Department of English

The Graduate Student Handbook Online

The Graduate Student Handbook Online (currently under construction) provides program information and policies for current graduate students in the English Deparment. Questions about the handbook should be directed to Robyn Shanahan.

Table of Contents

Advising
Changing Class Status
Commencement
Conference Travel Fellowships
Credit Overload
Dissertation Fellowships***NEW 10/28/2005
Dissertation Guidelines
Dissertation Proposal/Prospectus and Conference***NEW 10/28/2005
Dissertator Status and the Dissertation***NEW 10/28/2005
Enrollment
Extension of Five Year Rule
Final Oral Conference
Foreign Language Requirements
Graduate Student Committees
Job Placement Service
Leave of Absence
List of Proofreaders
Literary Studies Benchmarks***NEW 10/28/2005
Literary Studies and Composition & Rhetoric Checklist
Literary Studies Ph.D. Itinerary
Three-Field (Ad-hoc) Preliminary Examination***NEW 10/28/2005

Advising

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Changing Class Status

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Commencement

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Conference Travel Fellowships

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Credit Overload

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Dissertation Fellowships

University Dissertator Fellowships are one-semester awards given to outstanding dissertators on the basis of academic excellence. Fellowships are decided in the form of a competition, and both domestic and international students are eligible to participate. Departmental preference is usually, but not always, given to those who are well along in the research process of the dissertation thesis. Dissertator Fellowship awards are composed of a small stipend plus paid tuition, fee remission, health insurance, etc., for one semester. This award is meant to provide a semester of support for the winner so that he or she can concentrate on making substantial progress towards the completion of the dissertation.

Return to Table of Contents

The Process

During the fall semester a notice is sent to English Department doctoral students from the Graduate Division informing them that they are invited to submit applications to the Department’s Dissertator Fellowship Competition. Once the deadline for receipt of applications has passed in December, the Dissertator Fellowship Committee, appointed by the English Department Chairperson, will convene to review the applicants’ submissions. Approximately ten of the applications are ranked for nomination to the University’s Humanities Fellowship Committee and are submitted in early February.

The highest ranked nominee’s application is not forwarded on to the University level. Instead, this applicant is awarded the English Department’s Morgridge Fellowship, a full academic-year dissertator fellowship. This fellowship has a limited lifespan and will be awarded for the last time in the spring of 2006 for use during 2006-07 academic year.

There is one more fellowship to be given out after the awarding of the Morgridge and the University Dissertator Fellowships. This is the Adams Fellowship, another departmental one-semester dissertator fellowship, comparable in stipend and benefits to the University Dissertator Fellowship. Ranked individuals who were not fortunate enough to be recipients of the above awards remain highest in consideration for additional teaching assistantships that may be available in the department.

Departments are notified by the Graduate School in early March whether any of our nominees have been named as Dissertator Fellowship recipients. Generally, about three English Department dissertators receive University Dissertation Fellowships each year.

Return to Table of Contents

The Application

A dissertator wishing to apply for these fellowships should notify the English Department’s Graduate Degree Coordinator by email and then submit the following to the Graduate Division. Room 7195H Helen C. White:

1. Cover letter
2. Curriculum vitae
3. Description of dissertation (not to exceed two pages or approximately 1000 words)
4. Two letters of recommendations submitted to the Graduate Division by the Recommenders themselves

Criteria are somewhat vague in that the committees in the department and at the University level change each year. Typically, those students nominated have articulate proposals and good letters. This is only a guideline, but putting emphasis on a chapter-by-chapter plan of the dissertation and a sense of what has to be done are recommended. The applicants should show they have a grasp of what they’re going to do. The form and research necessary are something applicants have thought through in real detail. This is an opportunity to get a handle on the future progress of the thesis and give the committee a real sense the applicant is not in a floundering state.

Return to Table of Contents

Dissertation Guidelines

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Dissertation Proposal/Prospectus and Conference

Before the end of the third year in the Ph.D. program and no later than six months after passing prelims, each Ph.D. student meets with a committee of four faculty members (a director and three “internal” committee members) to discuss his or her plans for a dissertation. For this meeting the student prepares a dissertation proposal/prospectus.

The Dissertation Proposal/Prospectus is prepared under the supervision of the dissertation director and in consultation with the other members of the dissertation committee. The document follows the format required by the committee, but it is characteristically from 6-10 pages in length and is generally accompanied by a bibliography of 2-3 pages, listing works that are fundamental to the conception and execution of the project. The proposal/prospectus formulates the problem to be addressed in the dissertation, lays out the research envisioned and already under way, and designates as precisely as the student’s progress permits what contribution the dissertation will make to the field, what texts the dissertation will treat, and what methodology or critical approach(es) the dissertation will employ to those ends. The Proposal/Prospectus must be discussed and defended at a Proposal/Prospectus Conference.

