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[stringcheese]

I was wondering what you all consider a reasonable time to return work to a thesis/dissertation student working with you?

I have an thesis student who wants work/communication the next day or within 2 days of submitting it to me.  Does not matter if it is a weekend, holiday, sick absence, out of town, etc.  I stated that this is an unreasonable request, considering all the other demands of my job.  I meet weekly with each of my students and stated that a week is normal turn-around time. 

This particular student is "behind" because of poor choices, such as not working hard enough and spending time in coffee shops.  But now wants to graduate soon.

I am feeling incredible angst over this because I get continuous emails such as:

" Dr. Thesis Adviser, Have you reviewed my work.  I need your comments before I start the next section."
"Prof Thesis Adviser, Did you get a chance to look over my output?  If it's wrong I don't want to do more."
"Dr. Thesis Adviser, Can we meet tomorrow so we can go over my work that I sent you?"

What is your turn-around time and is a week unreasonable? 
Ideas on how to deal with the plethora of email requests?

[hegemony]

A week is a good turnaround time.  If the student is behind, he can use the time to work on other parts of the material.

I would just state categorically that the turnaround time is a week, and set up a time to meet or send comments back to the student when you get the piece.  "Wednesday. Dear Student, I picked up your chapter from my box today.  As always, I'll take a week to review it and prepare my observations.  Can you come in to meet with me next Wednesday afternoon ... [or: I'll e-mail you my comments next Wednesday afternoon by 1:00 / I'll leave the chapter in your departmental box with my comments attached next Wednesday afternoon by 1:00].  Meanwhile do start working on the next chapter, which I look forward to reading."

[pink_]

I was going to say a week as well.

This student is in for a RUDE awakening when s/he starts submitting things to conferences, journals, etc.
I'd respond to the first email as hegemony has suggested, and I'd not reply to subsequent ones (unless thy involved rescheduling or something).

[larryc]

I'd rip her a new one. You've been too nice.

[litdawg]

This student is making ridiculous demands. The student does not need your feedback in order to make progress on writing/drafting subsequent sections. It sounds like the student has a worldview that entails displacing responsibility to you for the hard work of envisioning the bigger picture of the thesis. The demand for constant handholding is an indicator, to me at least, of a customer-student mentality, not an emerging scholar mentality. It also sounds like the student may have the misapprehension that your feedback is a final stage in the drafting of these sections, something like a building inspector. In the humanities (and possibly other disciplines, though I can't speak to them), this is also a fundamental misapprehension of the scope and quality of thoughtful revision and questing research.

Hegemony's strategy looks good to me; however, two weeks was the norm at my graduate institution.

[lohai0]

My advisor takes about a week.

[questions]

I would be ecstatic with a week turnaround from submission to feedback. It depends on how much reading, of course, but for say a chapter two weeks is perfectly reasonable.   

[citrine]

Geez, my advisor would take two to three weeks to return chapter drafts to me and I was just fine with that.

I think you need to have a "Come to Jesus" meeting with this student about professional expectations and deadline-setting.

[womanofproperty]

I was wondering what you all consider a reasonable time to return work to a thesis/dissertation student working with you?

I have an thesis student who wants work/communication the next day or within 2 days of submitting it to me.  Does not matter if it is a weekend, holiday, sick absence, out of town, etc.  I stated that this is an unreasonable request, considering all the other demands of my job.  I meet weekly with each of my students and stated that a week is normal turn-around time. 

This particular student is "behind" because of poor choices, such as not working hard enough and spending time in coffee shops.  But now wants to graduate soon.

I am feeling incredible angst over this because I get continuous emails such as:

" Dr. Thesis Adviser, Have you reviewed my work.  I need your comments before I start the next section."
"Prof Thesis Adviser, Did you get a chance to look over my output?  If it's wrong I don't want to do more."
"Dr. Thesis Adviser, Can we meet tomorrow so we can go over my work that I sent you?"

What is your turn-around time and is a week unreasonable? 
Ideas on how to deal with the plethora of email requests?

Your time frame is more than reasonable.

The incredible angst belongs to the student, who is trying to transfer it to you. It belongs to them, so give it back.

Although you must meet your obligations to your students, of course, I don't think that requires you to waste any energy on this student. I would opt for the calm and consistent "broken record" approach. That involves repeating the same appropriate response, e.g. hegemony's "Dear Student, I have your chapter; as always, I'll take a week to review it and prepare my observations and we can meet on __ at __ o'clock."

[pgher]

I agree that one week is entirely reasonable.  Also, I always tell my advisees to just keep moving unless and until I give them feedback.  The "I'm not going to work until you give me feedback" line is a way for the student to move the responsibility from him/her to you.

Right now, I have two theses in some preliminary form that I need to review.  I've had one for a week, the other for 2-3 weeks.  I just haven't had time to get to them, so I tell my students to just keep writing.  I'm hoping to get them feedback sometime this week.  In the meantime, it's not like they have nothing to do.

[punchnpie]

I saw this sign in the Court Clerk's office years ago. It has since become my motto:

"Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

So the student slacked and now wants to make up for it by riding you for a quick turnaround. Screw 'em.
A week seems fair enough to me, but I wouldn't think you were wrong, OP, if you took 2-3 weeks. And while I'm all for grad students managing their committees, you need to jump on this one and tell him/her who's boss. Such rude grad students these days!

[zharkov]

I think a week is being really nice, and 2 or 3 weeks is certainly fine.  It naturally depends on how busy we are.  I tend to find I have time to respond within 2 weeks, but not always one week.

But I think the real problem is the student is not acting enough like an independent scholar, which is the purpose of writing a thesis or dissertation.  Maybe looking for too much handholding? 

Students also need to understand that OKing five chapters of a five chapter thesis does NOT mean the entire thesis is OK.  Sometime (even often) the chapters are OK, but don't really cut it as a complete work, either because things are left out, the argument not woven together well, or the intro or conclusions don't tie things together. 

[terpsichore]

A day or two is not enough time to give thought to a dissertation and give substantial feedback.  If the dissertation is essentially complete and accepted, and just needs a final reading, it might be possible to turn it around in a day or two. 

A week is fine; 2 or even 3 weeks are reasonable.

[imawakenow]

I think you need to have a "Come to Jesus" meeting with this student about professional expectations and deadline-setting.

This.

If this is your advisee, you need to have the conversation directly with the student.

If you're just on the committee, another option would be a pop-in to the adviser: "Student keeps pressuring me to return his/her thesis within a couple of days. That's odd, don't you think?"