Ok, am officially fed up. My supervisor has had my chapter now for over 4 months and still no comments, and having just pestered again, I won't get comments for at least another month, by which time there will be another 2 chapters done ready to be commented on, and a university deadline of end of September for submission. Why is it that my PhD goes to the bottom of his pile? I know other of his students who get quick feedback from him. I'm trying hard to find someone else to read the chapter, but I took my supervisors advice and wrote a massive amount of analysis into one chapter rather than a few and it's ended up at 80 pages - I feel guilty asking friends or other collegues to read such a tome for me. But pretty sure it's not written or structured that well, so really want some constructive feedback... gahhhhhhhhhhh!!!! What to do?

Hi Seabird- I have a had a similar problem; but waiting for two months for comments on at least some of my work, so probably not as bad. I did a similar thing as well- my supervisor suggested cramming what should have been two chapters into one, which made it very long and a bit of a monster. I also know of people supervised by him who handed in their work and received comments back the next day! Sorry its not much help, but I know how frustrating it is when work youve spent ages on gets shoved to the bottom of whatever it is they actually do...

Hi Seabird,

know what you say, and sympatise with you. It is awful that you have to wait so long.
My recipe is: Keep on pestering (in a postive way), best by phone or personal, as E mail does not seem to make a impression. What also helped, in my case, was talking directly with the professor and he then talking to the supervisor. Finally I bring forward lots of new info regarding my research and why it is important to action now (again in an enthousiastic way).

Your supervisors are crossing the line between being plain lazy to being grossly negligent.

email your supervisor asking for a meeting during which you can DISCUSS the feedback on your other chapter. mention days that you available in the next week or 2. then state that you have finished a chapter which you will attach to the email. wait for reply and as you wait....2 weeks on submit the other chapter if already done and ask for a meeting to discuss feedback of previous if no reply yet. mention uni deadline. in other words, pester in an INDIRECT and RESPECTFUL way. you supervisor will feel bad for not keeping up with you. i find that this blackmail always works. begging them is no good. otherwise.... ask for a next meeting before you walk out of each meeting and STICK to your deadlines.

That is shocking. I've waited months but 1-2 for a chapter not that long

Hi, thanks for the support! I'm not the only one who's had this sort of problem - one of my friends went through her PhD without much input from her supervisors at all - one supervisor didn't even bother to review all her chapters. She ended the phD thoroughly annoyed with the whole experience with no desire to stay in academia. Anyway, I wrote a rather short email back to my supervisor saying how disappointed I was not to get comments after so long (he'd emailed and said he wouldn't be able to have comments to me until August) & he wrote back saying he'd try to get comments back within the week! (of course I won't hold my breath!) - maybe I wasn't emphasising how important it was to me (hoping he might realise with the deadline rapidly approaching?). In the past I've prodded him gently (many times), maybe the tougher approach is necessary after all? Still, I'll wait and see...

One bit of advice I got before starting my PhD was that you need to learn that your supervisor is a very big part of your world, but you're a very small part of theirs. You have to shout to get yourself heard sometimes.