Selecting and
Managing Your Advisor
and Committee Members
Welcome again to TADA! FinishLine.
Many
students think I created the TADA! Thesis and Dissertation
Accomplished CD because I did not have a good advisor. I want
you to know that I had a wonderful advisor. He was a tenured
professor and well respected in my academic department. He
wasn’t my best friend; my friend Elsie had fulfilled
that role a long time ago. He was intelligent, well respected
in the field, and had the reputation of being an advocate for
his student advisees. I chose him because he was reliable and
a great advocate for me. While some faculty members might be
able to serve as mentors, you need an advisor who has power
and respect in the department.
Selecting an advisor requires you to
make an honest assessment of your working style. What type
of working environment maximizes your true potential? Do you
need someone to micro-manage every aspect of your thesis or
dissertation project? Do you flourish when you are given a
task and allowed to work at your own pace? Do you excel when
you are allowed to figure things out by yourself? Are you willing
to ask for help when you need it? To successfully complete
your thesis or dissertation, you need an advisor who complements
your working style.
Here are 7 tips to managing your advisor
and committee members:
| 1. Interview
Potential Advisors |
Remember, you and your advisor
should be enthusiastic about your thesis or dissertation
topic. When selecting a selecting a topic you have
to think of whom on the faculty is an expert on that
topic and would be willing to work with you. Prior
to your interview for an advisor, consider writing
a three-page draft of a proposal to discuss with your
potential advisor. Be sure to ask if the faculty member
is planning a sabbatical in the next two years.
Selecting the right advisor
is critical to your success in graduate school. Your
advisor can propel or hinder your academic progress.
As a graduate student you have very little power in
your academic department. Hence, you need to select
an advisor who can be an advocate for you. To be your
best advocate, your advisor should have tenure and
the respect of his peers. As chair of your committee,
peer respect will be invaluable when your advisor has
to supervise the other committee members and facilitate
your defense hearing.
|
| 2. Interview Fellow
Students/Advisees |
Although a faculty
member might be respected in his or her discipline,
be aware that some faculty members might be difficult
to work with; advisors sometimes ask for a draft when
what they really want is a polished piece. Some advisors
might prefer to work with the same sex graduate student.
Others may or may not be willing to co-author with
their graduate students.
Your peers are
your greatest resource; advanced graduate students
are often willing to share information about what it
is like to work for or with a particular faculty member.
As a possible advisee, you need inside information
on:
- Availability and accessibility of the advisor
- Timeliness and quality of the feedback
- His/her expectations—are they realistic?
- The working atmosphere in the lab
- Management style—micro or macro
- Facilitation skills during defense hearings
- Average time his/her advisees take to finish
|
| 3. Be Professional
With Advisor/Committee Members |
The quality of the advisee/advisor
relationship varies and is based on the commitment
level and personalities of your advisor and yourself.
Both of you have some responsibility for making this
relationship work successfully. You should be as professional
with your advisor/committee members as possible.
- Let your advisor/committee member know that you
value his or her time. Get to your scheduled meetings
on time. Don’t sweat it if your advisor/committee
member is late.
- Be prepared with an agenda for your regularly
scheduled meetings-- prepare questions ahead of time.
- Call and cancel if you will not be able to make
your scheduled meeting.
- Send a follow-up email confirming any items and
resolutions that were discussed during the meeting.
- Prepare a coversheet with an outline of your document
indicating the type of feedback you are looking for.
- Don’t get frustrated if they ask for another
copy of the latest draft of your document even if
you haven’t made any changes since you gave
it to them last week.
- Always bring a hard copy of the chapter to be
discussed with you.
- Takes notes at all meetings; you won’t remember
everything once you leave the office.
|
| 4. Don’t Assume,
Ask |
The relationship between you, your advisor and committee
members varies by the amount of direction, personal
interaction, and psychological support. In addition,
the type of criticism given and the frequency of interaction
will depend on the type of relationship you and your
advisor has established. It is quite possible that
each committee member could have different expectations
of you.
It is your responsibility to find out what
level of participation each member of the committee
is willing to commit to. I know of a student who directly
asked each committee member “what do you need
to see in this dissertation for you to sign-off on
it?” By asking ahead of time, she was able to
address each member’s concerns with the help
of her advisor.
|
| 5. Understanding
Your Advisor And Committee Members |
The best academic advisor does not have the time
to hold your hand throughout your academic career.
The academic advisor’s time is limited because,
after all, he or she is a professor first and is getting
paid to teach courses, advise graduate students, supervise
graduate research, write books or journal articles,
and serve on campus- and university-wide committees.
Moreover, your advisor went through the same process
without much assistance from his/her advisor when he/she
attended graduate school. Therefore, the tradition
of completing a thesis or dissertation is a lonely
process and an unsympathetic advisor does not want
to cheat you out of having the same experience he/she
suffered through years ago. Hence, your academic advisor’s
main commitment is to supervise your research project.
