I have a While/Whilst battle going on and need a definitive answer.

[GallumDrawnAndQuartered]

I always use while. i'm not even sure when whilst should be used.

in my essay feedback my supervisor has highlighted whenever i have used while and changed it to whilst.

typical sentence would be:

While the importance of blah, blah and blah are importanct x, y and z show something else.

or

while questionnaires are useful blah blah blah.

and she has changed them all to

Whilst questionnaires are important blah blah.

which I don't think works.

who is right?

she is but I can't remember why

She is correct, but I'm not enough of a grammar pedant to be able to explain why right now.

bugger. really? it looks all wrong.

She's wrong. While can be right and whilst wrong, but whilst cannot be right if while is wrong. There is no valid reason to substitute while with whilst, it's completely interchangeable in that context. She is being pretentious.

I would use 'although' to avoid the argument ...

There is no difference and both spellings are correct (see The Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus) You should, however, ensure that you spell the word consistently in your text.

thanks