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The Doctoral Dissertation

After passing the Fundamentals Examination students are expected to prepare a doctoral dissertation proposal in close consultation with potential faculty members of the dissertation committee. A proposal is ordinarily 2500 to 5000 words plus a bibliography, and should present the problem to be addressed, its disciplinary and transdisciplinary importance, approaches taken by previous scholarship, the character and advantages of the approach to be taken, and the expected structure of the dissertation. It is ordinarily written in the future tense and need not presume the author has already solved the problem to be addressed. To obtain dissertation fellowship support it is important to have an approved proposal and a dissertation chapter by the start of the second quarter of the fourth year.

The doctoral dissertation committee must include one member of the Committee faculty to serve as first reader and at least two other faculty members both of whom may come from elsewhere in the University and one of who may come from outside the University. It is customary to consult with the first reader about the composition of the committee. The first reader certifies the approval of the proposal by the dissertation committee to the Coordinator for Student Affairs and presents the proposal for approval to the Committee on Social Thought at a meeting, usually the eighth week of the Fall, Winter, or Spring Quarter.

The student proceeds to write the dissertation in consultation with the dissertation committee. Members of the dissertation committee also bear primary responsibility for advising and assisting the student in making the transition to professional life and seeking academic employment. A proposal is not a contract and a finished dissertation often diverges substantially from the proposal, but the student should keep the dissertation committee informed of the dissertation's development. In advance of handing in a draft, the student should alert the readers, who may serve on large numbers of other dissertation committees both in the Committee and elsewhere. Members of the dissertation committee may ask for revisions before approving the dissertation. The candidate should obtain the guidelines about the form of the dissertation from the University Dissertation Office early in the course of writing the dissertation and follow them closely. When the members of the dissertation committee have certified to the Coordinator for Student Affairs their approval of the final draft, the draft should be made available to the faculty of the Committee through the Coordinator who will then schedule a public doctoral lecture by the candidate. The doctoral lecture is a formal public presentation based on the dissertation designed to address questions of general interest to students and faculty in the Committee. A bound copy of the dissertation should be deposited with the Committee.

A Committee on Social Thought dissertation is expected to combine exact scholarship with broad cultural understanding and literary merit.

The following are examples of dissertations that have been completed in the Committee on Social Thought:

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