He/she will not be your friend, therapist, financial
aid counselor, or marital advisor.
|
6. Choose your battles
wisely—Handling Conflicts
and Disagreements |
Your advisor is the coordinator of your thesis or
dissertation project. While the major role of your
advisor is to share his or her expertise with you to
help you develop your ideas, your advisor is also supposed
to advocate on your behalf as well. Should your committee
members give you conflicting advice you should bring
this to your advisor’s attention.
Resolving conflicts among committee members is part
of your advisor’s responsibilities. After you
resolve the issue with your advisor, ask if she/he
is going to be responsible for communicating the solution
to the other committee members. If she/he suggests
that you handle that issue it might be prudent to send
your advisor an email confirming the agreed upon resolution.
You might consider copying the other committee members
with this confirmation.
If you and your advisor disagree you might consider
writing a more persuasive argument addressing his concerns.
Arguing with your advisor is not time well spent. If
you spent the time choosing a well-qualified expert,
an active supporter and head cheerleader, these disagreements
should be minor and short-lived. You need him/her---Your
advisor will be writing recommendations for you well
after you have left the university.
|
7. Seeking Feedback
And Advice From Your Advisor
and Committee Members |
If you are having problems getting timely written
or oral feedback from your advisor there are many things
that you can do to move this process along. Your advisor
and committee members are busy people. Consequently
you must make the best use of their time. First, if
you cannot get feedback from your advisor, try another
committee member to keep things moving along.
Second, when you submit your thesis or dissertation
chapter/s for review you should provide some guidance
on how you want your advisor/committee member to read
your document. Sometimes you might just be looking
for answers as to whether or not your methodology or
reasoning is logical and going in the right direction.
If you want this type of feedback your advisor might
not have to read as closely as he might think if you
do not provide any instructions. It would be a good
idea to provide an outline of your chapter so that
your advisor can get a good overview of what the chapter
is about and where it fits into your thesis or dissertation.
Without instructions your advisor is likely to place
your document in a pile of “must-read” items.
Leave the grammar and editing to an editor; your advisor
will give the final grammar edits on your final draft.
|
Email Question of the Month:
Q:
My advisor has given me feedback on
the same three chapters, should I wait until they are fully
polished before I move on?
A:
As a graduate student your task is
to make daily progress; revising the same chapter over and
over again does not move you forward in any substantive way.
You should not wait until those chapters are fully polished
before you move on. You should be giving your advisor new chapters
to read while you revise the ones he gives you back.
Your job as a graduate student is
to keep your advisor apprised of what you are doing. If you
are constantly just giving him or her the same three chapters
this does not convince him that you are making progress. As
always you should provide your advisor with an outline and
cover sheet with instructions on how to read the document you
have submitted for review. Thus you should write another chapter
while you are waiting to hear back from your advisor or committee
members.
Be sure to ask your other committee
members for feedback as well. In reality your advisor assumes
that you can polish your own work when it comes to grammar
and style. If you can’t because of time constraints you
can always hire an editor. Try to use your advisor’s
time as efficiently as possible. It is a good idea to have
your advisor focus on the big picture, i.e. the entire thesis/dissertation
and not on the minutiae.
Some of the major questions your advisor
will be focusing on are: (1) have you addressed all of the
relevant literature (2) is the methodology sound (3) are there
any weaknesses that you have overlooked (4) are your conclusions
valid. When you have all of the chapters finished and you are
getting near the defense then your advisor should be focusing
on polishing the entire document.
 Our Mistake Is Your Gain...
January 1, 2005 starts on a Saturday
and the TADA!™ Calendar says it starts on a
Friday. One of
our astute customers brought this to our attention. Oops,
we messed up, but our mistake is your gain. Because of
this only glitch, we have reduced our price drastically. In
the coming weeks, we will produce new updated CDs, but in the
meantime, we must liquidate our inventory, and we are selling
the TADA!™ CD for
only $29.95. I guess it pays to sign up for something.
 You
are probably getting this newsletter because you either attended
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executive summary of the Six Major Reasons Graduate Students
Don’t Finish from our website, or you filled out the TADA!™ Commitment
Form. Nonetheless, you are one of the first people who will
reap the benefits. Everything else on the TADA!™ CD works.
We have received loads of positive feedback regarding the valuable
information available on the CD.
I hope that you will also take advantage
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before the supply runs out. Once this batch is gone the price
goes back to $89.95.
Order your copy of the TADA!™ CD
today by going online or calling
1-866-GET- TADA.
Please pass this issue on to friends
and associates—just keep the entire message intact.
Sincerely,
Wendy Y. Carter, Ph.D.
email:
drcarter@tadafinallyfinished.com
www.tadafinallyfinished.com
About the Author: As a single mother, professor
Wendy Y. Carter, Ph.D., completed three masters' degrees
and a PhD. Her motto is a Good Thesis/Dissertation is a Done
Thesis/Dissertation. She is the creator of a new innovative interactive
resource tool on CD--TADA! Thesis and Accomplished. To learn
more and sign up for her FREE tips and teleclasses, contact us at
info@tadafinallyfinished.com.
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Volume
1, Issue 5 
