dee tee by dee tee: Tales of Supervision: Editing

In the Finnish system, I am allowed and encouraged to copy-edit my student's work. This is still a surprise since that type of activity would be disallowed under the "student's own work" clauses of graduate studies regulations.

It's taking me approximately 20 minutes to get through each single-spaced page of my student's work. He is Finnish but is fluent enough in English and Swedish. Twenty minutes is a bit more than the time I spend on monthly copy from the place that shall not be named, whose writers are supposedly professional writers. I asked the student how confident he was with writing the rest of the thesis in English. After his affirmative response that the literature was forcing him to think in English anyway, I explicitly said that he should continue in English. (I'm told by my co-supervisor that a colleague of the student who started at the same time on a similar project is somewhat further along writing in his native Finnish.)

I pointed out that most of my editing marks concerned its/it's, agreement ("in company supply chain"), and unnecessary repetition. This should go better once he learns the rules about those. We tweaked our timeline to give me enough time to suggest edits and for the student to polish the text (explicitly by accepting the edits or making other changes to the text to address the concerns). I expect that the student's writing will quickly improve. As much as I'm tempted to rephrase and rewrite, I think all three of us will learn more by not disturbing the substructures.

Close readers will note that I could not attend the last meeting in person. Instead I had provided my student and co-supervisor with brief annotations on a PDF. I am glad to see that my notes were put to good use in this latest iteration. It is somewhat strange to see drafts this frequently. I don't think it was my Master's supervisor's expectation that I would have this kind of turnaround.

The student's empirical project has changed course slightly due to the company's business needs. The title of his thesis has also changed slightly. I predicted that it would change at least twice more before this adventure ends. He presents his research plan and progress to the rest of his cohort at a regular meeting next Friday. I will unfortunately miss that presentation due to international travel.

On other international issues:

My co-supervisor has encouraged the use of "passive voice" among Bachelor's and Master's thesis students. I am of the opposite view. We explored this topic and discovered that what she meant by "passive voice" was a combination of past tense and narrative mode. We clearly outlined the differences among narrative mode (I, we, it), tense (found, finds/finding, find), and voice (... were found, finds ...). [The Finns learn a rule about tense that makes constructs like "Sally was finding that" preferable to "Sally found that". I think the construct matches one of the 15 tenses in the Finnish language, but I will leave that battle for later.] We discussed the importance of students learning to follow editorial and publication guidelines concerning voice, etc. (I learned last week that among the health and medical journals, the recommended maximum passive voice content is 10 percent.) Apparently, we use APA in this field. I shall have to retrieve my copy from Canada.

We also talked about the lack of "international English" skills among the faculty who are supervising the (supposedly) entirely English-language Master's and PhD programs. I confirmed that I would help my co-supervisor enhance her English editing skills for now, but we would look for sustainable solutions for the rest of the department in the near future. (After having tried annotated PDFs, we also agreed that pen on paper would be the most effective way for my co-supervisor and our student to enhance their English writing and editing skills.)

I know some colleagues in Alberta who would have far more time, enthusiasm, and skill to build an editing program for faculty than I do now. But as one of the two or three native English speakers in the department, I may leverage some things from this.

My co-supervisor was not familiar with my insistance that the student not only clearly link his chosen methods to the empirical work, but that he also discuss why alternative methods were not chosen. I explained the multi-disciplinary audience that would be reading the student's work, and the benefits of making our scientific writing more accessible to non-expert and general audiences.