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Students: Graduate Information

Advising: Program of Study

Deadline | Contents | Review of Program Study | Example of Timeline | Sample Programs of Study

Overview

The Program of Study in the Ohio State University English Department is a written plan of study and its rationale, worked out by the student and her/his adviser and Candidacy Examination Committee. Its primary purpose is to help the student form a coherent program, propose achievable goals, and chart a route to the Ph.D. degree. The Final Program of Study also asks the student to articulate his/her primary scholarly field and particular area of focus within that field. These field and focus areas comprise the two parts of the Candidacy Examination, and through them the student defines her/his areas of scholarly interest and expertise. In formulating them, students should consider the following questions: What area of English studies do you want to publish, teach, and eventually apply for positions in? How do you want to define yourself within the larger discipline of English studies? It is possible, and often desirable, to have other areas of interest as well, but the Program of Study asks students to identify their primary areas as they will be manifested in the Candidacy Examination and Dissertation. To that end, an important component of the Program of Study is the reading list that will be the basis for the Candidacy Examination, as well as an explanation of how this list corresponds to or justifies the description of the field and focus.

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Deadline

The final Program of Study must be submitted to the Graduate Studies Program and Policy Committee no later than the sixth week after the completion of 45 hours of course work toward the Ph.D. (for full-time students on a 50% GTA or GAA appointment, this date should typically fall no later than the sixth week of the spring quarter of the student’s second year in the Ph.D. program).

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Contents

The Final Program of Study must include the following, which should be presented in this order:

1. A description of the student’s plans for the Ph.D. Candidacy Examination. This section (about two single-spaced pages) should define both the “field” and “focus area” of the Exam. The “field” section should reflect current categories used in the larger profession, such as those used in advertisements in the job lists produced by the MLA, CCCC, and other relevant professional organizations. Students working in emerging fields should explain those fields’ relation to current categories used in the larger profession. The “focus area” is a critical problem, which the student will explore in preparation for the Exam. The relationship between the “field” and the “focus area” must be clear; i.e., explain how the critical problem fits into the field. Include a reading list as an Appendix to the Program of Study. Although reading lists will vary by field, in general the “field” portion should contain no more than 75-85 works, and the “focus area” portion no more than 40-45. Each of these lists should include both primary and secondary works. In general the works listed in the field and focus portions should not overlap.

   Examples of recently approved field and focus areas include the following:

   • 20th-Century American Literature; focus - Confessional writing
   • Medieval Studies; focus - Middle English debate poetry
   • Restoration and 18th-Century British literature; focus - The Rhetoric of Identity in 18th-Century Novels
   • Film theory and criticism; focus - the Western
   • History of Rhetoric; focus - Nineteenth-Century Women’s Rhetoric
   • Literacy Studies; focus - Business and Professional Communication
2. A listing of the members of the Candidacy Exam Committee. The Graduate School requires that this committee be composed of four graduate faculty members, and it must be chaired by a faculty member with Category P graduate faculty status. This Committee is formed specifically to administer the Candidacy Exam and is not the same as the Dissertation Committee, which is composed of a director, who must be a Category P Graduate Faculty member, and at least two other graduate faculty members.
3. A preliminary description of the student’s dissertation and its relation to the field and focus. This description should be two to three paragraphs long and should include the central questions the dissertation will address and an overview of important texts and approaches to be used.
4. Completed course work for the M.A. and the Ph.D., including dates when courses were taken, grades received, titles of completed major papers and brief (one- or two-sentence) descriptions of Independent Study projects.
5. The student’s teaching experience and plans for taking English 903. This section should include a description of past teaching assignments and classes the student would like to teach in the future.
6. Any other information about the student’s professional development (such as publications; conferences; work(s)-in-progress; special RA, AA, or tutoring assignments) that the student thinks is relevant.
7. A timeline for the student’s progress toward graduation. The timeline should indicate the projected dates for the completion of all Ph.D. requirements, including course work, foreign language requirement (specify language and how the requirement was met), English 903, graduate workshops, candidacy exam, Dissertation Prospectus, dissertation research and writing, and job application process. The timeline should also indicate plans for getting funding for research, if applicable. The timeline should list the activities planned for each quarter. See sample timeline below.
8. The Program of Study should be submitted with a brief letter of endorsement from the student’s primary adviser (usually the Candidacy Examination chair). This letter should explain the adviser’s sense of the appropriateness of the student’s field and focus. For this purpose, the adviser must have Category P status on the Graduate Faculty; please consult Graduate Faculty section of this handbook if in doubt about this.
9. Before submitting the Program of Study to the Program and Policy Committee, the student should meet with his her Candidacy Examination Committee as a group, or at the very least circulate the Program of Study to all members of the Committee. The primary adviser’s letter must state that the student has worked with her/his entire committee in the process of formulating the Program of Study, indicating that all committee members are familiar with and approve of the document.

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Review of Program of Study

The Director of Graduate Studies will review the Preliminary Program of Study. The final Program of Study will be reviewed by the faculty members of the Program and Policy Committee in order to insure that the student has taken full advantage of the Department’s and College’s course and study options and has developed a solid professional program. The Program and Policy Committee has final approval of the Program of Study and may request changes, should it deem the document in need of revision. Such requests, when they occur, typically ask the student to articulate more clearly the field and focus areas and the relationship between them, the dissertation project, or the justification for the reading lists.

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Example of Timeline

The following example is offered as a model for constructing your own timeline; it is not intended to be rigidly prescriptive. Activities should be listed quarter by quarter. Please note that the foreign language requirement must be met before the Candidacy Exam, and in order for candidates to retain funding for the fourth year, students must complete the Candidacy Exam and present an approved Prospectus no later than winter quarter of the third year. Autumn quarter is the optimum time to ensure readiness for job interviews a year later.

• Year I: Begin Ph.D. course work. Turn in Preliminary Program of Study by the first Friday of spring quarter.
• Year II: Complete Ph.D. course work and foreign language requirement, Program of Study (no later than the sixth week after completion of course work), and English 903. Begin teaching 200-level courses if available. Study for and take Candidacy Examination.
• Year III: Choose Dissertation Committee, Prospectus Conference and Prospectus. Begin dissertation research and writing.
• Year IV: Dissertation writing, job applications, mock interviews, and dissertation defense.

For additional guidance, the RhetComp folks have also provided a sample timeline that goes into a bit more depth. Again, this is simply a guideline and is not intended to be prescriptive. This timeline does not include, for example, archive work or travel abroad.

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Sample Programs of Study

• American Literature to 1900 / Postcolonial Studies [PDF] | Doc1
• Twentieth-Century Multi-Ethnic American Literature / Autobiography [PDF] | Doc2
• Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Literature sample PDF | Doc3
• Medieval Literature sample PDF | Doc4
• Rhetoric & Composition sample PDF | Doc5
• Nineteenth-Century American Literature / Frontier sample PDF | Doc6
• Film sample [PDF] **

** Hard copies of the PDF files are available in the Graduate Studies office (Denney 425).

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