Supervisor's response to research plan

C

Hi everyone,
I am in my first year of phd.
During the first five months, I've been doing literature review and submitted one review paper to journal.
Now I am working on research proposal and it seems my supervisor is not satisfied with my plan..
I've sent research plan four times and she mostly did not reply or suggest something I cannot do once..
I am really confused about how I can design research plan more and comprising thesis chapters..
Since I have review at the end of Nov with results, I feel I am behind that only five months left to prepare results
I wonder if anyone faces the same problems with me or I am very underqualified to become phd.
I would appreciate if you could suggest what to do or what would be wise.

Thank you!

T

Is the paper you published based on your PhD work? If so you are surely not behind and it would be hard to not pass your review! You just need a cohesive research plan. It doesn't even matter if you end up following it in the end. It just needs to look realistic.

Re your supervisor, I wonder what is going on here. Are they busy and stressed due to personal and professional commitments in the lockdown / stay home situation, I wonder. What exactly are you saying in your email, and how are they replying, or are they simply ignoring you?

Avatar for rewt

You have a submitted a review paper which is a significant amount of work in itself. At your review meeting, you can present your submitted review paper as a research output. I know several people who had no data at their first year review but had submitted a review paper, they were all fine.

You don't need a perfect research plan at this stage with detailed explanation of how you will do everything. Research plans change throughout your PhD and very few students stick to their original plan. Usually you have a firm idea of what is achievable in the next 6-12 months and your research plan becomes "fuzzier" the further into the future. So don't worry about having a super amazing 2 year plan, focus on what you can and need to do in the next 6-12 months. I know this is cynical but break your PhD down into smaller projects and work out how later.

Also, do you have a second supervisor who can help?

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