PhD DISSERTATION EXAMINATION (PhDDE)

The PHDDE should be completed within one year after the Preliminary Examination.

           The PhD dissertation must be based upon original investigation and demonstrate mature scholarship and critical judgment as well as familiarity with the tools and methods of research.  It should be a worthwhile contribution to knowledge in the student's special field.  Students are advised to familiarize themselves thoroughly with the various Graduate School rules governing the format and deadlines for the dissertation.

           Once past the Preliminary Exam, the student should focus as quickly as possible on a probable dissertation area and begin conferring with a faculty member likely to direct the dissertation.  Together, they will recommend to the DGS the three other members of the dissertation committee, one of which must be from outside the program area (i.e., from a related field).  The Graduate School must approve the composition of the committee.  Once the committee has been confirmed, the DGSA will fill out the appropriate forms.  The Chair of the PHDDE Examination along with at least 2 more committee members must be present during the oral examination.  Other committee members can be on the phone; any other configuration must be approved by the Graduate School.

           The PhDDE Examination, which must be taken before full-time dissertation research will be funded, is essentially a seminar conducted with the dissertation committee in order to complement and refine the ideas and references the student brings to the project.  It is administered as an oral exam by the members of the PhD dissertation committee and lasts about two hours.  In preparation, the student compiles a starting bibliography and begins background readings of essential sources.  This is done as an independent study for credit in the second semester of the third year.  For the exam, the student submits this bibliography to the committee along with an essay of about 20 pages.  The essay should address the following questions: How is the subject to be situated? What approaches can be used? What scholarship exists on this subject/field (theory, archival materials, history, and literary history)? What contributions will the dissertation make?  What criticism can be made of the chosen topic? What are its strengths and weaknesses? These are the questions that frame the discussion during the PhDDE, which thus serves principally to critique the problematic put forth by the candidate, to help shape the dissertation research, and to provide new information that can help the candidate further the dissertation project as rapidly as possible.

PHDDE Prospectus

           Taking into account the input received during the PhDDE Examination, the student revises the examination document and draws up a possible organizational framework for the dissertation itself.  The Prospectus should be a précis that raises a series of questions and it should suggest how the dissertation may be structured around topics and chapters.  This should be a concise, 8-15 page statement of the problems, methods and organization plans for the dissertation, accompanied by a bibliography sufficiently ample (a selected bibliography based on the three already prepared) to indicate the directions of the research.  More specifically, the Prospectus should address the following issues:

1.  Specific Issues to be explored: Outline the issues to be explored.  State the significance of those issues.  Specify the relationship of your research to other research in the field and identify the gaps that the proposed thesis is intended to fill by relating the specific aims of the thesis to previous work in the field.  Briefly describe the most significant previous work in relation to the issues you are going to explore.

2.  Approach, Methods, Techniques: Describe the special aims of your thesis and the theoretical perspectives from which you will address the issues you are supposed to investigate, the existing but unsolved questions, or the questions you yourself will be asking.  State why the proposed methodology is particularly appropriate for your investigation.

3.  Basic texts selected according to parts or chapters of the dissertation: briefly outline which basic texts or documents you will be studying.

4.  Limitations/Pitfalls:  Indicate the potential or possible limitations and pitfalls to the approaches and methods you are proposing as well as the difficulties presented by the issues you propose to investigate.

5.  Thesis timetable; travel (if needed):  Indicate how your time will be organized to complete the different stages of your thesis research and writing.  If your thesis requires you to conduct research outside of Duke University, provide details and justification.  Indicate whether you have competence in the foreign languages needed for using the primary and secondary material that will be used in the project.

           It is the director's responsibility to inform the DGS when the prospectus has been approved.  The prospectus is intended to help guide the student's approach to the research and its outline will normally be modified as the work progresses.

PHDDE Timetable

           Students will be expected to have developed bibliographies acceptable to their PhDDE Committee by April of the third year (sixth semester) of graduate studies.  The oral examination should take place at that time or, at the very latest, at the beginning of the fall semester of the following year.  Departmental funding for dissertation research abroad is contingent upon successful completion of the PhDDE.

There are three possible outcomes for the Ph.D. Dissertation Examination:

1. the committee allows the student to continue on toward the dissertation. or,

2. the committee informs the student of areas that need further preparation and sets any conditions necessary to assure that the student completes the additional required preparation; or,

3. the committee determines that the student cannot successfully finish the PhD. At this point, students who have not yet filed for a Master’s may do so (see MA Degree). 

DISSERTATION

           The student and the dissertation director will designate a second reader from the department faculty or from a related field, who, along with the director, will read drafts and advise the student as the dissertation progresses.  With the approval of the DGS, a student may have two faculty members as co-directors in lieu of a second reader.  In addition, a penultimate draft of the dissertation should be sent to the other two readers well in advance of the defense in order to anticipate any problems and take into account relevant criticisms in preparing the final version of the dissertation.  The student should check with the Chair of his or her committee to see how far in advance the complete draft should be sent before the exam.

           The dissertation must be completed within four years of the Preliminary Examination.  When it has been completed to the satisfaction of the director, it is initially submitted to the Graduate School.  It is essential that the student obtain and follow the technical rules for dissertation form provided by the Graduate School, otherwise the dissertation may have to be re-edited or reprinted.  Refer to the "Guide for the Preparation of Theses and Dissertations" at http://www.gradschool.duke.edu/policies_and_forms/electronic_dissertation_guide.pdf

           Note that as of Spring 2009 all dissertations must be submitted electronically.

           The final composition of the student's doctoral committee should be given to the DGSA well in advance of the defense date.

           In order to graduate, and after the doctoral committee has been approved, the student must go into his or her ACES record and complete the "Intention to Receive Degree." The student should check with the DGSA regarding deadlines for final submission of the dissertation, and for the filing of the "Intention to Receive Degree."

           The "Intention to Receive Degree” is valid only for the semester in which it is filed, and does not carry over from one semester to the next. When the student declares an "Intention to Receive Degree,” he or she should send the title of the dissertation to the DGSA so the departmental Intent to Defend schedule can be submitted to the Graduate School in time for the defense.

           The doctoral dissertation should normally be submitted and accepted within two calendar years after the preliminary examination is passed. Should the dissertation not be submitted and accepted within four years after the examination, the candidate may, with the approval of the committee chair and DGS, petition the dean of the Graduate School for an extension of up to one year. If this extension is granted and the dissertation is not submitted and accepted by the new deadline, the student may be dropped from candidacy. Students dropped from candidacy must then pass a second preliminary examination to be reinstated as candidates for the degree. In such cases, the new time limit for submitting the dissertation will be determined by the dean of the Graduate School in consultation with the candidate's committee.

           Basic requirements for preparing the dissertation are prescribed in the Guide for the Preparation of Theses and Dissertations available on the Graduate School’s web site. For more specific aspects of form and style, the student is advised to use A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations by Kate L. Turabian, or other approved manuals of style.

           The student must compose an abstract of the dissertation no longer than 350 words, which is sent with the dissertation for microfilming and will subsequently be printed in Dissertation Abstracts International.