A. General
The Ph.D. Examination is the last requirement that a student completes before proceeding to his or her dissertation. The Examination should be both a culmination of what the student has learned in graduate school thus far as well as an introduction to the independent research that will follow.
A student generally prepares three areas for the Ph.D. Examination, and often one of the reading lists is larger than the others. Two of these areas should be broad historical/geographical fields (e.g., British literature of the "long" 18th-century: 1660-1800; U.S. Literature to 1865; British and American literature of the Romantic period). Normally these first two areas will be parallel, contiguous, or otherwise related to each other (e.g. Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Literature, or Twentieth-Century American and British Literatures). In the first field, students should be able to demonstrate ability to engage in research and to teach beginning graduate-level courses. In the second field, they must show mastery sufficient for teaching an upper-division undergraduate course.
Students should also prepare a third examination area that focuses on a major author, a theoretical approach, a literary genre, pedagogy, or some other body of knowledge that is somehow complementary to the first two areas. Material in this third area will differ from, but may overlap with, material in the first and second fields. For students in Certificate Programs, this third area may be used to satisfy requirements for that program. (See section IX on Certificate Programs Available to Ph.D. Studies in English.)
Reading lists for each of these three fields should be formulated by the student in close consultation with members of his examination committees. The faculty views the formulation of these lists as an important part of the examination process. A student should be able to explain his or her construction of his field(s) and speak knowledgeably about why some authors and works are included in the list, why others are excluded. This will necessitate reading widely in the field in both primary and secondary sources.
The responsibility for scheduling the oral component of the Ph.D. Examination rests with the student. Because it can be difficult to schedule a time suitable for all of the faculty members of a committee, students should begin this process by consulting with their advisor -- who serves as the chair of the Ph.D. Examination -- as early as possible. Note that it is a department policy not to schedule Ph.D. Examinations during the last five days of a semester or later. Once a suitable time has been agreed to by all the members of the committee, the student should schedule a space through the department staff. (Usually the oral examinations take place in the Kemp Malone library, though other spaces are also used.)
The Ph.D. Examination has two components: a written component and an oral component.
B. The Written Component to the Ph.D. Examination
No later than two weeks prior to the oral component of the Ph.D. Examination, the student will pick up from the graduate coordinator (currently Melanie Tipnis) questions for the written component of the examination. (If the chair of the committee prefers, the student may pick up the exam directly from the chair.) These questions will be formulated by the chair of the examination committee after consulting with and soliciting suggestions from the remainder of the committee.
The student will be required to answer three questions. The exam will usually offer the student five or six questions from which to choose. The questions may be divided according to the fields on which the student is being examined, with the student being asked to write one question for each field.
The student can turn in no more than ten double-spaced pages per question. The student may refer to notes, books, or other sources in the course of writing the examination. However, the ideas and words of others must be documented either through footnotes or parenthetical citation.
The student will have 72 hours to turn in the exam after receiving it from the graduate coordinator or the committee chair. The exam should be turned into either the graduate coordinator or the committee chair. If the deadline for turning in the examination does not fall on a business day, then the student may meet the deadline by submitting an electronic copy by the appropriate time. However, the student should then provide a hard copy to the graduate coordinator on the next business day.
The graduate coordinator will then provide copies of the written examination to all of the members of the student's examination committee. The purpose of the examination is not for the committee to provide detailed feedback on a piece of writing, but rather for the student to have an opportunity to articulate his or her intellectual interests and to formulate them in a precise manner. While the committee may ask the student questions about the written portion of the examination during the oral portion, the purpose of the oral examination is to encompass a breadth that goes beyond those topics and texts that the student has discussed in the written examination.
The written component of the examination will not be evaluated separately from the oral examination. Rather, the committee will evaluate both the written and oral components together after the oral examination.
C. The Oral Component of the Ph.D. Examination
The oral component of the Ph.D. Examination occurs during a two-hour period. The nature and the style of the questions will vary from examination to examination; however, questions will often begin with responses to the written component of the examination and proceed to other matters related to the lists. Students should consult with the chair of their examination committee to determine how the chair plans to allot the time for questioning among the different members of the committee.
At the conclusion of the oral component of the Ph.D. Examination, the committee will deliberate on both the written and oral performance of the students. The committee may award the student a “pass,” fail the student on the entire examination, or fail the student for one or more parts of the examination. In the last instance, the student would then re-take only the part(s) of the examination in question. A student may repeat the Ph.D. Examination only once.
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The English Department's Graduate Handbook
