Varieties in PhD Supervisors: Do we get to choose them?

Type 1: Aggressive and Negative: This is the most commonly known and most commonly found type of supervisor. They are extreme types of antagonists and mostly impolite and insensitive. They often do not think about putting mud over all your ideas and make you feel like a fool.

Type 2: The Cribber:   It is another category of supervisors and their primary focus is on their troubles and they emphasise more upon moaning about their problems than anything else. Listening to their complaints with patience repeatedly is the only choice that we have.

Type 3: Non Responsive: a whole lot of PhD supervisors fall in this category of being non responsive. They would not respond to phone calls and emails and would become just inaccessible. It is always a good idea to give these types of supervisors a chance to respond and then eventually take control of your own thesis.

Type 4: Over friendly: this category is a very risky category of supervisors ad they make a whole lot of promises to you. However, unfortunately a lot of their promises are empty promises. Relying upon these types of supervisors may not reap very profitable results. Self-dependence is the key here one again.

Type 5: I know it all: These people have a narcissist approach and have a string belief that their way is the only way and the right way.  They do not seem to approve or appreciate ideas and directions that do not align with their thought process. Nor do they give the liberty to the scholars to explore and take the decisions with their own experiences. Dealing with these kinds of supervisors can be actually a task.

Type 6: The indecisive: The frustration level of the students multiplies with supervisors that are indecisive; they bring in changes in the topic, methodology, interpretations every time they see the work. They hesitate and lack confidence in their decisions. Assertiveness from the end of the students would help in bringing out the advantages of a particular decision.

Type 7: The Nagging: Rarely but there are supervisors who are micro managers with their students. They would want to know every little detail about their students’ projects and so many times would initiate calls and communication after work hours. Setting the scope of your project rightly is required at this stage.

Often scholars engrossed in their PhD work tend to ignore their stress symptoms. Ignoring or turning a blind eye to these symptoms is not one of the greatest ideas because if there is too much of accumulation of pressure within without identification and a vent out it may result in a harmful outpour. A mature scholar would not let the symptoms lie but would surface them and handle them. There are certain feelings and   experiences that are often found specifically in PhD scholars. They are:

1. A perpetual feeling that you don’t have the potential to work hard
2. An overwhelming feeling with the  work pressure
3.  A sense  that you are not  constructively exploiting your true potential for your PhD
4. The lack in focus
5. A feeling that your efforts are not strong or impactful
6. A lack of control over actions and outcomes
7. A feeling that  the easiest of tasks have become challenging
8. A perpetual sense of fear and uncertainty
9. Physical and emotional  tiredness
10.  A negative apprehension that everyone would get exposed to your inability to perform

Often, those who even recognize these underlying symptoms of stress try to be more organised or work harder but these are not the solutions to the problem. The target should be on the root problem. The following approach may be of help in a general way for dealing better with the problem:

1. Take things slowly: This is the hardest but the most essential thing to do under a lot of work pressure. Slowing down helps to think and simplify the tasks so that they could be handled properly
2. Self-introspection: Peep into your own schedule and eliminate all the extra things you have been working. It is a good start to prioritize your work and focus on one thing at a time. Break down your tasks into smaller steps and follow the progress step wise.
3. Observe your reaction when things go wrong: Whenever you are in a problem what is your reaction? Does it come to you as a personal failure or do you involve yourself into the problem and figure out a solution to the same. Small failures are an inevitable part of research and your reaction to the same contributes towards your success
4. Learn to let go:   Coping up with failing in your PhD may be a tough task, to say simply but certainly it is not the worst thing that could happen to anybody. You should never lose trust in your own capability. Look at the problem holistically and try to find a solution. If no solution is available don’t take quitting as a personal failure.

As they say, there is always a room for improvement. How much ever carefully the thesis be developed, it is always advisable to proof read the text not just one but  more times  so as to ensure that the problems  are eliminated at all levels.

Before the final submission, each paper should be edited very carefully. Some tips that may help to add quality to the research work are:

Keep aside sufficient time for proofreading: The schedule for research should be so planned that the research scholar must finish all work and keep aside sufficient time which is exclusive for the purpose of proofreading. Not just once but couple of times. This should be planned way before the submission deadline

Handle one grain at a time: There are many problems to deal with when proofreading and correcting thesis work and it is important that the researcher moves ahead step by step. Always begin with punctuation errors and then graduate to spelling errors and finally towards the structuring of the sentences

Extra caution with Names and Numeric:  In all the places in the thesis where names or statistical figure have been incorporated, the researcher must be sure of the spellings and the figures. The same caution applies to facts and figures

Hard Copy proof reading: After have carefully gone through a soft copy, may be more than one it is still important to go through the proof reading process on a hard copy. There may be few mistakes that may get overlooked on the system but get noticed or come forth prominent on a print out

Read loudly: This is a technique not followed by many researchers but it is often a very useful technique. Reading out the thesis loudly helps to identify the mistakes that the eye may have overlooked.  It is even better to ask another person to read it out to you, in intervals and as a listener you could concentrate on mistakes that may have not been noticed in proofreading

 

Make use of common sense along with logic: The computer only works on logic. It may help the researcher with spelling errors but the application of the word and its suitability is the decision and discretion of the researcher. The use of correct vocabulary is the skill of an experienced researcher and the scholar could seek professional advice for the same

 

Getting third person perspective: This is the last but a very important tip as a neutral opinion helps to get a holistic perspective to the thesis and helps to eliminate biases if any