Return to Table of Contents

Dissertation Proposal/Prospectus Conference: The purpose of this conference is to assist the student in defining his or her dissertation project, as represented in the Proposal/Prospectus. The conference is held no later than six months after the student passes his/her preliminary examination, and generally lasts approximately two hours. The Conference most often takes the shape of a conversation about the Proposal/Prospectus, in the course of which the committee may help the dissertator identify relevant textual and contextual materials for study, or ask the student to clarify the conceptual framework of the proposed study, or explore the methodology to be employed in achieving the project’s goals. It is the student’s responsibility to notify the graduate degree coordinator in advance of the proposal conference date so that the appropriate paperwork is present and the student’s conference date can be noted on his/her records.

At the conclusion of the Conference, the committee may accept the Proposal/Prospectus with no changes, or accept it pending revisions (which it will furnish to the dissertator in writing), or reject it. If the Proposal/Prospectus is accepted without revisions, a letter (available through the Graduate Division office) will be signed by the members of the committee and submitted, with the accepted Proposal/Prospectus attached, to the Graduate Degree Coordinator, who files the documents in the student’s official departmental file. If the Proposal/Prospectus is accepted contingent upon revisions, then the revisions should be completed within a period of three months of the Proposal/Prospectus Conference, and reviewed either by the Director or by the full Committee (this to be decided at the Proposal/Prospectus Conference) before the signed Proposal/Prospectus form is submitted, with the revised Proposal/Prospectus attached, to the Graduate Division office. An additional form which will require the committee’s signature may be obtained from the Graduate Division office and should be submitted with the revised Prosposal/Prospectus. If the Proposal/Prospectus is rejected, a new Conference must be held within a period of time set by the Committee at the Conference.

The dissertation committee’s endorsement of the Proposal/Prospectus indicates the willingness of the committee to work with the dissertator on that project; and though the project is likely to change markedly in the process of writing, the expectation is that it will bear a clear, recognizable relationship to the proposal/prospectus. If the committee changes, any new members must agree in writing to work on the dissertation, and if the dissertation changes sufficiently that it no longer bears a clear, recognizable relationship to the project agreed in the proposal/prospectus, a new proposal/prospectus should be submitted to the Graduate Division.

Return to Table of Contents

Dissertator Status and the Dissertation

Dissertator Status

Achieved when a doctoral student has completed all English coursework, minor coursework, foreign language requirements, and passed the preliminary examination. The benefits of Dissertator Status mean a pay raise for teaching assistants or a lower dissertator tuition rate. These benefits take effect for the semester immediately following the completion of all requirements. Dissertators register for a maximum of three (3) graduate credits each semester, usually English 990-Dissertation Research. Other graduate level courses in lieu of English may be utilized if they are directly related to your dissertation research. A Dissertator registered for three credits of graduate level coursework is considered a full-time student.

Return to Table of Contents

Dissertation Committee

Is composed of a director and four other faculty members, three "internal," and one "external." The director and the three "internal" committee members participate in a Dissertation Proposal/Prospectus conference (see below) at the earliest stages of the project, and they are expected to have a direct and comprehensive involvement in the drafting of the dissertation. The "internal" dissertation committee members also participate in the Dissertation Oral Defense, when they are joined by the "external" committee member in evaluating the dissertation when it has been completed, or when the Dissertation Director judges that it is almost complete. One of the "internal" committee members may be drawn from outside the English Department; the "external" committee member must come from outside the English Department. The extent to which the "external" committee member is involved in the drafting of the dissertation should be a matter to be decided by the Dissertation Director, the candidate and the "external" member; it is common to wait until the dissertation has taken substantial shape to complete the committee by inviting the "external" member to join the committee. The Dissertation Director, the candidate, and the "external" committee member are free to determine how much of the dissertation the "external" committee member should read and comment upon, though the "external" member must minimally be in possession of the dissertation's abstract and one completed chapter by the time that the Dissertation Oral Defense/Conference takes place.

A dissertator may petition the Director of Graduate Studies to add to his or her Dissertation Committee a faculty member from outside the University of Wisconsin-Madison entirely, if the Dissertation Director and the student believe that this faculty member will contribute expertise not otherwise available. In such cases the Dissertation Committee will consist of six members (the Director, three “internal” committee members, one “external” member drawn from the UW faculty, as well as the extra-mural committee member solicited by the dissertator and the director).

Return to Table of Contents

Dissertation Oral Defense/Conference

The Dissertation Oral Defense/Conference is held when the student has completed a draft of all or most of the dissertation. The student’s full Committee participates: both the “internal” and the “external” committee members, as well as the Director. This Oral Defense/Conference, which lasts between two and three hours, characteristically surveys the whole of the dissertation, and assesses its completeness, coherence, and originality. The dissertator is typically offered advice toward revisions, although on occasion the Committee finds that the project is not at the stage at which it can be accepted. At the conclusion of the Defense, the dissertator may thus be encouraged to deposit the dissertation with some minor or no revisions; required to make substantial revisions; or (extremely rarely) required to change the project entirely. If the Committee recommends that the dissertation be deposited with no revisions or with few substantial revisions, then they will sign the “Ph.D. Warrant” and the “Committee Page” form that the Director will have procured from the Degree Coordinator. The Graduate School stipulates that dissertators must complete and deposit the dissertation within one year of the Dissertation Oral Defense/Conference.

Dissertation Directors should be reminded that in order to schedule a Dissertation Oral Defense/Conference, they or the dissertation student must contact the Graduate Degree Coordinator in the Department’s Graduate Division for instructions. Please be aware that this must be done at least a month ahead of time so that the necessary paperwork can be sent to the Graduate School and the Ph.D. Warrant be returned to the Graduate Division in time for the Conference.

Return to Table of Contents

Degree Deadline

The Graduate School requires that dissertators complete the dissertation within five years of their having reached Dissertator Status.

Return to Table of Contents

Depositing the Dissertation

Before the student can deposit the dissertation with the Graduate School he/she must contact the Graduate Degree Coordinator and make sure that all forms have the necessary signatures on the “Ph.D. Warrant” and the “Committee Page.” These documents are usually, but not always, signed by the Committee members at the Dissertation Oral Defense/Conference. The signed documents are maintained in a file by the Graduate Degree Coordinator until the dissertation has been cleared for deposit by the Dissertation Director. The Director will sign the forms mentioned above as well as the dissertator’s Dissertation Abstract. After the semester in which the dissertator files the dissertation at the Graduate School, he/she is no longer considered a student, and can no longer hold student employment (teaching assistant, project assistant, etc.).

Return to Table of Contents

Dissertation Extensions

It may be possible to get an extension of the five-year rule for completion of the dissertation. Consult with the Graduate Director about the current policy concerning official procedures to request an extension from the Graduate School. This must be done well in advance of the dissertation conference. The maximum extension that can be obtained is six months from the date of the dissertation oral conference.

Return to Table of Contents

Useful links:

A Guide to Preparing Your Doctoral Dissertation

http://info.gradsch.wisc.edu/admin/academicservices/pguide.html

The Three Ds: Deadlines, Defending and Depositing Your Ph.D. Dissertation

http://info.gradsch.wisc.edu/admin/academicservices/ddd.html

Return to Table of Contents

Enrollment

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Extension of Five Year Rule

Graduate Students are required by the Department and Graduate School to have held the final oral dissertation conference (defense) no later than five (5) years after the preliminary exam. Should this deadline be missed, the delinquent student might be required to retake the preliminary exam. The only recourse is to obtain permission via a written petition by the delinquent dissertator’s adviser to the English Department’s Director of Graduate Studies who in turn petitions the Graduate School Dean for an extension on behalf of the student. In petitioning for the extension, the dissertation director should explain why there has been a delay in meeting the dissertation defense (conference) requirement by the five-year deadline. The director should also explain in writing how the student has remained current in his/her field of study. If the Director of Graduate Studies concurs with the petition’s argument, then the Director of Graduate Studies will endorse the petition by petitioning the Graduate School on behalf the dissertator. Petition should be made at the very same time the forms are submitted to the Graduate School for approval of the dissertation committee and scheduling of the defense. Since no such petition has been denied in the past three years, one may deduce that this appears to be a formality and not cause for unnecessary worry or concern for the dissertator and/or director. Please refer to Time Limits in the Graduate School’s Academic Guidelines.

Return to Table of Contents

Final Oral Conference

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Foreign Language Requirements

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Graduate Student Committees

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Job Placement Service

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Leave of Absence

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

List of Proofreaders

Please see the graduate degree coordinator in 7195H for more information.

Return to Table of Contents

Literary Studies Benchmarks

	Milestones for the Year	Semester	Time Guidelines
MA First Stage	Coursework Complete Adequacy in one foreign language Comprehensive Exam	1	4 (3) courses Meet with Incoming (MA) Student Adviser about spring courses
		2	3 (4) Meet with Adivser about fall courses Register for Comprehensive Exam and be cleared for Exam Warrant TA consultations
		August	Comprehensive Exam TA Orientation
Year 2 (1st Doctoral Yr)	First Semester as TA Decide Minor and submit justification to DGS for Distributed Minor Begin thinking about Prelim area for Prelim Exam (ad hoc)	3	2-3 courses Submit minor justification to DGS
		4	2-3 courses
Year 3 (2nd Doctoral Yr)	Teaching Complete English Coursework Complete Minor coursework Second Foreign Language Identify Prelim Chair Prelim Exam	5	Coursework work towards second Foreign Language competency Submit ad hoc reading list for prelim Exam (Submit clearance form for January Prelim)
		6	Submit clearance form for August Prelim Exam to Degree Coordinator
		August	Prelim Exam TA Orientation
Year 4 (3rd Doctoral Yr)	Continue teaching Achieve Dissertator Status Dissertation Proposal Dissertation Research	7	Put together dissertation committee, notify Graduate Division
		8	Prospectus Conference (By March) File approved dissertation proposal with Degree Coordinator
Year 5 (4th Doctoral Yr)	Continue teaching Dissertation Research Work with dissertation director Apply for dissertation fellowship	9	Work on Dissertation
	Final Oral Defense of Dissertation Begin Job Search	10	Work on Dissertation Schedule Oral Defense Seek Letters of Recommendation for Job Search
Year 6 (5th Doctoral Yr)	Deposit Dissertation Commencement Conferral of Degree by University	11 and 12	Circulate copies of dissertation to committee Hold defense Make revisions Deposit dissertation at Graduate School

Return to Table of Contents

Literary Studies and Composition & Rhetoric Checklist

(8/2004)

Year 1

___ Early summer: consult with the Incoming Students Advisor and register for three (or four) courses at the registrar's invitation.
___ Late fall semester: Meet with the Incoming Students Advisor and register to take four (or three) courses during the second semester.
___ During your second semester: meet with the Ph.D. advisor (the Director of Graduate Studies) and register for two or three courses that you will take in the third semester.
___ By the end of the second semester: complete all course work and show proficiency in at least one foreign language.
___ Register for the Comprehensive Examination, and request a warrant permitting you to sit the exam.
___ First week of August: take Comprehensive Examination.

Return to Table of Contents

Year 2 (or year 1 of the Ph.D. in Composition & Rhetoric)

___ August: attend the teaching seminar conducted in the two weeks before classes begin.
___ Start teaching.
___ During the third semester: decide what your Minor field of study will be.
(Remember that Distributed Minors must be approved by the Director of Graduate Studies; meet with the Director of Graduate Studies, and prepare a brief proposal for the Distributed Minor.) Your course-load will usually consist of two or three classes, including courses you are taking in order to fulfill your Minor requirement.
___ Consult with faculty, with Ron Harris and with the Associate Chair about your teaching assignments for the next year.

Return to Table of Contents

Year 3 (or year 2 in Composition & Rhetoric)

___ Continue teaching.
___ Complete the course requirements for the Minor. ___ Beginning of the fifth semester: decide whether you wish to sit an Area Preliminary exam (with an established list) or an Ad-Hoc (also called a "Three-Field") exam. To this end, furnish yourself with the Graduate Division's Guidelines for an Ad-Hoc ("Three Field") exam, and consult the existing lists for the curricular Areas that may interest you.
___ Approach a faculty member and ask him or her to serve as the chair of your examination committee, and choose other committee members.
___ By the eighth week of the fall semester (or by the eighth week of your fifth semester in the program), assure yourself that your ad hoc prelim. reading/examination lists have been approved by your committee;
OR
___ By 15 April (for August prelims) and 15 October (for January prelims) notify Graduate Secretary that you'll sit for a preliminary exam in an existing Area.
___ Mid-August: Preliminary Exam. (If you pass your Preliminary Examination, and you have completed your course requirements, your Minor, and your Foreign Language requirements, the Graduate Division will recommend to the Graduate School that you be granted Dissertator Status.)
___ Consult with faculty, with Ron Harris and with the Associate Chair about your teaching assignments for the next year.

Return to Table of Contents

Year 4 (or year 3 in Composition & Rhetoric)

___ Continue teaching.
___ In the seventh semester: choose a dissertation committee and a dissertation director, and in consultation with them begin preparing your dissertation proposal/prospectus.
___ Schedule a dissertation prospectus conference for no later than eighth week of the semester following that in which you completed the preliminary exam. (If you passed your Preliminary Exams in August, then your prospectus conference must be held no later than March 1 of the following year.)
___ Share drafts of your dissertation proposal with your committee members as the conference date approaches.
___ Hold the dissertation proposal conference.
___ File your dissertation prospectus with the Degree Coordinator.
___ Begin to sketch out with your Director a schedule for carrying out research and for writing your dissertation.
___ Consult with faculty, with Ron Harris and with the Associate Chair about your teaching assignments for the next year.

Return to Table of Contents

Year 5 (or year 4 in Composition & Rhetoric)

___ Continue teaching.
___ Meet regularly with your dissertation Director and with your committee members.
___ Consider applying for a University Dissertation Fellowship (deadline is usually December or January).

Return to Table of Contents

Year 6 (or year 5 in Composition & Rhetoric)

___ If you are on contract, continue teaching.
___ Schedule an in-process dissertation defense.
___ Circulate copies of the dissertation at least one month before the scheduled defense.
___ Hold the defense.
___ Make revisions required by the committee.
___ Once the dissertation has been completed, in the judgment of the Director, you may deposit the manuscript with the Graduate School. (Consult the English Department Graduate Coordinator and the Graduate School Degree Coordinator for the procedure.)
___ Make an appointment at the Graduate School to deposit your dissertation.

Return to Table of Contents

Literary Studies Ph.D. Itinerary

(9/2006)

The following is intended to help candidates for the Ph.D. in English (Literary Studies) proceed in timely and informed way through the sometimes complex bureaucracy of the doctoral program by charting the stages of progress, identifying the paperwork to be submitted at each stage, and answering some of the most frequently-asked questions about the process. While the timing of each stage varies to some extent for each student (and for each program – Comp./Rhet. and ELL, variations of which are noted below), the ideal timing is indicated in bold. More detailed information can be found on the departmental graduate studies website, in the university's graduate catalog, and by consulting with the graduate office.

Prior to Year 1:

By April 15 prior to beginning the first year, you should have let us know of your acceptance of our offer of admission. At this time, you are usually guaranteed three years of support for study beyond the first year, and this usually involves (in the first doctoral year) teaching or assisting in a writing or literature course.

In late spring and early summer, and in consultation with the Incoming Students Adviser, you will register for three (or four) courses to take during the first semester. Bear in mind that coursework during the first year is ideally designed to cover distributive requirements. During the first year, you're required to take a total of seven courses, and show adequate competence in at least one foreign language. Be sure to discuss with the Incoming Students Adviser any questions you may have regarding your foreign language competency, as your choice of courses may change if you need to enroll in a language class.

You should also receive a copy of the Comprehensive Examination reading list, which covers the breadth of literature in English from the middle ages to the present. Many students have found it helpful to begin working through the texts on this list even before they arrive in Madison. In any case, as you proceed through your first year you should be reading material on the Comprehensive Examination reading list that is not covered in your coursework so you are prepared for the exam. You should consult with students in the second (first doctoral) year regarding strategies for study.

Return to Table of Contents

Year 1:

During your first semester, you will meet with the Incoming Students Adviser and register to take four (or three) courses during the second semester. Normally students take four courses in the fall, and three in the spring, in order to leave room to study for the Comprehensive Examination.

During your second semester, you will meet with the Ph.D. advisor (the Director of Graduate Studies) and register for two or three courses that you will take in the third semester (or the first semester of the doctoral program). A two-course load is considered full-time when a graduate student is a TA. In selecting these courses you will typically begin to specialize. At this meeting you should also consult with the Director of Graduate Studies regarding a Minor field of study, a University requirement for the doctorate. There are three options for a minor: an Internal Minor (in Composition/Rhetoric, Creative Writing, or English Language and Linguistics); an External Minor (a group of courses taken in another field and/or department, the requirements for which are set by that department); or a Distributed Minor (a cluster of courses from a number of different fields and/or departments that are tailored to your prospective area of concentration and dissertation). Distributed Minors are approved by the Director of Graduate Studies. (There's more on this below.) You should bear in mind, too, that in order to be awarded dissertator status (again, more on this below) not only must you complete all your Departmental and Minor coursework, but you must also demonstrate competency in a second foreign language. For this reason, be sure to discuss with the Director of Graduate Studies any questions you may have regarding your competency in this second language. By the end of the second semester, complete all your coursework and showadequate proficiency in one foreign language.

Once you've completed these requirements, the graduate office will issue you a warrant to sit for the Comprehensive Examination, which generally takes place in August. The Comprehensive Examination has two written, three-hour parts, and is taken in the course of one day. Students who receive a grade of Pass on the Comprehensive examination are awarded a Master of Arts degree in English. (For a full account of the evaluation procedures for the Comprehensive examination, see .)

Return to Table of Contents

Year Two:

Late in the summer - usually by the second week of August - you should receive notification that you've been assigned to teach in one of several undergraduate course programs: English 100 (first-year writing), English 201 (intermediate writing), introductory literature, or in some cases one of the three required literature surveys for majors. Each of these programs runs an orientation and training program in the weeks before the fall semester begins. Please make arrangements to be on campus in order to attend these mandatory orientations. You'll teach on the regular academic calendar. Please consult with the Director of Graduate Studies, and especially graduate student colleagues who've been in the program a while, how best to balance your work as a student and as a teacher.

During the third semester you should decide what your Minor field of study will be. Remember that the requirements for External Minors are set by the Department granting the Minor, not by the English Department, and that Distributed Minors must be approved by the Director of Graduate Studies. During this term you should thus meet with the Director of Graduate Studies regarding completion of the Minor and - if you opt for a Distributed Minor - come with a brief written proposal that describes the Distributed Minor, provides a rationale for it, and lists typical courses that might fulfill it.

Late in this first semester of your second year, you will receive a teaching preference sheet, which will ask in what program you prefer to teach. Please fill this out and turn it in by the deadline specified. It will help determine what you teach during the spring term. Bear in mind that, throughout the course of your graduate student career here, you should teach a number of different courses in order to get as much teaching experience as possible before entering the profession. Though you're not required to do so, you should consult with faculty, with Ron Harris and with the Associate Chair about your teaching assignments for the spring semester and the upcoming academic year.

During the second year, you should be well on your way to completing the required coursework for the doctoral degree. As you take courses, think about which professors - particularly those in your prospective area of study - you would like to work with on an ad hoc (“Three Field”) doctoral Preliminary Examination committee (see below) and/or the dissertation. Arrange a time to meet with them and discuss your plans; you should also talk with other students about faculty members' specializations and research. The more openly and often you are able to communicate with faculty, in classes and outside of them, the more familiar they'll be with your work and the more honestly they'll be able to assess their ability to work with you.

Return to Table of Contents

Year Three:

During the third year, you should complete your coursework in English, along with the course requirements for an Internal, a Distributed, or an External Minor. You should also have decided what your second language will be, and how you will be certified for competency. Consult with the Director of Graduate Studies about whether taking a “reading knowledge” course will suffice to satisfy this requirement.

At the beginning of the fifth semester you should decide whether you wish to sit for an Area Preliminary Examination (with an established list) or an ad hoc (also called a "Three-Field") examination. To this end, furnish yourself with the Graduate Division's Guidelines for an ad hoc ("Three Field") exam, and consult the existing lists for the curricular Areas that may interest you.

If you've decided on an ad hoc examination, you should approach a faculty member and ask him or her to serve as the chair of your examination committee. In consultation with him or her, enlist two other faculty members. Working with this three-person committee, you should devise a reading list which your committee must approve, and which you must then submit for review and approval to the Director of Graduate Studies, by the 8th week of the fall semester for August exams, and the 8th week of the spring semester for January exams. If you decide that you want to sit an exam in an existing Area, you must notify the Graduate Coordinator in writing on the same timeline. Preliminary examinations, scheduled over two successive days, are held in the middle of August.

On passing your Preliminary Examination, the committee will certify that you've done so with the graduate office. If by that time you have also completed your course requirements, your Minor, and your Foreign Language requirements, you will be granted Dissertator Status by the Graduate School. (Dissertator Status has substantial financial advantages.)

In the late fall you'll receive a course preference sheet; consult with faculty, with Ron Harris and with the Associate Chair about your teaching assignments for the spring and the next academic year. Courses are assigned to Teaching Assistants on the basis of seniority in the Department, field of study, and of the preferences each student expresses.

Bear in mind that in year four, you will put together a Dissertation Committee. By your third year, you should therefore be consulting actively with faculty and other graduate students about prospective committee members and - ideally - should identify a chair for your Dissertation Committee by the end of your third year. You should consult with your (prospective) chair about other prospective committee members.

Return to Table of Contents

Year Four:

In your seventh semester, you will choose a Dissertation Committee and a Dissertation Director, and in consultation with them begin preparing your dissertation proposal. (Often this committee will include members of the ad hoc Preliminary Exam committee; often it will not.) Your dissertation committee consists of three faculty members, including a Director, all of whom must hold appointments in the English Department. In addition, you should consider asking a fourth faculty member (who may, but is not required to, hold an appointment in the English Department) to serve on the committee as well; the role of this fourth member can be to provide a supplemental field of expertise and advice as you draft the dissertation. He or she may then participate in the Defense, along with a fifth examiner (who must necessarily not be a member of the English Department; see below).

You must hold a dissertation Proposal Conference no later than the eighth week of the semester following the semester in which you completed your preliminary examinations. (If you passed your Preliminary Exams in August, then your proposal conference must be held no later than March 1 of the following year.)

Share drafts of your dissertation proposal with your committee members as the conference date approaches. The proposal should be at least 8-10 pages long. A substantive bibliography should be attached. The proposal conference typically lasts between 60 and 90 minutes. You can expect suggestions and a great deal of advice on all aspects of the project. At the close of the conference, your Director and the committee will authorize you to file your proposal with no changes, or they will request specific changes to the existing document to be approved by the committee chair and/or the entire committee, or they may require you to schedule another conference and submit a substantially revised proposal.

Once your Proposal Conference has been completed, and within the period specified for you at the conference, you must file your dissertation prospectus with the Graduate Coordinator. Begin to sketch out with your Director and committee members a schedule for carrying out research and for writing your dissertation. You should plan to begin conducting research and writing immediately after completing your prospectus conference - in October or March of your fourth year. You should also consult with your Director and other committee members about a calendar for going on the job market, which sometimes takes place as early as the fall of year five (the fourth doctoral year). In addition, discuss with committee members opportunities for professional development, including going to academic conferences and applying for fellowships to do (and share) research.

Consult with faculty, with Ron Harris and with the Associate Chair about your teaching assignments for the next year.

Return to Table of Contents

Year Five:

Continue working with your dissertation director and other dissertation committee members on writing drafts of chapters, and building a calendar for when to go on the academic job market. Discuss with your Director the best way to distribute drafts of chapters: some directors prefer to read each draft and give suggestions for revision before those drafts are then distributed to other committee members; other directors ask dissertators to distribute drafts to all committee members at once; still others ask the dissertator not to distribute draft chapters to committee members at all, but prefer to work alone with the dissertator. Make sure you understand how your Director prefers to work, and discuss your preferences as well.

Talk with your dissertation director and other committee members about applying for a University Dissertation Fellowship (the deadline is usually late December or early January, announced by the Director of Graduate Studies).

As your dissertation takes shape, schedule a dissertation defense. The defense is designed to bring a nearly completed dissertation to the full committee so that the committee can advise you about putting the dissertation into its final form, and to suggest final revisions intended to make it as strong as possible. You should consult with your Director in deciding when your dissertation is ready for a defense. In most cases, completed drafts of all chapters should be submitted to your chair before a defense can be scheduled, though exceptions can be made in rare cases. The defense is attended by your three-person Dissertation Committee, as well as by two other faculty members, one of whom may be from the English Department, and one of whom must be from another Department. You should give the Graduate Degree Coordinator - and, of course, your Director - the names of those additional readers before the defense. You must provide the faculty reading the dissertation with as complete a copy as you and your Director judge possible, and as much in advance of the defense as is possible (normally, the faculty should have access to the dissertation under review at least one month before the defense).

The dissertation defense typically lasts between two and two-and-a-half hours. At the conclusion of the dissertation defense, the committee will either approve the submission of the dissertation in the shape in which they judged it; or they will approve the dissertation's submission, pending specified revisions that either they or the Director in their stead will oversee; or they will not approve the submission of the dissertation, and will require you to submit a substantially different piece of work. Once the dissertation has been completed, in the judgment of the Director, you may deposit the manuscript with the Graduate School. (Consult the English Department Graduate Coordinator and the Graduate School Degree Coordinator for the procedure.)

Return to Table of Contents

Three-Field (Ad-hoc) Preliminary Examination

(12/2004)

Ph.D. Literary Studies students in the department of English may request permission to take their preliminary exams under what is known as the Ad-hoc or Three-Field Preliminary exam system. These exams allow students to define their areas of research interest somewhat more broadly than the already established preliminary exam areas now do. Students should choose this option if they wish to carry on research or study that takes them across or beyond the boundaries of the already established examining areas in the Department.

