The How and When of Advisor Communication

When you’re giving the advisor something new, give yourself some good P.R! I constantly edit out of my e-mails questions like, “do you think the organization is okay?” I want my advisor to notice problems on his or her own, I don’t want them to be looking for the bad stuff I pointed out. I mean, as a teacher, how could you not find something wrong with a student’s organization if they said, “I keep trying and trying to make the organization work, but I’m still not happy with it.” Of course you would think of ways the student could improve, even if you followed the paper’s argument easily.Try to say something positive, even if it’s just “I’m looking forward to talking with you about this draft.” Give them a good feeling going in, not a feeling of trepidation.

Now, it IS important to explain where you’re at with your draft. Be clear: “this is a first draft,” or, “this is Chapter 4, minus the concluding two sections.” Even better, tell them what you want to focus on: “I don’t want you to copy edit yet, I’m still working on the big picture.”

It seems to me that the time for expressing doubts–saying, “I think the chapter might suck in this way, but I don’t know what to do,” or, “I really wanted to say that Godzilla was the postmodern equivalent of Zeus, but I’m worried that my point is not clear”–is just after your advisor has given you comments on something. You can respond to the comments they’ve given in a “yes and” kind of way. I see what you’re saying about the thesis not being clear, and I’m wondering if I should delete section three altogether, or if it should just be connected better to the concerns of section 2. The “yes and” concept is great because by agreeing with your advisor, you tell them you value their opinion and want to take their advice. You’re relating your own concerns to theirs, and that helps them feel understood by you (always a nice feeling when trying to help someone). At the same time, your self-criticism has a context for them–you’re not just badmouthing your work before they’ve seen it. Rather, seeing your doubts and their criticism as two approaches to the same problem might help both of you to articulate the potential solutions more precisely.