The General and Qualifying Exams will take place in the student's third year in the doctoral program. It will consist of three parts:
- a 24-hour open-book take-home General Section (which will entail about eight hours of work);
- a 48-hour open-book take-home with one day devoted to each area of specialization (again, each part will entail about eight hours work); and
- a two-hour oral exam to be scheduled not more than one week after the written exams.
The General section and Qualifying sections of the exam must be taken within a single week; the Qualifying Exam must be taken on two consecutive days. One 24 hour period will be devoted to the primary area of concentration (Composition Studies) and the second 24 hour period to the secondary area of specialization.
Students will be awarded a grade of pass, pass with distinction, pass with reservation, or fail. Two failures will constitute grounds for dismissal from the program. Students who have failed the exams on the first try must retake them by the beginning of their fourth year of study.
The General Examination will consist of interpretive responses to passages drawn from significant work in the field of composition studies. In the answers students are expected to show the relationship of each passage to the work of the author and to issues in the field.
In preparing for the Qualifying Exam, the student will choose one secondary field of specialization in addition to the primary area of specialization in Composition Studies. Secondary fields might include a broad area of literary study, an equally broad area of linguistics, or literacy studies. Areas of specialization in literature are broad fields such as a genre, a literary or historical period, a major tradition, or criticism and theory. Areas of specialization in linguistics include theoretical linguistics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and the like.
Exam committees will consist of four faculty members, two in the area of composition and rhetoric, and two in the student's secondary field of specialization. The committee will be selected as follows. The Graduate Director, in consultation with the student, will choose a chair for the committee. The committee chair and the Graduate Director, again in consultation with the student, will choose three additional members in the student's fields of specialization.
Students are encouraged to begin shaping their exam areas during the second year of study. They should begin to consult with the Graduate Director about their committee by the end of the second year. Students will prepare reading lists, which must be placed on file in the Graduate Office by the time of the exam.
