======= Date Modified 27 Sep 2011 11:36:24 =======
Hi Googooboo,

You are not alone. Just look around at this forum and you will find numerous issues people have with supervisors so I would say first off that this is not your fault.

For anybody else reading, if you have a good supervisor then you will have no idea what I'm going to talk about now!!

I have my own views on this matter (and how the structure of the PhD inhibits knowledge and is used a means of control) but the first thing to realise is that supervisors (yours by the sound of it) like to be in charge. They like to turn the discussion around to an area they feel comfortable with and a subject they know more about than you. Criticising you (unfairly) is a means by which they can assert control and put you in your place. It is an abuse of power.

No matter how brilliant or good your work is, just because of the dynamic involved in a student-academic relationship, the academic will always find fault in something you have done or not done.

His calling other students stupid is another indication that this guy is a bully and is attempting to assert control. Perhaps other people are stupid (I don't know!) but that is of no concern of yours and he certainly shouldn't be telling you that. In any other organisation apart from the cushioned bubble of unaccountable academia that kind of behaviour would be intolerable.

Negative supervision can be regarded (in my opinion) as a form of sociopathic behaviour involving elements of manipulation, constantly keeping you off balance (lack of communication or too much communication, last minute meetings or else no meetings, reading your work or not reading your work etc. etc), the creation of a dependant relationship from which you can only derive validation from your supervisor, isolation and the constant belittlement of your abilities in order to maintain the power balance in favour of the supervisor.

In other circumstances this behaviour is called intimidation, bullying and abuse of power.

In academia, it is known as supervision.

Hi Rhea,
I can't say anything other than just stay strong and don't let the PhD overwhelm you. You can and will overcome the difficulties you face. The PhD imposes so much stress and pressure on people that it is easy to blame yourself for any problems.

You are not at fault and never think that you are (my thoughts on the PhD process/structure, university institutions and supervisors and the negative effects they have upon students are not good ones)

Just take it one day at a time and one small step at a time and do what's best for you and your health. That is always the most important thing.

Supervisor meetings (my experience)

1 Send material in advance to be read.
2 Turn up to meeting (very obvious that material has not been read or else just skimmed over at the last minute)
3 They rant away about stuff that is unrelated to my topic but that they know a lot about (one time I was even told to look into Nazi invasion plans.....as you don't know my topic it is impossible for me to describe how insane this suggestion was)
4 Nod and smile about their fabulous suggestions - make notes to appear as if you are taking them seriously
5 They make vague non-committal expressions about meeting up again in the near future (maybe before Christmas?)
6 Go on your way and sift through all the nonsense they told you to see if there are any real gems that might be hidden there (probably not)
7 Get on with doing your own work and hope for the best

Hi CloverCloud,

I just want to say that you are most assuredly not alone in this situation. The PhD is a bizarre process and the people you are dealing with in university (academic and non-academic staff) tend to exhibit (in my opinion!) personality and behavioural traits that are not what you would expect to encounter in the outside world.

Again, in my opinion, these issues on their part are transferred to the students in the form of inconsistent information, mood swings on the part of supevisors, keeping you off balance, withholding validation of your work and placing unnecessary pressure upon you for no real reason other than they can. Then if anybody queries such practices, the blame is transferred back on to them because the university does not want to acknowledge any problems at all.

In my opinion the whole PhD process (which I am in the middle of) is deeply flawed and based upon rather one-sided unwritten rules designed to keep the student isolated, dependant, passive and compliant with the vague promise of a academic career dangled in front of them.

The sheer number of problems people are talking about on this forum alone would indicate that there is something seriously and fundamentally wrong with the way PhD's are structured and universities behave. 

You are not alone CloverCloud and don't ever think that it is your fault that this has happened.

All I can say to help in your situation is that the PhD does not define your life. It is a part of your life (a bad experience by the sounds of it) but please don't let that take over and crush all the positives you have going for you. A normal reaction to the constant stress and pressure you are being placed under is to isolate yourself off from others but please don't do that. I know its difficult but you need to break this cycle of negativity.

You can and will overcome this so just try to stay strong CloverCloud.

As the application deadline is the same day as the viva then make sure that your application goes in at the last minute on that day (get somebody to email it in for you just before the cut off time if you're still in the viva) - that way you are keeping your options open either way and there should be no issues about contacting the examiner beforehand.
That's my advice anyway! Good luck with the viva!!

Its a weird unaccountable world that academics live in. One that is governed by an honour code, codes of conduct and guidelines that to my mind are mere words devoid of meaning. If a member of staff wishes to transgress it appears that there are no repercussions for them at all.

Silence is what allows this kind of behaviour to thrive because we, as well as the university, have a vested interest in keeping it quiet (because it might devalue our own PhD's if word gets around, potential job offers, reprisals from the university etc etc).

In my opinion, (and I can only give my views based on what I've experienced) its instituitional abuse cloaked in a facade of scholarly ivory-towerism.

Certainly I was aware that universities (like all bureaucracies) close ranks and would attempt to cover up and conceal such behaviour. I am not naive. I have seen how it operates in many other institutions and was well aware of the potential strategies that could (and would) be adopted by the university in response to this.

