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PhD Qualifying Exams

Determining Exam Areas and Reading Lists: Students choose three exam areas. One must be a post-1900 literature area; the second must be either Theory or Composition Pedagogy; the third can be Composition Pedagogy (if it is not the second area), another post-1900 literature area, or a pre-1900 literature area. The students must secure the faculty members who will examine them.

             

The Graduate Faculty has established a list of standing, or pre-approved, exam areas for which core reading lists have been developed. Students who wish to be examined in an area not represented on this list must submit a written proposal for that area, accompanied by a letter of support by the faculty examiner, to the Graduate Director.

The standing post-1900 areas are delimited by nationality and genre, as follows:

• 20th and 21st Century British Poetry
• 20th and 21st Century British Fiction
• 20th and 21st Century British Drama
• 20th and 21st Century American Poetry
• 20th and 21st Century American Fiction
• 20th and 21st Century American Drama
• Ethnic American Literature (also considered a post-1900 area)

The standing pre-1900 areas cover all genres across a certain nationality and historical period, for example:

• Medieval Literature
• Renaissance/Early Modern Literature
• 17th Century Literature
• British Victorian Literature
• Early American Literature (to 1800)
• 19th Century American Literature

For all standing areas, the core reading lists consist of approximately 30 items each (20 primary and 10 secondary). These works represent the minimum that a student claiming expertise in those areas needs to know. To the core list, the student adds another 30 works, chosen in consultation with the advisor, in roughly the same proportion (20 and 10). Students are encouraged to weight each list toward their particular sub-fields of interest.

Exam Committee: The committee for the qualifying exam consists of four members of the Department faculty: the dissertation director, an expert in the second field, an expert in the third field, and a moderator for the oral portion of the exam.

Submitting the Reading Lists and Rationale: During their second year of study, doctoral students begin to assemble reading lists and rationales for the three exam areas. They should work closely with their examiners during this process.

Scheduling the Exam: Upon formally submitting the reading lists and the rationale to the Graduate Director, the student, in consultation with the examiners, sets the dates for the qualifying exam. Under normal circumstances, the student should allow at least three months to elapse between approval of these materials and the exam.

Exam Format: The doctoral qualifying exam will consist of three written portions (one for each area) and an oral. It will take place over a two-week period, with the different parts scheduled at the student and examiners’ convenience.

             

For each written part, the exam committee will prepare questions that give the student some choice; committees may invite the student to submit ideas for questions. These three exams are taken on three separate days. The student will receive each exam at 8:00 a.m. on the scheduled day from the Graduate Coordinator and must turn the answers in by 5:00 p.m. of that same day. There will be a limit of 2,000 to 3,000 words (8 to 12 pages) for each part. Students may compose their answers anywhere they see fit. If they wish to write here at the University, we will set up a place for them to do so. The expectation is that students will wish to write in a comfortable place, near their study materials. We do not expect or want students to write constantly all day; we seek the equivalent of three to four hours of thoughtful writing, with time enough for breaks and proofreading.

             

The oral exam is approximately 90 minutes. The exam committee, which at this point will involve a moderator, will use this period to ask the student to elaborate on written answers and to ask additional questions on the three areas.

             

All examiners, including the moderator, will evaluate all portions of the exam. The committee should determine whether the student has earned a High Pass, a Pass, or Failure, with the moderator then reporting these results in writing to the Graduate Director.