Ph.D. Dissertation Defense Preparation Tips

Pre-defense is a time for the Ph.D. candidate and the committee to discuss the organization, structure, evidence, and main arguments. It is the best opportunity for the committee members to offer valuable advice to the Ph.D. candidate on the key additions and revisions on research activities and the feeling that needs wrapping up as the final defense approach. Pre-defense takes place approximately 3 to 6 months to the last defense.

It is the Ph.D. candidate's responsibility to set up the meeting by arranging the venue and setting time together with the draft dissertation's distribution on a good time for all the audience to read substantively. The Ph.D. candidate needs to inform the department by writing an e-mail to the graduate school secretary.

It is important to know how long is a dissertation defense. Ordinarily, the pre-defense takes approximately two hours to finish. While in the pre-defense, all the committee members can ask the Ph.D. candidate some relevant questions. During this question, some form of organic conversation begins. Suppose a committee member is off-campus for some reasons. In that case, the member can participate by sharing comments beforehand with the session chair and the Ph.D. candidate or participating through the internet. It is essential that all committee needs to sit and dispense off the pre-defense issues.

It is important to note that there is no graduate college paperwork or any form of formalism.

Once the pre-defense discussion is over and the Ph.D. candidate gets hold of the final instructions. It is the advisor's responsibility to notify the DGS with an e-mail report of the pre-defense deliberations. As evidence of the pre-defense sitting, the summary gets filed in the student's file.

Final Defense

Each Ph.D. candidate gets a copy of the thesis preparation instructions and a checklist of all the requirements. In case of any questions or concerns, the candidates need to channel them to the graduate school's graduate secretary or thesis department. Interested candidates that need to know more about the graduate school policies on Ph.D. committees and the last defense are free to visit the University website.

It is a requirement that each member of the Ph.D. examination committee must receive a hard copy of the thesis one month before the final defense so that they get to read and understand the content. However, some committee members are willing to read a soft copy of the dissertation, but concurrence has key before availing an electronic copy. Scheduling the final defense is the committee chair's responsibility, but the chair can delegate to the Ph.D. candidate in some circumstances.

During the last defense, the Ph.D. candidate gets a request to leave the room so that the committee members can have private discussions concerning the dissertation and then decide on the nature, number, and order of the questions. After this deliberation, the Ph.D. candidate gets in then begins describing his or her dissertation under the following headings: key arguments, importance, strengths, and weaknesses. The committee members will now start to ask questions, and the session chair will wrap the question section. After approximately two hours, the Ph.D. candidate leaves the room to allow the committee members to determine the result.

Time Limitations

The following are graduate school college guidelines:

• A student who registers for Ph.D. with BA should complete the Ph.D. program within seven years.
• Students with an MA who writes for Ph.D. must complete it within five years.

Graduate students who attain the official graduate school college limits that are different from the normal ones need to petition the graduate school to get permission to continue. To get this approval, the graduate student needs to present evidence of progress towards attaining the degree and prospective completion date. Such a petition should get submitted to the graduate secretary, and upon getting the requisite signatures, it forwards it to graduate college.

However, students who complete 96 hours together with all requisite requirements except the dissertation can stop living in the university as the dissertation writing winds up. Candidates need to know that the necessary services are accessible subject to complete registration as a University student. Once a Ph.D. student completes or is about to end, they can apply for and register for the final semester for the final defense presentation.