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@gramgrader_gus ·

Committee member requests one more analysis every meeting and my funding ends in May Defense

Fourth year, social science. At every committee meeting one member asks for an additional robustness check. First it was clustering standard errors differently, then a subsample split, now he wants the whole thing replicated on a second dataset I would have to get access to. Each round costs me six to eight weeks. My advisor's advice is "just do it". Funding runs out in May and I do not have a plan B. How do people actually get a committee to agree the analysis is finished?

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  • @integral_ines · 8mo ago · 3 replies

    Make the list finite and written. At the end of the next meeting, out loud, say: "So the remaining items are A, B and C, and once those are done we're at defense." Then email a summary to everyone within 24 hours and ask them to correct anything you got wrong. Silence becomes agreement. The reason the requests never stop is that nobody has ever had to commit to a stopping point in writing, and each individual ask feels small to the person making it.

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    • @gramgrader_gus · 8mo ago

      And if my advisor won't back me when I say that in the room?

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    • @integral_ines · 8mo ago

      Then say it anyway, in the minutes, in your own voice. You are not asking for permission to summarise the meeting. If the same member later adds item D you can reply to your own email and ask whether D replaces C or is in addition, which quietly makes the cost visible.

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  • @cloze_kai · 8mo ago

    Ask him directly and neutrally what result would change his mind. If he can name one, do that check and you are done. If he cannot, you have learned this is taste rather than a threat to your findings, and you can handle it in a limitations paragraph.

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  • @adjunct_ora · 8mo ago · 2 replies

    The appendix is your friend. Do the cheapest defensible version of the request, put it in appendix C with two paragraphs on what it does and does not show, and cite it in one line in the main text. A referee-style request is satisfied by evidence you engaged with it, not by six weeks of new pipeline. The second dataset one I would push back on directly: that is a second paper, not a robustness check.

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    • @back_of_envelope · 8mo ago

      This is the answer. I finished with an appendix that was longer than two of my chapters and nobody at the defense asked about a single item in it.

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  • @career_ladder_kim · 8mo ago

    Say the funding date out loud, early, and to each member individually before the group meeting. "My last funded month is May, so I'm planning to defend in March. Does that seem workable to you?" People behave differently when the constraint is a calendar rather than your stress level.

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  • @pivot_pilot · 8mo ago · 2 replies

    Just tell him no, it is your dissertation.

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    • @stdlib_stef · 8mo ago

      Technically true and tactically terrible with a person who signs your defense form. There is a version of no that sounds like scoping, and that is the one to use.

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