Members of your thesis or dissertation committee are responsible for giving you the direction and assistance you need to complete the dissertation, but that responsibility does not mean that they are supposed to do any of the work for you. It does mean, however, that they should be available to you, within the limits of their other responsibilities. As members of the faculty, they are also responsible to the university to uphold the academic standards of that institution. This means that they cannot accept careless work just to enable you to finish your degree. As researchers and educators, they also feel a responsibility to the larger profession to ensure that the dissertation makes a significant contribution to professional knowledge. As professors, they feel responsible to themselves and their career advancement. They have their own standards of quality and their own need to advance their careers. They also have several personal roles that cause their own pressures - spouse, parent, and son or daughter. These are conflicting responsibilities that cause conscientious committee members to experience their own stress. For example, they want to be available to you, but they also need to research and publish if they are to receive tenure and be promoted to the next professorial rank. Or they want to help you finish in a reasonable time, but they believe that your dissertation needs much more work. They are reluctant to give you criticism that will result in your feeling negative about yourself or them, but at the same time, they know that your work needs improvement. If you understand these conflicting responsibilities, you will be better able to deal with committee problems that may develop. That is why some of us, research consultants, are here to guide and assist you in completing your thesis or dissertation whenever you encounter any challenges from the conflicting responsibilities, whether from your professor or from your own side. #thesis #dissertation #thesiscommittee #dissertationcommittee #researchconsultants