When sending your supervisors a draft paper or chapter or whatever, what does the fact that it is a draft actually entail? I suppose what I am getting at is - should it be proofread, formatted etc. Or is it literally a rough draft to get some feedback on and then do the final version later?

I think answers may vary for this, but I prefer to send things I've already proof-read and corrected as far as possible, so that I'm getting feedback on content/structure/ideas etc, rather than things I can fix myself. I guess you can always direct your supervisors to the type of feedback you're looking for - I've said things before like, 'I've still got citations to put into this, but can you let me know if the content seems ok?'.

This is helpful - thanks chickpea. I think I will do that.

Same here. I send him what I consider to be a draft ready to be submitted to the journal. Invariably it needs tweaking or a bit more work but I never send him something I know is not complete.

Agree with above. Personally I know that's what my supervisors expected as well. If was really a draft ie just a collection of ideas etc, I would tell them not to correct it for references, formatting etc and just focus on the layout and overall structure and content.

Rightiho. Thanks. I am going to aim for complete but if anything is missing or I don't have time to proofread or whatever I will notify them. I am asking the question partly as one of my supervisors commented that I was a perfectionist... I thought, hmmm... do they want a REAL draft then? I may ask what she means if it comes up again.

Hmm, I'm pretty open with my supervisors, and certainly wouldn't say it in a flippant way that might get their backs up. Anyway, being such a perfectionist, that just won't happen :D There may be one or two things I don't finish though or want to finish later. I'll just put a note on the document saying "to fill in later" or similar.