Hi there,

I was wondering how you guys deal with written feedback from their mentors on manuscripts/abstracts/dissertation. I restrain from "accepting all changes" and usually re-phrase his edits so that my manuscript does not seem like it was written by two different people (which is okay sometimes depending on how authorship is defined). I know that supervisors/mentors struggle with dealing with students who do not follow through on the feedback provided, and I am afraid that my approach may be misinterpreted as not following advice. I wonder if this might put a strain on the relationship.

My supervisor and I always preferred to go through changes face to face even if he had added notes to my paper.

Any advice would be general rather than "write this specific sentence". He might suggest a phrase but he always left it to me to work out the details. He also wouldn't highlight the same error twice. The expectation was that if he raised an issue, I'd check the remainder of the document for the same type of error.

If I disagreed with some advice I would raise that and present my case but these reviews were always done in a collegiate manner and actually it was a brilliant working relationship.

It sounds like your relationship with your supervisor is not balanced if you are unsure how to approach issues like the one you describe. Are they telling you what to do or suggesting what you should do? It absolutely should be the latter but all too often ends up being the former.