The questions a good supervisor would ask you

What genuinely puzzles you about your subject — not what you think should puzzle you?

If you could only investigate one thing for the next year, what would keep you interested on a wet Tuesday in February?

What have you read recently that made you think 'that can't be right'?

Whose problem is this, and how would they know if it were solved?

What is actually wrong, missing or contested here — and what evidence do you have that it is?

Who is affected by this problem, and what happens to them if nobody researches it?

Is this a problem of knowledge, of practice, or of policy — and does that distinction change how you'd study it?

What assumption are you making that a sceptical examiner would challenge first?

What do the three most-cited papers on your topic agree on — and where do they quietly disagree?

What population, context or time period has the existing research ignored?

Is your gap a gap in evidence, in method, in theory, or in application? Which kind is most defensible?

What would it take to prove that this gap does not actually exist?

Read your research question aloud. Could it be answered with yes or no? If so, what is it really asking?

What would a wrong answer to your question look like — and would your methods be able to detect it?

Which single word in your question carries the most weight, and how will you define it?

If you had to cut your question to eight words, which eight survive?

If you completed only your first objective, would you have anything worth saying?

Do your objectives describe things you will do, or things you will find out? Which should they be?

Which objective is really just your research question wearing a disguise?

What would make an examiner say one of your objectives is unachievable in your timeframe?

What is the strongest argument against the paper you most agree with?

When two authors disagree, what is each of them assuming that the other is not?

Are you reading to confirm what you already think? What would change your mind?

What methods do the papers you cite actually use — and do you understand their limitations?

If you grouped your sources by what they conclude rather than what they study, what clusters appear?

Which theme in your map has the most sources but the least relevance to your question?

Where is the debate in your field — and which side does your project sit on?

What is missing from your map that a supervisor would expect to see?

State your question, your method and your expected contribution in one sentence each. Do they obviously belong together?

Which link in your chain — question, reading, method, findings — is currently the weakest?

If your method changed tomorrow, how much of the rest of the project would have to change with it?

Why this method and not the obvious alternative? What does yours let you see that the other cannot?

What is your philosophical position, and would your chosen methods embarrass it?

What will your data actually look like — a quote, a number, a theme — and how will it answer the question?

What could go wrong in data collection, and what is your plan B?

If a participant could only give you ten minutes, which questions would you keep?

What is the worst thing that could happen to a participant in your study, however unlikely?

Could a participant withdraw without any consequence? How do they know that?

What are you asking of participants that you would find uncomfortable if asked of you?

Who benefits from this research — and do the participants know that?

Describe the pattern you think you are seeing. Now argue that it is not really there.

Are you describing your data or interpreting it? Point to one sentence of each.

What does your most inconvenient piece of data say — the one that doesn't fit your story?

Whose voice is missing from your analysis, and why?

What is the one claim this chapter exists to establish? Does every paragraph serve it?

Where does your chapter describe when it should argue?

If an examiner read only your first and last paragraphs, would they know your argument?

What are you citing as fact that is actually your interpretation?

Does your conclusion answer the question you actually asked — or the one you wish you had asked?

Trace one finding back through your analysis, method, objectives and question. Does the thread hold?

What appears in your discussion that was never set up earlier in the dissertation?

What did you promise in your introduction that you never delivered?

Why did you reject the obvious alternative approach? Defend that decision out loud.

What is the single biggest limitation of your study — and why does it not invalidate your findings?

What would change your conclusion?

If you had another year and unlimited funding, what would you do next — and what does that admit about what you did?

Summarise your entire dissertation in sixty seconds. What did you leave out, and why?