Coming close to the end of Masters and need to make a decision about continuing on to do PhD or not. Please help. My supervisor is very overpowering corrects the same piece over and over so it is never good enough after 6 or more drafts and keeps coming up with more changes all the time. It is very disheartening and demotivating. Is this normal practice? Am not sure if I can stick this for another 2 years if I decide to continue....

What kind of changes your supervisor is suggesting? Rephrasing the same theme or addition of new themes and topics. If it is the later case, I would tell the supervisor politely that it is the best I could do. But for that you must be sure that your piece of writing is good enough for qualifying into your thesis section.

Hi clarephd,

my second supervisor was like that during my masters. In my first year I received 100 comments on an accepted manuscript. I am 3 and a half year in the PhD, and now I get less comments (only 36 comments in the last accepted manuscript). My supervisor is ALWAYS stricter than the reviewers.

I have also reduced the number of drafts: I used to go through 15 drafts per paper... now I think we go only through 4 or 5. So, I guess I am improving!

But yes, you need to work all the time and NEVER complain.