Approaching a potential HDR supervisor
Here are some thoughts on approaching a supervisor for an HDR (Higher Degree Research) project, such as an MA, MRes, or PhD. This is shaped by my experiences as a senior lecturer in Arts in Australia, which probably means my interest is more in terms of the topic and its potential, its relevance to my areas of study. What this means is that initially, I want a brief description of the project you want to do, and that a larger formal research proposal will come later.
By way of example of my experiences about supervision, I get about 1 to 10 cold call emails for PhD supervision a week, which varies seasonally, most of these show some interest. I’ve supervised four PhD theses, seven Masters minor theses, and three Honours dissertations to graduation. I’m currently primary supervisor to three PhD students, and associate supervisor to a further five.
Preparing
Below are some notes about the process of identifying who you might approach for a PhD, and making sure you’re fully prepared for the application process.
Do you want to do it?
A PhD isn’t easy, but that’s also the appeal. Nonetheless, see if you can talk to people actually doing PhDs if you can to work out whether it's something you want to do, ideally a year or two in. You might be able to ask a tutor if they’d be up for a chat about the experiences (provided they are not still involved in marking your work), or you might be able to find someone through the student association.
Supervisors might help you decide, but they will generally be encouraging if they think you're good as supervision comes with its own kudos, and benefits their careers - so they’re not entirely neutral.
There's also a lot about a PhD you can do yourself (you can literally call yourself a doctor in Australia even without a doctorate, MD, or JD degree), and there are other ways of finding value in your life journey if you want - don't let the academic vibe overtake your decision-making.
Plan ahead
If you're really committed to doing a PhD, then it's probably worth applying at multiple institutions. Don't just approach one person, come up with a list of possible people, the institutions they work at and the closing dates for the degree applications. Keep a spreadsheet of who you’ve approached and what they’ve said.
Obtain your degree transcript (which shows the grades you received for different units) and develop a CV, as you’ll probably need these.
I don’t know how else to say this, but genuinely wanting to do your topic will help you. Doing a PhD is a fine goal in itself, but it’ll help if you are driven more by what you are wanting to study than by the aim of wearing a floppy hat at graduation!
Check the institutional application page
These can be hidden. Make sure you have time to apply (i.e. probably 6 weeks if the person wants to vet you beforehand), or are happy to apply for a future round.
If you need to know your WAM or GPA or similar, then your institution should be able to provide you with a calculator, or print it on your transcript
Scholarships
It's easier to get a PhD candidacy than a scholarship.
Scholarships are granted through weird and arcane processes that are generally outside of the control of your supervisor, vary year-to-year and institution-to-institution. Don't treat a lack of scholarship as a failure on your part, but do consider what this would mean pragmatically in terms of studying part time or working while doing research.
Scholarships are determined competitively, so it will depend on what the other applicants look like. Competition for scholarships is usually pooled by Faculty (sometimes school) within an institution, so you are probably competing with people doing fairly different research projects from you. Having a publication helps, but it's not the only way to boost your competitiveness.
It's not impossible to do a PhD without a scholarship, but it's harder than it needs to be and can make the last phase of the PhD (where you kinda have to focus on just writing and rewriting for about 3-6 months) a lot more difficult. I'm reluctant to take on people who don't have scholarships just because of how hard that makes the project for the student.
Developing your proposal
The notes below are more about developing a short proposal (i.e. not the full application) so that you can approach a number of people for supervision.
Passion
I want to know that you care about it.
I don't think you need to say "I care about X" but show me that you think your topic has value by showing us something interesting about it.
The Struggle
I kinda want to see the struggle, or the curiosity that is driving you.
A lot of proposals come through 'already solved', with the implication that it'll be easy for me to supervise the project. That might work for some supervisors, but I want you to discover something, I want you to grow!
The other factor here is the didactic project. This is something where the project is mostly about bringing together political arguments, and not really about a research object. i.e. the capitalism is bad thesis. Capitalism is bad! But what are you going to show us that's new about that?
Literature
I want to know that you have an idea of the literature or scholars that matter to you in studying this. This is either through your bibliography or simply saying so.
Methods
I want to know a little bit about how you're going to study it.
Methods are important, but this isn't what I want to focus on in the first email.A massively developed methods regime of multiple overlapping processes just sounds unnecessary and shallow in most cases. There’s a good chance that this might change.
It's enough to know what you think your research objects are, and a little bit about your planned method, potentially in 1-3 sentences. 1 if it's interviews, 3 if it's some sort of complicated site ethnography.
Why choose me as your supervisor?
I want to know that I can supervise it.
If it uses methods that I don't really use or know anything about, then I probably won't be involved unless it's something that you can already do really well and the project is well aligned to my interests.
If the topic is outside my immediate research areas then it's unlikely to be something I can take on. You don't need to go and read my work (and I don't generally believe people who say that they have!), but you do probably need to know what I think I do.
There's other factors, such as:
- If the supervisor has only a small number of students then they'll be more flexible.
- If they have a lot, then they may not take you on even if you're really close to what they do.
Brevity
I don't want to read a lot on the first email.
While a full research proposal will be necessary at some point, I get enough applications that I don't actually have much time to read each one in detail. I kinda need to make a judgement call pretty early on.
I won't be reading all of a 20+ page research proposal on the first email. Probably anything over 2 pages will be skimmed for key info, so better to have control over that and pull the key information out to me.
First Email
So, given the above, :
- Why you're emailing (i.e. about a possible PhD supervision)
- What you want to do (i.e. what you want to study or learn)
- Briefly mention anything key that contextualises the study (i.e. academic works that are shaping your thinking, current policy developments, or methods)
- Note that you have attached a provisional abstract
- Your ask (a meeting, a review, commitment, comment, etc.
Attach:
- A provisional description/abstract of your proposed project, with a short bibliography. At max this would be 1000 words, 200-500 is fine.
- Your CV
- A formal transcript of your studies.
Formatting your email:
- Use paragraphs! Don't highlight shit in a weird way! Don't use bold text unnecessarily! Don't use weird typefaces! Don't change the colour of your text! This happens way too much.
- AI might help you write the email or proposal, but I doubt it. Unless you're doing quite a lot of fiddling with the prompts then AI is too generalistic and light in its writing, and its passions are weirdly placed. When you see a lot of these, the more human emails stand out.