Expectation Management for Appointments and Project Supervision
1. Appointments
Arrange a schedule of appointments with me according to my contact
hours (please make sure that you have the latest version of these).
We will normally agree in advance on the time of the meeting
and how long a meeting will last, possibly over a period
of time, at times a whole term.
2. Meeting preparation
You must come prepared and have at least a problem description, a
document describing a list of problems to be discussed during the meeting.
I prefer that you have an agenda with you during a meeting.
This could include a document that you manage (perhaps on notepad or laptop or
both) with the following contents:
- Notes from the
previous meeting - the main issues discussed in the last meeting
(this section will be empty if it is the first meeting);
- Tasks for this
meeting - the work that the student had to carry out up until this
meeting;
- Progress report
- a description of progress in terms of which tasks described in 2 have
been succesfully carried out;
- Problem report
- a list of the problems encountered to carry out the tasks;
- Proposed tasks for
next meeting - a list of tasks that would help us solve the
problems
in 4;
- Review of Timetable
- any changes to the timetable;
- Any other business
- general issues that need to be discussed;
- Date of Next
meeting - agreement for scheduling the next meeting, if this is not scheduled for the whole term;
- Project Plan -
the plan of the project including times such as days away for both me
and
you.
Please make sure that you update the problem description or the agenda
every time we meet. It is advisable that you also keep a copy of the agenda (or
the problem description) for me. You can do this by printing a copy before
the meeting or by sending it to me as an email attachment. In this way, I can
keep a record of our discussions. Such a copy is useful to me in order to
provide specific advice, and it can be useful later, if you ask me to write
a reference for you.
3. Submitting Drafts of a Thesis
If the appointment is to
discuss a draft, please hand in the draft several working days
in advance. The
longer the draft, the more time needed before the appointment. Expect
this process to take even longer during “peak periods” (e.g. near the
end of term, near the beginning of the next academic year, or near the
submission deadline). In particular:
- Please do not expect
the reading of your draft to be given high priority over other
essential teaching, research and administrative work that I have to
undertake.
- Please do not expect
your draft to be read “overnight” or “over the weekend”.
- Make sure that we are
both aware of any periods when supervision cannot take place (e.g.
because of vacations or other periods away from college); I normally inform
students I supervise about the days I am away, but plese check also
in the Department's web-page, under "Office hours". Take these into account
when scheduling work on for a thesis.
4. Checklist for a Thesis Draft
Before you hand in a draft, check the following:
- Has the draft been read
through carefully?
- Has the draft been
spell checked?
- Is the draft written in
plain, concise and grammatically correct English?
- Are all the pages and
sections numbered? (This is essential for written feedback.)
- Is the draft
double-spaced? (Again, this is essential for written feedback.)
- Is the draft reasonably
easy to read and understand? Is there an indication of where it will be
placed in, or in what way it will contribute to, the overall
dissertation?
- Is there an
accompanying (albeit tentative or provisional) outline or table of
contents for
the whole dissertation?
- Does the draft include
all references? (Please don’t hand in drafts with the intention to
“add references later”.)
- If the draft includes
previously submitted material, is there a clear indication of which
bits are new?
5. Recommendations for Writing a Thesis
Do not expect your supervisor to proof read your draft and make sure that the draft is
well written and structured. Badly written drafts degenerate sessions
to basic English lessons rather than focusing on intellectual content. Please
try to :
- Use plain, concise,
grammatically correct English.
- Keep individual
sentences reasonably short and concise.
- Use a spell checker,
but don't rely on this as an alternative to proof-reading.
- Carefully read through
every piece of written work before letting anyone else see it (even if
it is only a rough draft).
- Hand in at least one
piece of written work (perhaps a draft abstract, introduction or first
chapter) as early as possible. In this way, any basic problems with
your writing style can be addressed quickly.
I recommend the following books for BSc/MSc students:
- Cristian W Dawson.
The Essence of Computing Projects: A Student Guide.
Prentice Hall 1999.
ISBN 0 1302 1972X.
- Mikael Berndtsson, Jorgen Hansson, B Olsson, and B Lundell.
Planning and Implementing your Final Year Project - with Success!: A Guide for
Students in Computer Science and Information Systems.
London: Springer-Verlang 2006.
ISBN 1 8523 33324.
- J Paradis and M Zimmerman.
The MIT Guide to Science and Engineering Communication.
MIT Press 1997.
ISBN 0262161427.
- Justin Zobel.
Writing For Computer Science.
New York: Springer-Verlag 1997.
ISBN 1 8523 38024.
- Raj Jain.
The Art of Computer Systems Performace Analysis.
Wiley 1991.
ISBN 0 4715 03363.
- Nicholas J. Higham.
Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences.
SIAM 1998.
ISBN 0 8987 14206.
6. For PhD/MSc by Research Students
If I have asked you to discuss a research paper with me, prepare your discussion accoding to the information found here.
I also recommend this book as useful resource for writing: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace.
7. Contact Details
Prof Kostas Stathis,
Room: Bedford 2-22, Computer Science
Tel: +44 (0)1784 443698
Mob: +44 (0)7799 412 583
Skype: kostas.stathis