The audit trail
Record keeping is fundamental to research – and to research supervision. Supervisors often resist student-record-keeping as mindless bureaucracy, but a clear audit trail […]
Destructive behaviours (to avoid)
Students ask: What should I do when I haven’t made any progress? I don’t want to waste my supervisor’s time… There are few […]
Navigating terminological confusion – the case of case studies
Students ask: What is a case study? One of the ironies of academia that, in a realm that strives for precision and rigour, […]
Talk in 2 minutes
Students ask: How can I explain all of my research in two minutes? Many conferences have two-minute slots for people to introduce their […]
Walk-and-talk
Taking an awkward or difficult conversation with a student out of the office and walking around outside while you talk – the […]
Good enough
Students ask: How do you know something (i.e., your research, your paper, your dissertation) is good enough? This is one of those ‘how […]
Awkward conversations
Students ask: How can I handle awkward conversations with my supervisors? How can I disagree with my supervisors? What if my supervisors are wrong? The […]
Thrashing
Students ask: What should I do when I keep working and working, but I don’t seem to get anywhere? Thrashing is a […]
Tough love
‘Tough love’ is concept borrowed from parenting. In the context of supervision, it’s the notion that part of caring about and supporting students […]
Regulations are tools
Academics tend to dislike rules set by other people, and they tend to loathe bureaucracy (even while inventing it). But regulations are unavoidable. […]