The Role of Your Supervisor

The allocation of supervisors is ultimately the responsibility of the Theory Honours Coordinator. In making such allocations, the Coordinator will take account of preferences expressed by both students and staff but are not able to guarantee that these preferences will always be met.

Students are advised to see their supervisor at least every fortnight. It is the student's responsibility to arrange (and keep) these meetings.

Students are responsible for proposing the area and general idea behind their thesis. Your supervisor will assist you to refine your topic, which often means reducing a broad idea into a precise question.

Your supervisor may also suggest ways to make effective use of research time; discuss the standard required of an Honours thesis; and provide a constructive and critical assessment of any work submitted. Your supervisor will point out sloppy or incorrect grammar or expression. However, it is not the responsibility of the supervisor to rewrite material for students.

It is important to submit sections of your draft progressively to your supervisor throughout the year so that he or she has ample time to offer comments and advice and you have ample time to rewrite or amend your work. Submission of a large amount of new material shortly before submission date may prevent your supervisor from giving sufficient time to it and/or leave you with insufficient time to carry out necessary rewriting or correcting. Experience indicates that theses completed in a last-minute rush often suffer from easily corrected errors (grammatical, spelling and typographical) as well as obvious errors in argument, and lose marks accordingly.

You are advised to follow the advice given by your supervisor, and should note that the supervisor will make a report to the examiners including whether he/she has read the final draft and drawing attention to any matters he/she considers relevant to the assessment of the thesis. These could include: comments concerning any difficulties encountered by the candidate with his/her thesis project (such as difficulties in obtaining data or relevant literature); the extent to which the candidate has consulted with his or her supervisor and the degree of assistance given by the supervisor; the degree of initiative displayed by the candidate; and any personal circumstances which may have affected the candidate's performance.

In special circumstances you may apply to the Theory Honours Coordinator for a change in supervisor.