Is Your Dissertation Advisor Non-Responsive? They Don't Have to Be. 5 Ideas to Get More Frequent and Informative Responses From Them (Advisors, This is a Good Read for You, Too!)

 



Dear Real Academics,

Are you a graduate student trying to finish your dissertation, but having a hard time getting your dissertation advisor to respond to you with feedback?

Having been on BOTH sides as a student and as a professor, I've drafted 5 ideas to get your dissertation advisor to respond to you.

After you read, whether you are a student or a professor, share your helpful ideas and/or thoughts on the topic.


(1) WHAT TO SEND

  • DO NOT send your advisor your entire dissertation to read (unless they ask for it). 

    • Most likely, your advisor will not respond to a giant file attachment. 
  • DO send a smaller portions of your writing in regular chunks (e.g., 5-10 pages).

    • Doing this, in combination with the points below, will likely get you a faster and more substantive response.

(2) WHAT TO ASK

  • DO NOT ask for general feedback on your writing.

  • DO ask for specific feedback. Some specific feedback requests examples are:

    • Can you please provide me feedback on...

      • whether my topic is important in the field?
      • whether my writing and ideas are clear?
      • whether my ideas are conceptually/logically flowing?
      • whether my argument is strong and any suggestions for improving it?
      • whether I'm correctly writing about ___ topic/idea and if you have any suggestions for improvement?

(3) WHEN TO ASK

  • DO NOT ask for feedback when your advisor is not available. 

    • This point may sound obvious, but figure out when your advisor is on contract (many academic faculty are on 9 month contracts) and/or willing to work with you. 

    • Availability can vary from person to person, so JUST ASK them. Never assume.
  • DO ask for feedback at regular and scheduled intervals. 

    • Some of the most successful dissertation finishers have "trained" their advisor to MEET WITH THEM REGULARLY (e.g., every week or every other week) for 30-60 minute sessions. 

    • Asking to meet with them regularly shows you are invested and keeps you and your work on your advisor's radar.

    • Regularly meeting with your advisor also allows a time for you to discuss clearer deadlines for providing and receiving feedback.

(4) WHAT TO EXPECT

  • DO NOT expect your advisor to remember past feedback they have given you, especially if a lot of time has elapsed between communications -- hence, why point #3 is key to avoiding problems in  this area! 

    • One of the most COMMON COMPLAINTS I hear is that advisors give feedback and then give the opposite feedback later, after work has gone into the writing. 

    • Realize that your advisor is likely reading and writing DOZENS of different studies/student work/other each week.

    • When you approach them for feedback, REMIND them about what you are doing and where you left off. And...see the next point...
  • DO keep track of the feedback your advisor has given you in writing and gently remind them.

    • Track-changes are the best in MS Word; Google Docs also keeps a record of changes. You can also write down notes. 

    • Realize that when a lot of time elapses between feedback (again, why you REALLY want to do point #3), your advisor might be seeing your writing in a new way and have new ideas ... hence, the reason why you are getting contradictory/different feedback (not excusing, but just trying to explain the why and how to avoid this).
(5) WHO TO ASK
  • DO NOT ask your dissertation advisor to revise or edit your writing for grammar or formatting. 

    • As a general rule, utilize your dissertation advisor for CONTENT-RELATED matters. 

    • You can also ask them for feedback on conceptual ideas and logical flow, but do NOT expect them to revise your writing for you or to teach you how to do it. 

    • Depending on your advisor, it is best to have more polished writing for them to review. Some advisors will be OK with "messy" drafts, but some may not be/not have tolerance for them. 

    • Know your advisor's expectations and seek out external help where needed. 
  • DO ask a professional editor or an academic writing coach for help with grammar, formatting, and revising. 

    • Contrary to what many people think, hiring a professional editor is OK to do with dissertations and manuscripts. I would recommend doing this toward the very end of your work, once things are approved.

    • What's NOT OK is to have someone else write your dissertation. I say this because I've been amazed at how many "academic writing services" offer to write your dissertation for you. Without going into a lecture on academic integrity and ethics, allow me to say that this route will not end well if you want to build a solid and fulfilling academic career.

    • If you need with conceptual flow and patterns of editing issues along the way, it is also OK to hire an academic writing coach to give you examples and ideas of how to fix your own writing.

    • Expect an academic writing coach to help you PROBLEM SOLVE, MODEL, TEACH, GUIDE, and/or POINT YOU TO RESOURCES about what to do with a piece of your writing (i.e., not do it for you).

Closing

At Real Academics we help individuals be joyful, productive, and successful in their academic, learning, and life pursuits. 

Also, SHARE this post with a friend/colleague if you found it helpful.

Until next time, happy writing, productivity, and truth-seeking,

Maggie










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Need a Boost of Encouragement? The Accomplishment List

Image
Dear Real Academics, As faculty (at the time of this writing), I am on a 9 month-contract.  But, every summer for the past 7 years in my tenure-track position seems to be a non-stop list of things to do including attending dissertation defenses, reviewing manuscripts, reviewing conference proposals, going to research meetings, analyzing data, writing and submitting conference proposals, writing and submitting manuscripts and grants, setting up classes for the next semester, setting up meetings for the next semester,  answering student advising emails,  managing upcoming faculty searches, and more. So, you can imagine how annoyed I get when I hear people assume that I am so lucky to be an "educator" because I get summers off. I wish!  Around the end of July this year, I was near burn-out.  Around the first week of August , I was looking ahead to the gazillion of emails streaming into my in-box to get things set up for the start of the semester (not to mention the...
Read more

The Power of Logging

Image
Dear Real Academics, There's a pattern among productivity strategists: If you want results, track your progress. Whether I'm watching a video or reading about financial planning, nutritional well-being, exercise programs, writing productivity, or self management in general, all programs that WORK have some element of what I default to calling "logging". I default to this term because of my experience with logging with writing (more on that below). Logging is tracking your progress.  I know, I know...it sounds dull and mundane and boring and hard to remember to do. It may even sound rigid, but here's the news: It is powerful. Why? This is a good question. For this post, I will not get into any facts or figures or empirical data to prove to you that tracking your progress is powerful when it comes to making progress.  But, reflect on your own experience. When have you made real progress on any goal you had that required change/effort/difficulty? What did it look lik...
Read more

Writing Models

Image
Dear Real Academics, Did you know there's such a thing as a writing model? And, here, I don't mean a person holding up the palm of their hand under a piece of paper to display it. Here I mean an example of writing similar to the one you need to or want to (or both!) compose. When I was in graduate school, I knew I needed to write a dissertation in order to graduate. Early in my program, I had never written a dissertation, much less read one. So, I looked for dissertation models in my program and studied them -- not for the content but for the structure. I asked myself: How long are dissertations? (they vary tremendously depending on methodology, I discovered!). How are dissertations organized? (there are traditional chapters, but there are formats that include a collection of related journal articles). How does each dissertation section begin and end? (I learned they are fairly repetitive in the beginning and end of each section because they are so long and want to remind the ...
Read more