Livre d'Or

Thanks for contributing your experience to the discussion. Motivation and getting work done is such a huge thing for nearly every PhD student. Because it's a very long project with no clear deadlines and not really a clear idea of what exactly needs to be completed even by the ultimate deadline of the end of the project. So the onus is on the supervisor to create some kind of structure and act as a manager, which many academics don't have much experience or training to do.

I think I need to put lots of thought into how to provide motivation in a supportive way, without giving the impression I'm punishing my student for not working hard enough. I'm fairly sure we will get to a stage where she struggles to make progress, whether that's coming into the lab to do yet more experiments that don't work, or working another chapter of the thesis when it seems endless.

And yes, reading drafts and coming back with comments quickly is something I ought to be good at, thanks for mentioning that.