I couldn't have put it better myself, thank you. That's just it, I DO desperately want to submit this thesis and move on with the rest of my life which will 100% be outside of academia. Actually the replies here have made me feel quite a bit better. I was nearly afraid to post this thread and was expecting to be told that I was a fraud. It's the unmentionable really. I have no idea if others in my department have had similar issues as obviously nobody admits to it. Thank goodness this forum is anonymous!

I really appreciate the feedback.

I can directly relate to this - in fact if you search old posts you'll probably find ones by me on the same topic.

My sup changes lots of things, and most are just annoying style changes, e.g. "However, there have been five studies" to "There have been five studies, however, that..." :-s

I've just had to accept it and grin and bear it. What I do do now though is I protect my word docs with a password when I send it to her and enforce track changes, so she can't turn it off :p it looks HORRIFIC when I get it back - almost completely red, but at least I can follow what she has done.

THe most annoying factor is she has never sat me down (even though I've asked) and explained WHY she makes the changes, so I don't feel I can ever learn from her changes.

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I can directly relate to this. I don't feel I ever learn from my supervisor as if it's clear I'm struggling with something they just do it. It's actually really sad in a way as I don't learn from them, even though I've indicated I want to. For me, the PhD hasn't been a learning experience which kind of defeats the point, in my opinion.

@Delta and Sneaks, I honestly thought it was just me, thank you so much.

No problem Ross. I suspect this may be relatively common and so while it is by no means ideal, and it's not how I'd have liked it, I can't force my supervisor to work in a way that I like / want. As long as you've tried your best, as I have, there's little else you can do. I feel a bit like part of a sausage factory, just going through the process so my supervisor can get credit for producing another PhD. I would like to have felt inspired by them, have learned from them etc but it wasn't to be... They haven't even expressed any interest in my future which I think is very sad...

All the best!

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Wow, I can relate to all of this too. So glad someone posted; as yes, it's somewhat an unmentionable...I had always just thought that I clearly wasn't very good at what I was doing, and to make it worse, I also didn't really get to learn much about why the changes were made. Though, in some cases I did, and really I do think that a lot of the changes/edits were things that I would have picked up on myself, had I had the chance to have read back over it after taking a step back (but I never had this chance, so I used my sup's changes as a replacement for that - which I rationalised as because I didn't have time to do it over myself - and this was true given my circumstances). However, I am left with residual thoughts of 'I needed too much help and didn't do it on my own', and feeling I can't really trust my intuition/work/thinking. I plan to have a discussion about this with my supervisor actually, with the aim of trying to get past that. I guess it felt like I was dependent upon my sup, and I worry that I won't be able to perform very well without their help. 

I also know of other students in my department (working with other supervisors) who have had their work very heavily edited, and in at least one of the cases, the student was happy to just go ahead and write what the sup had written because it meant that it was something that she didn't have to think about it (I didn't ask her about it further).

So glad to hear others have been in similar (from what I understand) positions.

Hi Sparkles, kindred spirits methinks!

I don't know anyone else whose work has been heavily edited, at least nobody has ever said it to me. Even though I'm still frustrated by it, I feel a lot better.

Thanks all :-)

I'm not sure I really feel like I'm part of a 'sausage factory' type analogy :p what I do feel is that whatever I do, it isn't good enough for sup, she'll always change things. She does it to everyones work though. E.g. when I expressed concern to her RA and showed her my work with the tracked changes the RA looked horrified, but 6 months down the line, her work was given the same treatment. So I don't think its really anything wrong with my writing, I just think it happens to be sup's style. BUt it is extremely annoying and it constantly feels like you're not good enough. Coupled with the fact she only ever skim reads/reads 1st 2 pages and then makes wild judgements about what she *thinks* the work is about, it is very very irritating. I gave her my final draft 2 weeks ago and she read the first 3 pages of the lit review (I watched her read through it) and then told me to re-write the entire lit review and refused to read past the 3rd page.

However, when I'm through this hellish process I will have learnt a lot about how to motivate supervisees and how not to!

None of my work has been heavily edited or edited come to that. It's just if I indicate I don't understand something (it was a pre-designed project) which thankfully is very rare, it's basically done for me. I think from their point it saves time but for me it's frustrating and not what 'learning' should be about. I do like to think I wouldn't do that if I was a supervisor but if I had their heavy workload who knows. Their lack of interest in developing me as a researcher and lack of interest in my future does make me feel like part of a sausage factory though!