Praise Be to the Helpful Advisor

I'll have to think about the snippets strategy. Sounds like a good idea. For right now, you guys are my snippet receivers.

As for advisors, I'm very interested to hear how that works for my fellow dissertanians. The advisor situation is absolutely crucial for me since it is the entire crux of my PhD. As a part-time student at a UK university, I'm not required to take coursework (in general, the UK English programs are light on coursework, more focused on independent research). In addition, I don't think most UK programs have comps and orals. I don't, anyway. So my advisor (or supervisor as she's called) is all I've got. In fact, without her encouragement during the application process, I'm not sure I'm be in a PhD program right now. I chose my university because of her--her interests, her scholarship, and her helpfulness during the application process. When I applied, I had to name who I wanted to work with and explain why I wanted to work with her.

And she has turned out to be awesome. She is my age, has two young kids (as do I), and is someone you just want to be friends with. More than that, she's very helpful, but not intrusive or demanding. When I visited last January, I saw her nearly every day of the week that I was there. One day, I was with her almost all day. She invited me to dinner at her house. On my last night she had dinner with me at my hotel. We had a great time. I don't mean to brag, but I'm just so thankful. Since I'm so far from my university, I'm just so pleased to have her helping me.

Of course, in the end, it's the substance that will matter. She is a prolific scholar and book author. She gets stuff done, so I think she'll be able to help me do the same. When I was there in January, we sketched out a plan, and she indicated some initial pieces of writing that she wanted from me. I completed the first piece in June, and she returned it to me with many in-text comments and suggestions, and she answered all of the questions I asked about future direction, chapters, etc. We discussed me giving her another substantial piece before my next visit in November. However, as I began thinking about it, I just wasn't sure how much writing I could get done (since I have so much to read/learn before I can write much more). She was fine with that. Suggested I work on a bibliography and then worry about writing after the visit. In the end, I think I'll be giving her a rough chapter outline, and I think she'll be cool with that.

Of course she's busy, so I don't hear much from her unless I initiate contact. But occasionally she gives me a heads-up about conferences or articles that I might be interested in.

I also have a "secondary supervisor" whose experience is a perfect complement to that of my primary supervisor, but I don't expect much involvement with her until I have some real drafts going.

Another difference is that when I defend my dissertation (called a "thesis" in the UK) at my viva voce, I do not defend to my supervisor. Rather, I will defend to two examiners that have had nothing to do with my PhD progress. One examiner will be an expert who is external (from another university), and the other examiner will be internal to my university but totally unconnected to me. So my supervisors are there to prepare me so that I can pass the viva with these smart strangers. So I'm depending on them to make sure I'm ready. Thank goodness, I trust my supervisor to do that.

All of that said, I'm realizing that I'm way behind with my knowledge. Since my dissertation topic is outside of my previous interest areas, I'm having to make up a lot of ground on my own, and I don't have much outside direction for that. Mostly because I don't want to fess up about how much I don't know. So I have to figure out for myself what I should know and how I should learn it (as quickly as possible). That's also why I've been think of making up a mock orals list--to focus my cramming. It's hard to imagine I'll ever be an expert on this stuff . . .