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English. While it is not the supervisors responsibility to teach students
mastery of diverse aspects of English, it is their responsibility to ensure that
their own students have access to whatever language training they need.
Even with language training there is also, for many supervisors, the
difficult decision to make as to how far to go in editing students written
work  or even in rewriting it. Some copyediting and the correction of
spelling and grammatical errors is the lot of the supervisor in regard to all
168 HOW TO GET A PhD
students, but with non-English speaking students the question arises as to
how much further this can go before the work ceases to be regarded as the
student s own. Knight (1999) makes the point that a relatively small
amount of rewiting (e.g. one small section of one chapter) would be justi-
fied on grounds of giving an example for the student to learn from, but it
would be difficult to defend a greater amount of rewriting.
Nevertheless this is a temptation to which many supervisors are
exposed, as it seems to be the easiest way of progressing the research. The
use of copyeditors, which university regulations do not normally pro-
scribe, raises the same issue. How far is work by another allowable before
the necessary statement that the thesis is genuinely the work of the candi-
date becomes compromised? There are no definite rules, and this is a
judgement that has to be made in every case.
We think it right that supervisors should very carefully restrict their
contribution, if the examination process is not to be undermined. It is
thus important that they establish early in the research that their contri-
bution on this front will be strictly limited, so that students can do the
necessary learning during the course of the research. It would be patently
unfair for students to be confronted with this problem in its entirety only
at the writing-up stage of their project.
The unprepared supervisor may also be surprised to discover problems
arising out of the use of quotations and the need to ensure that they are
appropriately referenced. In many non-western cultures, for example, the
practice of meticulously giving credit for quotations used is not common,
and therefore students may be unwittingly guilty of plagiarism. There is
the notion that if it has been written well by someone else and is in the
public domain, then use it. This view may seem strange to us now, but we
should remember that it was not that long ago that it was considered
perfectly appropriate for a professor, for example, to take material from his
student s report and simply include it in his own published papers. The
current western view of the intellectual property rights of students and
other academics is now much stronger and the supervisor has to ensure
that the student internalizes it.
Financial problems can loom large, because students from non-English
speaking backgrounds lack the required language skills and work experi-
ence and consequently end up in poorly paid jobs. Climatic differences
and ill health are further burdens. Such students also encounter problems
in negotiating with unfamiliar bureaucracies. Sometimes worries about
families and friends in situations of political unrest in their home
countries add to the strain.
Finally, overseas student expectations of supervisors may be inappropri-
ate. It is true that many British students are not very well-informed about
the role of the supervisor when they first register for their research degree.
But overseas students often expect an unrealistically high level of
HOW TO SUPERVISE AND EXAMINE 169
contribution from their supervisors towards the research and the thesis.
They have to be helped to understand better the role of the supervisor in
order to survive within British universities. Ryan and Zuber-Skerrit (1999),
based on work in Australia, is a collection of insightful analyses and case
studies highly relevant to the problems of supervising overseas students in
both Britain and Australia.
Having these extra problems to cope with, students from other cultural
backgrounds might find all this academic re-socialization a threat, rather
than a challenge, to their own academic competence. Supervisors need to
be aware of the difficulties and differences and provide the greatly needed
sympathy and support.
Ethnic minorities
Only about one in ten of doctoral students is from an ethnic minority.
Therefore, it is important for supervisors to be aware of the more unusual [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]