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Advisor has not returned my chapter draft in eleven weeks and stopped replying Advisor
I sent chapter three (about 40 pages, methods heavy) on 12 March. Two follow-up emails, plus one in-person ask after a seminar where he said it was on his list. Nothing since. My committee meeting is booked for September and chapters four and five both depend on whether he accepts the methods framing. I do not want to escalate to the director of graduate studies and poison the relationship for the next two years, but I have now lost a whole summer. What has actually got a draft back for you?
@career_ladder_kim · 3mo ago · 3 replies
Stop sending chapters. A 40 page draft is a task he has to schedule; a two page memo is a task he can do while his coffee cools. Send: three bullet points on what you decided, two specific questions where you genuinely need his call, and one sentence saying you will proceed with option A unless you hear otherwise by a date. That last clause is the whole trick. It converts his silence from a blocker into permission, and most advisors will suddenly find twenty minutes rather than let you proceed on a choice they dislike.
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@adjunct_ora · 3mo ago
The "unless I hear otherwise by the 30th" line feels aggressive to me. Does it not read as an ultimatum from a student?
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@career_ladder_kim · 3mo ago
Frame it as your problem, not his failing: "I know term is brutal, so to keep myself moving I'll assume option A is fine unless you flag it by the 30th." Nobody has ever read that as an ultimatum in my department, and I have watched three people use it.
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