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:

  1. Notes from the previous meeting - the main issues discussed in the last meeting (this section will be empty if it is the first meeting);
  2. Tasks for this meeting - the work that the student had to carry out up until this meeting;
  3. Progress report - a description of progress in terms of which tasks described in 2 have been succesfully carried out;
  4. Problem report - a list of the problems encountered to carry out the tasks;
  5. Proposed tasks for next meeting - a list of tasks that would help us solve the problems in 4;
  6. Review of Timetable - any changes to the timetable;
  7. Any other business - general issues that need to be discussed;
  8. Date of Next meeting - agreement for scheduling the next meeting, if this is not scheduled for the whole term;
  9. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. Please do not expect your draft to be read “overnight” or “over the weekend”.
  3. 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:

  1. Has the draft been read through carefully?
  2. Has the draft been spell checked?
  3. Is the draft written in plain, concise and grammatically correct English?
  4. Are all the pages and sections numbered? (This is essential for written feedback.)
  5. Is the draft double-spaced? (Again, this is essential for written feedback.)
  6. 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?
  7. Is there an accompanying (albeit tentative or provisional) outline or table of contents for the whole dissertation?
  8. Does the draft include all references? (Please don’t hand in drafts with the intention to “add references later”.)
  9. 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 :

  1. Use plain, concise, grammatically correct English.
  2. Keep individual sentences reasonably short and concise.
  3. Use a spell checker, but don't rely on this as an alternative to proof-reading.
  4. Carefully read through every piece of written work before letting anyone else see it (even if it is only a rough draft).
  5. 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:

  1. Cristian W Dawson. The Essence of Computing Projects: A Student Guide. Prentice Hall 1999. ISBN 0 1302 1972X.
  2. 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.
  3. J Paradis and M Zimmerman. The MIT Guide to Science and Engineering Communication. MIT Press 1997. ISBN 0262161427.
  4. Justin Zobel. Writing For Computer Science. New York: Springer-Verlag 1997. ISBN 1 8523 38024.
  5. Raj Jain. The Art of Computer Systems Performace Analysis. Wiley 1991. ISBN 0 4715 03363.
  6. 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