Hello, I was just wondering how people deal with the feedback they get?

I have two supervisors and so far all my work has gone through one who I work with a lot. He has given feedback which I have acted upon, but said that the other supervisor (who is based elsewhere and I only see once a year) is better at these things but be prepared for the red pen from him. Someone who works in my department has had this second supervisor as her first and isn't complementary at all with most things but does say he has a very 'publishable writing style'. I just had my first piece of work back from him and it is mostly filled with comments like 'good but needs major revision', I know this is to make it better, I'm just annoyed as it'll take forever to edit and this is the tiny data chapter that will go at the end of my PhD. It isn't publishable (no real results) and I have 3 other data chapters to write which will be the interesting parts of my PhD. I only have 3 months left so am starting to panic a bit that if I can't even write a short chapter how can I write an entire thesis?

Sorry about the rant =)

Getting feedback can be at times, soul crushing. But something I tell my own students (and need to constantly remind myself) is that its not meant to be a reflection of your self worth. It's hard to separate ourselves when we invest so much in it, and we reside in a society in which what we produce determines our value.

You can write a short chapter and an entire thesis! While it often seems daunting to see red all over a piece of work, it is meant to (as you've stated) improve your work. It's always good to have more than one set of eyes on your work as well, I found one supervisor tended to be more picky with phrasing and wording than the other, and this was helpful in the long run. You are of course, going to feel frustrated and upset for a few days after receiving such a critique on your work, but when you sit down to do the revisions, they don't take as much time or effort as you think they might. Examiners do pick up on whether you have a strong writing style, and multiple revisions/rewriting will improve your writing style.

I always had a heap of stuff I had to revise, I revised one chapter maybe 20 times? But that chapter already has one publication from it, with other in the works.

One thing to keep in mind that this 'tiny' last data chapter might not be in the right place, you want to finish your data with a bang before your conclusion, not a whimper. It's something to think about/chat with your supervisor about. But chapter orders can change, and even what you might include in them might get moved around last minute.

Thanks awsoci, my writing is the weakest part of my PhD skills so I know I will have revisions. Although I've found that revising texts takes me just as long as writing them in the first place, mostly because I'm a slow reader so reading the references I need to insert (even just skimming them) takes me hours and hours.

The small data chapter was going to be at the end even if it had worked as it's in the logical order in terms of flow.

I felt a bit rubbish this morning, but I'm going to keep chugging away and hopefully the next piece of work won't need so much revising!