Supervision

Supervision Opportunities for Master’s Students

I welcome motivated students interested in cutting-edge research topics in political communication, computational social sciences, and digital democracy. I am particularly open to supervising work on the following topics:

• Designing media literacy tips to prevent misinformation acceptance.
• Mechanisms of microtargeting in political ads on social media platforms.
• Using Generative Pre-Trained Large Language Models (LLMs/LMMs) as generalizable experimental treatments.
• The restructuring of political conflicts in the digital age.
• Latent variable modeling for reducing measurement bias in multidimensional concepts.

Apply for supervision

To apply for supervision, please send the following materials to: andrea.deangelis@unimi.it.

1. Personal CV
2. Short paragraph (≈150 words) describing your knowledge and past experience with statistics and quantitative research methods (attendance of the course “Multivariate Analysis for Social Scientists” is recommended).
3. Career plan (≈250-300 words) outlining your goals for the next 3-5 years and the key drivers of your intrinsic motivation (What are you passionate about? Which questions do you find particularly intriguing?).
4. Research plan (one page) including:
   • Research question
   • Key argument
   • 3-5 key scientific papers your proposal engages with
   • Data you intend to use
   • A sketch of the analysis.

If you are ready to engage deeply with your research and grow as a thinker, I look forward to working with you!

What to expect from my supervision

I will do my best to support you in becoming a more independent and critical thinker. You have to consider that I will be open, available and supporting, but I will also be demanding and requiring your effort to do a good job. Expect me to challenge you a bit to make you deliver a paper that matches your full potential.

In terms of writing and grammar feedback I will give you some material that you will have to use to self-learn because we don’t have good academic writing courses unfortunately. You can expect me to provide you detailed comments about grammar/language only on 1-2 pages of your draft. For the rest, I will address substance, arguments and empirics. Students are expected to carefully review these comments, understand the corrections, and independently apply them to the entire draft. I am not an English teacher, so improving writing is a shared responsibility. I encourage students to take the initiative to refine their skills through practice and external resources.

In terms of the argument and research design, I will help you develop and refine the idea and the empirical part, but you must come with an clear idea when you submit the research plan. A good idea is precise, specific, relevant, and connected to existing scholarship.

As for the drafting process, expect to write (at least!) two drafts. The first draft is written to think—it helps you forge arguments, explore ideas, and get my feedback. It does not need to be polished, but it must follow a basic academic structure such as IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion). The second draft is usually a significant reworking of the first and is written to communicate addressing a specific audience (e.g., scholars interested in party politics or digital communication). To write the second draft you must pay attention to both macro-editing (structural coherence, alignment between theory and empirics, logical flow, argument clarity…) and micro-editing (grammar, conciseness, and clarity). Avoid redundancy—most points should be stated only once.

Supervision process

We first meet to discuss your research plan and the argument. Once we agree, I will give you green light to conduct the analyses and write the first draft. I will provide feedback on the first draft and we will meet again to discuss it. Then, you proceed with the second draft. If you work at this paper full time, if the analysis is not too complex, you may expect to conclude the process in 12 weeks from the moment you have the idea.

Developing good research questions and arguments

A paper should have: 1. a valid and relevant research question; 2. a clear, specific, and detailed argument (or set of arguments) addressing it. For example, “Social media increases political polarization” is too vague. Instead, consider: “The algorithmic curation of content on social media platforms amplifies polarization by exposing users to ideologically consistent and emotionally charged content” is more specific, intriguing and interesting.

To get there, you must do a lot of thinking before we meet. Don’t read too much, but rather write to think: find inconsistencies in your thinking and address them. Ask yourself: why is this important? And follow the answer to this question to direct the argument. An argument should be connected to existing scholarship and supported by empirical tests. Do not expect me to give you an idea or to build the argument for you: developing the argument is student’s responsibility. I will guide and support this process.

What I expect from my supervisees

I expect you to read the instructions on this page and any other communication from me carefully.
I expect you to be proactive, independent, curious, and open to feedback. I expect you to be respectful of my time and to meet deadlines. I expect you to be honest and transparent about your progress and challenges. I expect you to take this task as a serious academic job and to invest time and effort in it: the ultimate goal here is not to write a paper, but to use this task to grow as a thinker and as a person.

Things my supervisees should avoid

• I do not expect to see the same grammar or language errors in subsequent drafts, so please avoid neglecting my feedback. I spend time correcting your writing, and I expect you to learn from these corrections.
• I do not expect to find largely incoherent arguments and redundancy or repetitions in the second draft. Please avoid neglecting my feedback on your argument, as I expect you to address my comments in the second draft.
• I do not expect to receive any written draft without first agreeing on the argument and empirical strategy, so please act independently after we agreed on things and avoid submitting drafts without my approval.

Using LLMs

LLMs can be excellent tools for refining your thinking, improving your writing, and sharpening your arguments. However, effective use requires critical engagement: use LLMs to enhance your work, not replace your own analytical thinking. Be prepared to discuss and defend your decisions, as this ensures the research remains yours.

Important: adhere to these guidelines to maintain a productive and trusting supervisory relationship. Any misuse of LLMs will be considered, similar to any other form of plagiarism, as an academic misconduct and lead to a review of our collaboration. (For full transparency: I am doing research with LLMs and I will spot LLMs’ writing no matter how well you change your prompt to try to hide it.)

Reference materials

• Writing your journal article in 12 weeks. I recommend keeping the book with you throughout the process. You may not do the exercises but there is a lot of previous advice for every stage of the process of writing a paper.
• The craft of writing effectively (90-minute course on effective academic writing). I recommend watching this video after writing the research plan and before the actual work starts.