what I know and I believe it is important about supervision

state of the art
state of the art
state of the art

I knew this since I started my PhD in 1990. But only after T. did not want to run a state of the art review in the first 6 months of his PhD and in fact he never run a systematic review, I understand how important it is.

To ground research questions, to get a common vocabulary, to get a picture of the International network of individuals, conference and journals.

If a student does not want to run a state of the art, if a student has not done it after 1/4 of the time (1 year for 4 years PhD) stop and talk to him. Ask why. And give him 3 more months. Be strong and strict.

Involve your self in the process of reviewing the literature. It is the tool you have to understand the field further, be able to write applications in the field, bien able to write papers together with the student.

what I know and I believe it is important about supervision

these notes about supervision are based on my own experience as supervisor and observer of other relationships supervisor - PhD or master student.

1. formal constraints are important. we should use enough time together with the students to understand the rules imposed by University and the Department. These rules are a tool we have a supervisors to ensure some structure in the process. The process of getting acquainted with these rules is a time in which the candidate and the supervisor get to know each other on a somewhat neutral field. do not discuss so much about how stupid or useful these rules are. there will be enough room for discussion about scientific or method related topics.

For example, at our departement, the candidate should write a plan after 6 months and have a middle term evaluation after 2 years.

The plan is important.

impose some extra rules, like the important one that the candidate should write minutes of each important meeting.

My experience with T. is that we neither used time to look at the formal framework nor I managed to impose that he should write minutes each time.
I never managed to get his plan to become a useful tool for us.

on the other hand, having so many problems in this process, has given me the energy to invest time in formal constraints management with another PhD student (S) and with a set of master students.

To be continued.