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Here are my sentence:

The discipline of my dissertation is potions under the _____ of PhD Severus Snape.

What should I put in the blank? I think it should be advisorship, but somebody tells me it should be advisorment, another one thinks it should simply be advice. Dictionaries don't define advisorship or advisorment, but I think there are a situation that these words are required.

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  • You may want to think of: supervision
    – learner
    Commented Dec 8, 2014 at 16:58
  • Supervision is for high school students
    – Ooker
    Commented Dec 8, 2014 at 17:00
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    If google up this "supervision of graduate students", you'll get some results. One of these results is this link: Handbook of Graduate Supervision - Graduate Studies
    – learner
    Commented Dec 8, 2014 at 17:23
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    Ah, I stand corrected. I had skipped the end of your sentence, and didn't realize this was a Harry Potter reference. I was (foolishly) worried that you might be putting this sentence into your own Ph.D. dissertation!
    – Ben Kovitz
    Commented Dec 8, 2014 at 18:03
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    @BenKovitz Well, I work for Who-must-not-be-named ;)
    – Ooker
    Commented Dec 8, 2014 at 18:06

1 Answer 1

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That depends on what you're trying to say, although I suspect that advisorship is your best choice.

Avoid advisorment. The -ment suffix is usually used with a verb, to create a noun that represents the action itself, or the result of the action: movemovement, pavepavement. Advisor is a noun itself, so adding -ment doesn't really create a useful word.

Advice suggests that Prof. Snape's involvement in your dissertation may have been limited to suggesting a possible topic for it, which you followed. You could say the same thing about your roommate. I assume that's not what you mean.

If you are trying to say that Prof. Snape is acting in his capacity as advisor to provide guidance as you write your dissertation, then advisorship—which uses the -ship suffix to indicate a position, office, or duty—is your best bet.

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    In the question's comments, learner shows that we can also use supervision.
    – Ooker
    Commented Dec 8, 2014 at 17:30
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    In the US in my field, and I think the humanities generally, although the professor-in-charge is referred to as the dissertation advisor, what he does is direct the dissertation, and the dissertator acts under his direction. Commented Dec 8, 2014 at 18:23
  • There's also "advisement" as a possible word, although I agree with StoneyB.
    – BobRodes
    Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 4:01

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