Going line by line with a student

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When a PhD student produces a new piece of maths, checking its correctness can be very daunting. Typically, there is a high communication barrier: it is simply not easy to communicate maths. In this case, I think that going line by line through their document - having the PhD student next to you - may be the best strategy; even though it is very time-consuming. 

Going line by line with them can be good because they can see at which points their explanation is not clear; at which points notation is not consistent or definitions are ambiguous; where more details are needed. In this sense, it also saves time and energy: trying to understand the text while having its writer at hand to ask questions can make the process less tedious and faster.

Of course, I am talking about documents where the student wants to check out the math, not just editing a text to make it understandable.  If it is just editing, I am hoping that the text will be clear enough so that I would not need the student next to me to help me interpret the text.


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