Another aspect of this whole thing that is not addressed adequately is the issue of the complainant's integrity; the momentum of the situation is such that my integrity was becoming under question because I was not making a complaint.

And believe me, I thought long and hard about all the implications of making a complaint.

The secretive and intimidatory processes used by the university both condone and encourage such behaviour on the part of academic staff. Why bother doing your own research when you can see your colleagues ripping off things left, right and centre and getting away with it? But woe betide the student who would do such a thing....

What does strike me as a former bureaucrat used to dealing with controversial issues is the sheer flimsiness of the response from the university. Within such systems (speaking from experience) the employee's first course of action is to cover your own ass in any situation like this. That is the ONLY priority for employees operating in such a system. Even more so in the case where they know that a solicitor will be looking over everything they have done in order to pick holes in it.

For me, this really indicates a level of hubris on the part of university staff (academic and clerical) which is staggering to behold.

I made a formal complaint to the university authorities asking for an investigation into the matter.

I heard nothing from the university for months until recently when I received an email from one of the people investigating the complaint asking to meet with me - this was done on a Friday afternoon and a reply demanded by Sunday as they were going on holidays. I asked him directly who would be there and what was the purpose of the meeting. He stated that it was a Q&A session about the evidence i had presented for the complaint (emails about the meeting with the author, my 100 day viva material etc).

The meeting arrangements were communicated to me again on a Friday afternoon with it taking place first thing Monday morning. I attended the meeting alone; an agenda was presented to me then. They then presented me with the evidence they had collected in response to the complaint. The main plank of the evidence presented was a statement on the part of the journal editor that he had received the final draft of the article in 2008. He provided no supporting correspondence or emails to support this - it is just his word. They also said that they had a word doc of the article provided by the authors with an electronic datestamp showing it was made in 2008.

Based on this evidence they said that there was no grounds for the complaint and the university would not be pursuing the matter further.

Their tone throughout towards me was dismissive, bordering on open contempt.

I requested copies of the material collected by them to examine (statement from the editor, the word doc etc). They were reluctant to provide this and said that they would need to seek legal advice before giving it to me.

In response to my repeated assertions that I was shocked that the author had not mentioned this article when I met them, they said they could make no comment. In their view it was not misconduct and nothing untoward had happened.

This is the current position; a number of questions arise for me in response to the way the university has handled this. Why are they so reluctant to show me their evidence? If everything is above board then why keep me from examining it? Similarly, why all the attempts to intimidate me with their last minute meeting arrangements? Surely this is a serious matter and the university would have to take it seriously and behave in a manner that was appropriate. Why all the fun and games?

This whole affair has me thoroughly disgusted at the conduct of the institution and academia in general. Based upon the response of the university, I would surmise that this kind of thing happens a lot and that the university has a standard response in hushing this all up. That is my opinion after seeing how they deal with this kind of situation.

I am aware that other people have different experiences and different views on the matter. I make no claims as to the merit of my complaint as that is something that is impossible for me to convey to you; I am disappointed by the university's response to my complaint. They clearly are not taking it seriously and have decided to dismiss it without conducting more than a very cursory examination.

In my view, my entire PhD has been tainted by the entire affair and is now utterly defined by the complaint.

Hi all,

I am just writing this to share my experiences with the murky world of academic plagiarism. For reasons I am sure you can understand I am not going to be specific other than saying that I am in a UK university and my subject is a humanities one.

Brief background: my topic is one that was a novel one that had not been researched at all in depth. Any work that had been done was unsubstantiated and not thoroughly researched. As part of my research I discovered that an academic in the same university (different campus & faculty) had written an article about 4 years ago that touched on my area (the only research I could find actually). So I arranged to meet this person after my 100 day viva and provided them with a copy of the material I presented at it. We had a friendly meeting and I explained my research to them. They got very excited and said 'I wish I'd thought of that' - I remember it distinctly. So we parted and I went about preparing for the confirmation viva. Then a number of months later I discover an article written by the person, published about 6 months after we met, in which the middle section bore more than a striking similarlity to my own research. In fact it was almost identical.

I brought this up with supervisors who upon reading this and discovering the facts of the meeting were extremely concerned. As I have had experience with working in bureaucracies (many years in public service) I knew and understood the complexities and dynamics of making a complaint and I did not do it lightly. In fact it took about 5 months for me to make a complaint. In the meantime, my superivsor contacted the authors and asked them to clarify the situation: they sent back a very aggressive reply and stated that the article had been written about 2 years previously but not published until recently.

I went to a solicitor and got him to read over everything, including the university's rules and codes of conduct. There were 2 scenarios:
1) the article was written before I met the author - in which case why did they not tell me? Even an indication that they had been working on something similar to my PhD would have been enough? If they did not wish to say on the day then they could have checked with the publisher when the article was going to appear and then let me know, better still, forwarding me a copy of it. The did not do this. Neither during the meeting or at any time afterwards did they let me know about the article. Not a word. If I had any idea that this was in the works I would not have complained.
2) a draft of the article was written in 2008 and then after meeting me the author plugged my material into the middle section of it. This in my opinion, is the more likely scenario.

According to my solicitor either option was misconduct on the part of the staff member concerned: by not informing me about the article they had already written was a breach of the integrity guidelines for staff that they have to adhere to.