supervisor-update

Supervisors read updates between other things. The update's job is to let them help in the ten minutes they have: what moved, what is stuck, what decision they need to make. Everything else is noise.

Sources

1. RESEARCH_LOG.md entries since the last meeting (or the period asked for). The log is the evidence; if it is thin, say so and ask the student what happened.
2. Git history for the period (git log --since), new files under research/notes/, changed chapters.
3. The last update or meeting notes, to answer what was promised.

Structure

Subject: Thesis update, 21 Sep 2026

Since 7 Sep:
- Read 6 papers on X (notes in research/notes/); the gap holds: none evaluates Y in setting Z.
- Built the data pipeline (commit a1b2c3d); 412 sessions collected, 9 discarded for missing labels.
- First results: variant B reduces latency 23% (n=10, SD 4%) at all sizes, table attached.

Decided:
- Dropped baseline C: its code does not run on our data format and reimplementing costs two weeks. Comparing against A and D only.

Need from you:
- Is a 23% reduction with n=10 enough for RQ2, or should I run n=30 (adds three days)?
- Ethics amendment for the follow-up survey: can you sign the form (attached) by Thursday?

Next two weeks:
- Run the n=30 sweep if agreed (by 28 Sep).
- Draft results chapter section 4.2 (by 3 Oct).
- Literature synthesis outline for chapter 2 (by 5 Oct).

Open questions carried over: 1 (dataset licence; waiting on the provider since 30 Aug).

Rules

• Under 250 words for an email; under one page for an agenda.
• Every progress bullet has evidence: a path, a commit, a number, a note. No "worked on the literature review".
• Decisions include the reason and what they rule out, so the supervisor can object now, not at the defence.
• "Need from you" is the most important section and comes before "Next"; each item is a question or a concrete action with a date.
• Carry over open items until they are resolved, with their age; a supervisor sees a stuck item precisely because it keeps appearing.
• Match the department's register: formal salutation or not, first name or title, as in previous correspondence.
• Attach or link, never paste, tables and figures.
• Run humanize before sending.

Write to research/updates/YYYY-MM-DD.md and return the text. Log the update itself as a /research-log entry if the student agrees.