Category: You and your supervisor

No matter who you are, when you start your PhD advice falls around you like fine rain. Despite the fact that I worked in research education already, lots of people felt free to give me advice when I started. I noticed that the advice ranged from the banal and obvious: “Don’t leave all your writing …continue reading.

One of the pleasures of running the thesis whisperer blog are the large number of emails I receive, on a daily basis, from research students located all over the world. Sometimes students submit a guest post in response to the open invitation I have on my About page. Other times they just want to thank …continue reading.

This post is by Sue Watling, Senior Lecturer in Educational Development in the Educational Development Enhancement Unit at the University of Lincoln, UK. Supporting teaching, learning and the student experience, Sue also promotes the development of digitally inclusive practice. You can read more about Sue’s work and Phd journey here. I’ve always had problems with …continue reading.

This post is by James Donald, a PhD student in Organisational Behaviour at the ANU. His research explores the impacts of mindfulness on stress and resilience in the workplace. James is an experienced facilitator and mindfulness trainer, and regularly leads mindfulness and well-being workshops in the community, public and private sectors. His training company is Mindfulness Works. Last time we heard from …continue reading.

We rarely have posts from our North American academic cousins on the Thesis Whisperer, so it’s a pleasure to bring you this one from Dr Alison Crump. Alison is the Academic Projects Officer in Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at McGill University where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Second Language Education at McGill. There …continue reading.

A year and a half ago, ANU gave me a chance to make a MOOC. For those of you in the know, a MOOC stands for ‘massive open online course’. ANU has partnered with EdX, a MOOC delivery platform, so that thousands of people have the chance to participate in ANU courses from around the …continue reading.

This post is by Colin Cohen, who completed a doctorate at the School for Health in the University of Bath in south west England. Colin is what we call in the trade a ‘non traditional student’: older, part time and not working in an academic field. Many people have talked to me about what an …continue reading.

Tolstoy could have been talking about research supervision when he said: ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way‘. Supervising a research student involves relationship work. Relationship work can be difficult; when it goes wrong it goes REALLY wrong. But when it goes right, the supervisor/student relationship is the …continue reading.

At the end of March I attended the 2nd International Conference on Developments in Doctoral Education and Training at Oxford University (the program is online here if you are interested). I enjoyed catching up with colleagues in the ‘hallway track’ and hearing about new stuff happening in various universities. In particular I was impressed by …continue reading.

All PhD students know that the student-supervisor relationship is fraught with potential pitfalls. A recent letter I received highlights how important it is to establish clear rules between yourself and your supervisor regarding joint authorship of papers, especially when submitting a Thesis by Publication. The student was asking for advice for a friend and I …continue reading.