The Philosophers' Cocoon

A safe and supportive forum for philosophers.

Owned & Moderated by Marcus Arvan (University of Tampa)

Contact: marvan@ut.edu

Blog mission & moderation policy

IMPORTANT NOTE on how to ensure anonymity in commenting
Job-Market Reporting Thread (2025-26)
Job-Market Discussion Thread (2026-27)

recent posts

about

Supervising MA students who have trouble completing papers on time (or at all)?

In our August “how can we help you?” thread, a reader writes:

I teach and supervise MA students who, increasingly, lack the basic executive skills of writing papers on time (or at all, in some cases). These students are smart and are great in class discussions, but they can’t seem to get it together for their written work – in term papers and in thesis chapters. I meet with them regularly, I offer timely feedback on writing (when I get it), but I am feeling a bit burned out – I just can’t bring myself to chase them anymore to actually do the writing, do the revisions, etc. Recently, that has meant that they just aren’t doing the work. Some of them are in danger of having to pay for extra semesters/getting kicked out of the program as a result. If they were otherwise unskilled in philosophy, it would feel self-resolving, but these are smart students who could do great work. Does anyone have advice for motivating them to actually follow through (or coping mechanisms for me)?

I had a friend in grad school who struggled to get papers done and took a ton of Incomplete grades, which they then had trouble finishing up. But, for all that, they went on to have a spectacularly successful career (with tenure) at an R1–so, at least anecdotally, I know it’s possible for a grad student to find their way through this. But I’ve never taught in a grad program, so I don’t have any tips to share.

Do any readers have any helpful insights for the OP?

Posted in , ,

5 responses to “Supervising MA students who have trouble completing papers on time (or at all)?”

  1. Anonymous

    I had similar experiences teaching upper class undergraduate students. Some students were smart and contributed well to the in-class discussions. But they just could not have anything done in writing. I had to fail some of them simply because they did not write anything during the semester, took an incomplete, and then still finished nothing.

    I tried to organize some after-class writing hours, bringing snacks and soft drinks. It did not work well. While some students were excited at the beginning, those who regularly attended were the self-motivated ones who actually did not need these meetings… Those who I wanted to help stopped coming after the first couple of sessions.

    Recently, I started to do more in-class writing. So they were forced to write things up no matter what. This helped to some extent but was far from a real solution to the problem.

    Reply
  2. Trevor Hedberg

    I’d be very curious what the writing process for these students looks like. Are they devoting an hour to their writing each workday, for instance? It sounds like the problem isn’t philosophical aptitude or a lack of instructor feedback but a failure by the students to adopt a rigorous and consistent schedule for writing. The common denominator across virtually all prolific writers (regardless of genre) is that they consistently devote time to write and instill it as a habit. I’d encourage these students to isolate at least once or twice a week to meet for 60-90 minutes in a portion of the university library (or any other suitable quiet space that lacks distractions) and work on their projects of choice during that time. If that’s not feasible for some of them, then more individual conversations about their work schedule might be necessary. Time for writing has to be created and maintained. If it only happens haphazardly, then a failure to complete large projects on time is almost inevitable.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous

    One of the greatest vices in academic philosophy is how habitually terrible people are at fulfilling deadlines. Many, especially the punctual among us, find such habits grating and bad mannered. On the one hand, this means that your students would fit right into the academic environment. On the other hand, you may take solace in the fact that you would at least not be responsible for spreading such bad habits into academia any more.

    More practical advice, though, given that they seem to not be responding to your encouragement, is to hold them responsible for their failures–meet with them to come up with strict timelines for them to complete the work and let them know that if they are unable to do so you will not be able to work with them. This gives them an incentive to get it done and it gives you an out in case they are unable to reform their habits.

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    I have nothing to contribute but want to share that I have the same question. If you count the students I have had, I am still very junior. Among the people I have worked with, many are habitually late even though they seem really brilliant (when they do produce, the quality is often pretty high). It is puzzling to me. It is very hard for me to know how to help because, despite I have many, many personal shortcomings, I always meet deadlines rather effortlessly (despite my otherwise adhd tendencies). I hope many people make suggestions to help OP and me.

    Reply
  5. Anonymous

    Here are just my two cents. Encourage to write for themselves weekly for any given subject on very small bites, like a short summary of the paper (or just one idea presented in the paper), and one or two paragraphs on what they found interesting and/or puzzling. This serves two purposes. First, this creates readily available summaries that can, with a bit of editing, go directly into the literature review part of a final assignment. Second, the”found interesting and/or puzzling” parts give them something to think about and/or argue for.

    I got this idea when I served as TA, and the professor I worked for had the discretion to force undergraduates to write 400 words every other week. The student hated it, but the term paper turned out to be the highest quality ones I’ve ever marked.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from The Philosophers' Cocoon

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading