Although the major work on the dissertation is concentrated in the last year or year and a half of the program, a good dissertation develops and gets refined over a longer period of time. The candidate should have a subject in mind as he or she selects fields for the Qualifying Examination. Then the fields can be chosen appropriately and the subject can grow as the student prepares for that exam.

Once the student has passed the Qualifying Examination, a doctoral committee is appointed by the Dean of the Graduate School after nomination by the Department. This committee is normally composed of three professors from the English Department and two more from related departments. The student then prepares a written proposal outlining the dissertation topic, a minimum of ten pages long, the materials to be used, and pertinent scholarship related to the topic. The student has six months from the date of passing the Qualifying Examination to present this proposal.

After submitting copies of this proposal to the doctoral committee, the student meets with its members to defend the proposal and to demonstrate his or her preparation to work on the project. The meeting should last one and one-half hours. The committee may opt to 1) approve the proposal, 2) require that the proposal be revised, 3) require that the student undertake further preparation before proceeding (the conditions are set by the committee and monitored by its chair). If the proposal needs to be re-presented, the student may take no more than an additional six months to do so.

Doctoral candidates registering for English 999 are normally expected to attend a noncredit ungraded dissertation workshop directed by a member of the English Department's graduate faculty. This workshop will meet approximately once a month. (If travel presents a hardship, this requirement may be waived through a petition to the Graduate Director.)

In preparing the dissertation, the candidate should refer to the Graduate Catalogue for technical requirements. For dissertation format, the student must consult the graduate school pamphlet, Manual for the Preparation of Theses. After the dissertation is completed, the candidate will defend it orally at a formal examination with the doctoral committee.

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Deborah L. Hodgkins. Constructive Texts: Theory, Practice and the "Self" in Composition, 1998.

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Lisa M. Stepanski, “There is No School Like the Family School:” Literacy, Motherteaching, and the Alcott Family, 1996.

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