PhD theses are presented in formats that vary within and between European countries. We will discuss specific and general challenges related to supervising monographs and article based theses. There may be differences in the research processes for PhD students depending on the text they intend to submit. A monograph is usually based on one major research project, while articles may be based on one major study or several studies on a smaller scale. A monograph has individual authorship (the student’s) while articles may have several authors including the supervisor, the student and others. Monographs and articles are difference text genres with separate sets of “rules”, indeed different journals have different requirements. Monographs may often only be reviewed when they are more or less completed, whereas each article in a thesis is reviewed separately and sometimes several times before it is completed. The supervisory relationship related to a monograph may be long, close-up and one-to-one. In article writing, contributing authors and the journal reviewers all influence the supervisory process. This paper will discuss supervision relationships and processes related to the different challenges students meet when writing monograph or article based theses, drawing on the literatures and the experiences of the authors.