Dissertation
Advancement to candidacy for the Ph.D. requires both passing the Qualifying Examination and filing the dissertation proposal. Click here to view the Writing Benchmarks for Dissertating Students.
Initial Steps
In late May or early June following the completion of the Qualifying Examination, third year students are required to attend a Dissertation Proposal Writing Workshop led by the ADGS. This workshop will outline the process of writing a dissertation proposal and provide an overview of benchmarks for satisfactory progression on the dissertation. (See below for more information about the proposal writing process.)
No more than two weeks following this workshop, the student should meet with his or her
dissertation director to begin working on the proposal. If the student does not have a director lined up, he or she will need to find one in consultation with the Chair of their Qualifying Examination Committee and, if the student wishes, the Graduate Director or Associate Director. The dissertation director will then help the student select two additional members of the committee, or “readers.”
The Dissertation Committee
At the proposal stage, only the director and two additional readers need be selected. All committee members must be members of the English Graduate Faculty, which can include faculty from other Rutgers University departments. The Graduate Office must be informed at this time about the composition of the dissertation committee. Students should consult with each member of their committee and agree upon a schedule for submitting drafts of chapters. Please note that there is no technical limit on the number of members a committee can have; once the three EGF members are in place, additional members, including those from other universities, may be included in the committee with the approval of the dissertation director. Students should consult with each member of their committee and agree upon a schedule for submitting drafts of chapters.
In addition to three or more internal committee members, Rutgers requires an outside reader to participate in the dissertation defense. The outside reader, whether from another department within the university or from outside the university, is normally chosen when the dissertation is under way. After an outside reader has agreed to serve, the student should notify the Graduate Office, who will inform the Graduate School. The degree to which outside readers are involved in the chapter-by-chapter progress of the dissertation varies. They may be as involved as the department readers, but sometimes they are in a position to read only the final dissertation.
The Dissertation Proposal
The dissertation proposal is an initial and exploratory attempt to formulate the dissertation project. It should identify a problem or issue that previous scholarship has overlooked or treated inadequately and it should set out a program of research that is likely to lead to an original and illuminating treatment of the question it addresses. The proposal should not attempt to be that treatment, or even a summary of it; its function is to raise the issue and sketch an approach to it. It should address any major publications that have dealt with the same issue in order to indicate what remains to be done, and set out the various stages of the work that lie ahead. The proposal is just that: a set of suggestions that will inevitably prove inadequate once the real work begins. What is required is sufficient evidence that there is a real question, or set of questions, being asked – questions of the kind that are appropriate to a dissertation and thus neither too narrow nor too ambitious.
Timing and Procedure
The dissertation proposal is due on September 15th of the fourth year. The proposal must be approved by the Dissertation Director before submission.
Following the Dissertation Proposal Workshop, the student will prepare this proposal in consultation with the committee. The director will guide the student through a series of discussions and drafts. When the director agrees that the student has projected a clear and workable project, and that the bibliography is sufficiently developed, the student will prepare a final draft. The student will then hand in the completed proposal to the Graduate Office and this will constitute advancement to candidacy.
Dissertation Writing Seminar
All ABD students are urged to enroll in a Dissertation Writing Seminar. This is a non-credited course, normally offered each semester. It is open to advanced graduate students who are at the dissertation stage. Run in a workshop format, the seminar is designed to provide support, guidance, and motivation for dissertation writers. Participants are expected to write regularly and to share what they have written. Topics of discussion include forms of argumentation, selection of evidence, and effective framing, as well as strategies for completing individual chapters. Participants will draft and revise written work across the course of the semester and provide thoughtful, constructive responses to the work of others.
Defense of DissertationIn addition, the student must make arrangements to meet with the Graduate Office to receive detailed instructions on defense planning and degree filing requirements.
The defense consists of a one-hour meeting of the committee with the student. Upon completion of the defense, the student must submit one electronic copy of the dissertation to the Graduate School.