On my Masters course, I have a friend who is currently doing research using the same methodology that I have used in a couple of previous projects. He's asked to read one of my essays as he's not sure how to discuss his results. I'm a bit wary of sending him an essay - recently he did a presentation where the title of his talk was extremely similar to one that me and my supervisors did and it couldn't have been a coincidence. He's a really competitive person, especially with me. I'm thinking that I might just send him one of my presentations that he has seen before even though it isn't quite what he was asking for. I hope you don't mind me posting this in the PhD forum - I thought you will probably have more experience of this sort of thing. How do you all deal with people like this? Many thanks :-)

Hi, I've often had this type of situation. So here's my humble opinion. Normally I would point them in the right direction rather than providing a sample of unpublished work. If he is unsure how to discuss his results, maybe point them in the direction of stuff you used for inspiration? Just an idea.

Hmm. It sounds like he's mistaking your kindness for naivety. I agree with Lysethia: don't send your unpublished work. A couple titles of helpful references should be more than enough.

Thanks to both of you for your advice. I've done exactly that :-)