Welcome to my new blog
Discourse on thesis supervision is a blog that will focus on all aspects of graduate research student supervision. The idea is to inspire both PhD and masters by research candidates - as well as those who supervise them - to engage in constructive dialogue on a range of issues relating specifically to the supervision process.
It would be safe to say that doctoral students do much of the original research carried out in Australian universities. In UWA alone we have roughly 200 completing PhD candidates each year. That represents about 16 million collective words in final form.
Clearly, this reflects high quality, high productivity work which will no doubt contribute significant intellectual, economic and social capital to the nation. Both graduate students and their supervisors expend enormous amounts of time and energy in producing research that will benefit us all. Undoubtedly, the working relationship between student and supervisor must be positive and durable if innovative, quality postgraduate research is to ensue. It is critical, therefore, that we endeavour to increase our awareness of issues surrounding supervisory practice.
This is essentially the philosophy that I will bring to 'Discourse on Thesis Supervision'. I hope that this blog will be interesting to UWA's postgraduate research students and that, overall, it contributes to improving the working relationship with your supervisor.