The Three-Field system has four principal benefits to students whose needs fit its constraints:

1. It can allow a student to present a broader historical preparation than our pre-established historical areas can do. Thus it especially suits students who believe that their dissertation research will fall on the cusp of two or more of our traditional fields, such as for example English drama up to 1650, British and American eighteenth-century literature, or the research areas that can be inferred from the examples offered below.
2. It allows students to take a theoretical or a genre area and deepen their knowledge in it.
3. It allows students to gain greater depth in fields that, for their research, are not represented or underrepresented in our current lists.
4. It allows students who already have a sense of the topic they hope to pursue in writing their dissertations to begin working with materials relevant to that topic.

Return to Table of Contents

These benefits have a potential cost, since human time and energy are limited. To make a prudent decision, a student who chooses the gain of added breadth and depth in a Three-Field exam should weigh that gain against a commensurate loss of breadth and depth in some traditional area.

The Three-Field Exam requires that a student select three fields of study, of comparable depth, breadth, and scholarly scope. Normally, two of these will be contiguous historical fields. The third field may be another historical field; it may alternatively be a theoretical or genre field. Ad-hoc prelims are not designed to allow a student to compile a list of favorite books; rather, the three fields must represent recognizable fields of literary knowledge. Students should use the already existing preliminary exam reading lists as a starting point in constructing their lists. They may add other titles and make changes as seems appropriate to them in consultation with their advisor. Generally, in historical fields, students are asked to include on their lists examples of fiction, drama and poetry, although occasionally students have been able to articulate a case for focusing on only one of these genres, and to compensate (for instance) by enlarging the historical range to be covered.

Each "field" is represented by a list of 50 lines. As with the already established prelim lists, what constitutes a "line" will vary according to the type of literature at issue, and will be decided according to the best judgment of the student's committee. That is, the committee is responsible to see that the student's list is of an appropriate length and complexity to be equivalent to, and in no case less exacting than the existing examination areas. (Students will be discouraged from making the list more exacting than an existing area.)

Here are five examples of typical Three-Field preliminary exam fields:

• American Literature 1630-1905, and Literary Criticism; American Literature 1907-1990 and Literary Criticism; American Literature of the Frontier/West and Literary Criticism
• Romanticism as Process; Philosophy and the History of Science; Critical Theory
• Twentieth-Century Narrative; Critical Theory; Allegory
• Nineteenth-Century British Narrative: The Romantic Era; The Victorian Era; Literary Criticism and Theory
• British Literature 1500-1600; British Literature 1600-1660; Literary Theory and Criticism

Return to Table of Contents

To get permission to take Three-Field preliminary exams, students must notify the Graduate Division no later than the eighth week of the semester prior to the semester in which the prelim is to be taken. This means the eighth week in the fall for those planning August prelims, and the eighth week in the spring for those planning January prelims. The petition should if possible show that the student’s course selection relates to her or his plans for the Three-Field exam and future research.

1. The first step for a student who wishes to have a Three-Field exam is to enlist three faculty members to serve as committee members, one of whom agrees to serve as committee chair. This agreement has no bearing, positive or negative, on the future possibility that a faculty member may serve on the student's dissertation committee.
2. In consultation with the committee members, the student draws up a list of 150 lines, representing three fields. These will be equally weighted for exam purposes. The student should expect a significant amount of adjustment of the list, requiring revision with suggestions and advice from the committee members.
3. Once the three-person committee has approved the list, the student petitions the Director of Graduate Studies for approval. The student is encouraged to speak with the Director of Graduate Studies both at the beginning of the process and before petitioning, so as to insure that the fields of study being proposed fit within the guidelines of the Three-Field system. The petition consists of a brief letter to the DGS in which the student states which three faculty members have agreed to serve on the ad-hoc exam committee, and provides a brief (1-2 sentence) rationale for the three fields being proposed. The student appends to this letter the finalized approved list of 150 lines, signed by the three committee members. The DGS is empowered to review and approve these applications, to confirm that the exam proposal fits departmental rules. The DGS will not revise the contents of the lists proposed. Authority over what works will appear on the exam is held by the faculty members on the Three-Field exam committee.
   If the proposal is not approved, the student will be asked to revise and resubmit his or her proposal, or to select one of the already defined areas of study. If it is approved, the student works independently under the guidance of the three-person committee, which then exercises final authority over the exam and all matters concerning it.

Return to Table of Contents

(page last revised 10/2005)