ThezisHow to revise your thesis after supervisor feedback
When a thesis comes back covered in comments, start by making a revision log. Read the whole set, group comments that describe the same problem, and decide which changes affect the rest of the draft. Work on those first. A comment count tells you how much feedback you received; it does not tell you how many separate problems you need to solve.
Before changing the document
Save the reviewed version with its comments intact. Create a working copy and confirm what your supervisor expects next: a whole thesis, one chapter, a revised argument, or answers to a few questions. If the deadline is close, agree the highest-priority work before spending the remaining time on low-impact edits.
Read once for the overall diagnosis. Six comments saying ‘why?’ may point to one missing justification. A request to redefine the main concept may affect the introduction, literature review, analysis, and conclusion. Correcting punctuation first can feel productive while leaving the decision that will change those sentences unresolved.
Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s guidance treats feedback as work to interpret and respond to. It distinguishes misunderstandings from conceptual disagreements and encourages discussion where needed. You do not have to guess what an unclear comment means before you are allowed to ask about it. IUP: Handling feedback
Turn the comments into a small working log
| Comment and location | Problem to solve | Next action | Done when |
|---|---|---|---|
| ‘What do you mean by access?’ Introduction, §1.2 | The central concept changes meaning across chapters. | Choose and justify a definition; audit later uses. | The definition and all uses agree, or differences are explained. |
| ‘Too descriptive.’ Literature review, §2.3 | Studies are listed without a comparison. | Group the evidence around a disputed explanation. | The section states what the studies agree on and where they differ. |
| ‘How do you know this?’ Discussion, §5.1 | The sentence makes an unsupported causal claim. | Check the result and rewrite within the design’s limits. | The claim is traceable and does not imply an untested cause. |
| ‘Check references.’ References section | Citations and entries may not match. | Reconcile citations and entries after structural changes. | Every required entry and citation matches the chosen style. |
For your own log, add a status and preserve the original comment text. Use section headings or stable comment identifiers as well as page numbers, since pagination shifts. A useful status could be ‘needs clarification’, ‘ready’, ‘in progress’, or ‘checked’. Keep completion evidence brief: the changed section, the decision made, or the remaining question.
The ‘done when’ column matters. ‘Improve discussion’ can absorb an entire afternoon without producing a clear result. ‘Replace the causal claim and explain the observational design boundary’ gives you something you can check. One action can resolve several comments, but confirm that each comment’s concern is actually covered.
Choose the order by what each change affects
In the log above, the definition of access should be settled before rewriting the literature comparison. Otherwise, you may reorganize the section around a concept you later change. The unsupported claim also deserves early attention because it affects the argument. Final citation formatting can follow the structural work, though missing attribution should be fixed as soon as you identify it.
Agree what ‘access’ means. Update the research question and check the method still fits. Rebuild the literature comparison around that definition. Revise the discussion’s claims and limitations. Check the abstract, conclusion, citations, and references for consistency.
This order follows dependencies in this draft. Your supervisor’s explicit priorities or a submission requirement may change it.
After a major change, search the document for the old terminology. Revisit the abstract and conclusion even if they had no comments. They often preserve claims from an earlier version of the argument. Keep a short list of affected sections in the revision log so you do not rely on memory.
If the comment is vague, propose a reading of it
In section 2.3, I read your comment as asking me to compare the studies’ measures and explain how those differences affect their conclusions. I plan to replace the study-by-study sequence with that comparison. Is that the change you intended?
The message gives your supervisor a concrete interpretation to confirm or correct.
You can often make progress while waiting: assemble the evidence, identify the alternative section structures, or fix independent errors. Avoid rewriting several chapters around an uncertain interpretation. If the feedback asks for work beyond the project’s time or data limits, describe the tradeoff and ask which option meets the requirement.
When ‘too descriptive’ applies to a literature review, use a comparison paragraph to test the new direction before rebuilding the whole chapter. Write a synthesis paragraph
When two comments pull in different directions
Suppose one reader asks for more background and another asks you to shorten the chapter. Do not automatically split the difference by adding one paragraph and deleting another. Identify the purpose behind each request. The reader asking for background may need one definition, while the reader asking for cuts may be reacting to three pages of unrelated history.
I propose adding a short definition before section 2.1 and removing the historical overview in section 2.4. This gives the reader the context needed for the comparison while reducing material that does not answer the question. Would that address both concerns?
If the disagreement concerns method or the project’s central interpretation, ask the supervisor or committee to resolve the direction explicitly. Keep the agreed decision with the reviewed draft. You can disagree with a suggested edit by explaining the evidence and offering a better solution to the underlying concern; silently ignoring it leaves the reader unable to tell whether it was considered.
Return a draft the reader can navigate
Before sending the revision, check each completed item against the actual text. Then read the changed sections in sequence without the comments visible. A set of correct local edits can still produce a chapter that repeats itself or loses its thread. Retain tracked changes or provide a clean copy according to your supervisor’s preference.
The revised chapter now defines access in §1.2 and uses that definition throughout. Section 2.3 compares the studies by measure rather than by publication date. I narrowed the claim in §5.1 and explained the design limitation. One decision remains: whether the secondary comparison belongs in §5.2 or the appendix. The revision log records the corresponding comments.
The note should make the next review easier. It does not need to narrate every hour you spent editing or defend every sentence. Name the substantive changes, locate them, and identify unresolved decisions. If the chapter’s argument is now sound, a separate language pass can improve clarity without reopening all of its structure. Revise academic English while preserving meaning