I think many people can become too attached to their work, and cannot divest themselves of the "it is part of me" mentality. It is one paper. It is not the sum of your work, nor a complete representation of your work. If this person gave you bad guidelines then he should accept some responsibility. Saying that, you took on the task....or didn't it occur to you at the outset that this may present difficulties?

Actually, I don't think it's that patronising, Phdbug. Where do you pick that up from? I've read the last sentence over a few times, and it doesn't feel that way. Having said that, however, and I don't know if you've picked up on this bug, I do find the part about too many people letting themselves let their PhD become too much apart of themselves offensive. It's a bit hard not too, given the fact that it's 3 - 5 years of your life, typically! :-s

hmm, I think tone is always a question of interpretation, and the tone of this struck me as more top-down than the collaborative tone in most other responses. As I said, these are all matters of interpretation, widely variant from intended meaning etc. :-)

I still find it a little terse, but never mind! I have a paper to present tomorrow and perhaps am just freaking out over that !