Getting Started with Doctoral Supervision

Getting Started with Doctoral Supervision offers an inclusive guide to supporting diverse postgraduate candidates across personal, learning, and institutional dimensions. It highlights motivation, wellbeing, learning development, and managing institutional demands—ideal for new or returning supervisors.

Getting Started with Doctoral Supervision is a uniquely inclusive book in its exploration of the diversity of doctoral candidates, research projects, disciplines, and modes of supervision. It is written for those who are beginning to supervise postgraduate students. This book is based on the three dimensions of supervision – personal, learning, and institutional – and considers ways of working with individual candidates throughout their doctoral or master's learning journeys. It focuses on motivations, personal engagement, wellbeing, and strategies for addressing difficulties. Seeing supervision as a developmental learning dialogue, this book emphasises enabling candidates’ experiences as learners who develop new knowledge through supervisory guidance. It also addresses the changing demands of the institution placed on doctoral study and supervision, broadly conceived, including the construction and presentation of doctoral work – whether as a thesis, creative work, or publications – within realistic timeframes and in approved appropriate forms. Getting Started with Doctoral Supervision will take you on a research and experience based, reflection and action provoking journey and is a must-read guide for all those coming to supervision for the first time or looking to refresh their practice. The 'Insider Guides to Success in Academia' offers support and practical advice to doctoral students and early-career researchers. Covering the topics that really matter, but which often get overlooked, this indispensable series provides practical and realistic guidance to address many of the needs and challenges of trying to operate, and remain, in academia. These neat pocket guides fill specific and significant gaps in current literature. Each book offers insider perspectives on the often implicit rules of the game -- the things you need to know but usually aren't told by institutional postgraduate support, researcher development units, or supervisors -- and will address a practical topic that is key to career progression. They are essential reading for doctoral students, early-career researchers, supervisors, mentors, or anyone looking to launch or maintain their career in academia.