Supervision
In designing and undertaking your research project, you will be advised by one or two supervisors with appropriate research expertise and interests. Your main supervisor will be nominated when you are offered a place on the Doctoral Programme; a second supervisor is normally chosen towards the end of your first year of study.
It is your supervisor's task to guide your work and you can expect your learning relationship with him/her to change over time. An early task is to give shape to your thesis, and at this stage your supervisor may direct you to certain texts, may suggest that you consider other alternatives, and may steer your plans in a certain way.
Later on, when the focus and direction of your thesis has been established, your supervisions are more likely to take the form of a dialogue in which you discuss particular problems or issues that concern you. As you develop more autonomy in your work it is quite common for you to determine the pattern of your supervisions with your supervisor monitoring your progress from a distance.
The two things I think you need supervision for
are firstly that you need to produce something that
your supervisors can provide feedback on and, secondly,
if you find yourself at a point where you don't know
how to proceed you can talk to one of your supervisors for
an hour or two and they'll set you on your way again.