Exams
Doctoral students submit two distinct kinds of research papers, both of which are judged as passing or failing by a committee: the preliminary paper (submitted in the third semester of study) and the synthesis paper (submitted by the end of the sixth semester of study). The synthesis paper is the first stage of the two-stage comprehensive exam, which also requires a defense of the thesis proposal. Once the comprehensive exam is passed, the student is advanced to candidacy for the doctoral degree.
All PhD students must produce and orally defend a passing preliminary paper, which should be a research paper focused on analysis of some aspect of language. It is meant to be an opportunity for the student to develop and demonstrate, early in their career, the ability to produce original research, generally involving analyzing language data and drawing conclusions from them, as appropriate in the student’s chosen subfield. The prelim paper must be submitted to the committee by February 1and defended orally on February 15 of the student’s second year in the program.
Prelim Committee & Prelim Proposal
The prelim paper should be written under the mentorship of a prelim advisor, who may or may not be the student’s doctoral advisor. In the first semester of the first year, students should explore the research of faculty whose work they are especially interested in by attending lab or research group meetings and/or arranging individual discussions. The goals in the first semester are to find a prelim advisor with complementary interests and to discover the skills and methodologies necessary for the kind of work they want to undertake. By the end of the first semester, the student will select a prelim advisor. The student will work with the advisor to choose a topic, determine a method, and select the data or plan the data collection. However, responsibility for the quality of the proposal and the prelim paper are ultimately entirely the student’s.
A 1-2 page proposal for the prelim paper, prepared in consultation with the advisor and approved by the advisor, must be submitted to the student’s Prelim committee by March 1 of the student’s first year in the program. This proposal should describe the questions that the student is planning to investigate and detail the methods and data that the student plans to use to address these questions. In addition, the proposal should describe how the mentorship of the prelim advisor is expected to contribute to the student’s research growth through this project. With the advisor’s consent, this might refer to the opportunity to use the advisor’s data or expand upon or extend the advisor’s existing work. Or it might refer to support in learning a new methodology or approach or analysis technique to apply to an original question. References may occupy a separate page. (Due to the short time frame for completion of the Prelim, students should consider using existing data sources.)
Each student will be assigned a Prelim Committee consisting of three faculty members from Linguistics. One of the members will be the student’s chosen prelim advisor. The other two members will be nominated by the advisor and approved by the Graduate Advisor. Each prelim proposal will be evaluated by the Prelim Committee of the student who wrote it. It will be evaluated on the appropriateness of the scope, degree of collaboration/independence, and plan for growth, and on the potential for development into a paper of a quality that would make a satisfactory contribution to a linguistics conference. Students will receive written feedback from the committee by March 15, and if required by the committee, will submit a revised proposal by the first Monday after the end of spring break. If the committee does not approve the revised proposal, the student will have to re-attempt the Prelim in the following cycle. Any changes to the original proposal must be finalized by September 15 during the student's second year in the program.
Prelim Paper
The prelim paper should be a substantial research paper that demonstrates a student’s ability to produce original research, generally involving analyzing language data and drawing conclusions from them. In other words, it should show the student’s ability to select a question, data, and methodology appropriate to their chosen subfield, and to propose an analysis of that data within a cogent linguistic context. A prelim paper would generally be slightly more substantial than a typical term paper (though not exceeding 10,000 words), but a term paper might provide a good example of an appropriate structure. The quality of the prelim paper should be comparable to that of a satisfactory contribution to a linguistics conference.
Students may discuss the submitted prelim paper draft with committee members between submission and the Prelim Oral; however, students should not expect substantive comments on the prelim paper before the Oral. Students may have the opportunity to, or be required to, revise the paper following the Oral.
The prelim paper must be submitted to the committee by February 1 and defended orally on February 15 during the student's second year in the program.
Prelim Oral
Students will defend their prelim at a Prelim Oral on February 15. The oral will be evaluated by the student’s prelim committee and any Linguistics faculty who choose to attend. The student will present a 10 minute summary of the paper, after which the student will answer questions from the committee and any other faculty or department members present for 20 minutes. Following the oral, the student’s prelim committee will vote on whether the Prelim is of passing quality, taking into account both the prelim paper and the oral. The advisor will provide the student with written feedback from each of the committee members, as well as a summary of the committee response to the oral. Again, responsibility for the quality of the proposal, the prelim paper, and the oral are ultimately entirely the student’s. I
If any changes are required by the committee after the defense, these must be completed by March 1. If the committee does not approve the revised paper, the student will have to re-attempt the Prelim in the following cycle.
Unsatisfactory Performance or Postponement
Students have two opportunities to pass the Prelim. Students who do not achieve a passing Prelim proposal, paper, or oral on their first attempt may make a second and final attempt in the following cycle (i.e., proposal in March of the 2nd year and paper and oral in fall of the 3rd year).
Ordinarily, postponement of submission of the proposal, the prelim paper, or the prelim oral will count as an attempt at passing the prelim; therefore, a student who elects to postpone will have only one opportunity to pass it. In extreme circumstances (e.g., a health or family emergency), the student may submit a petition for delay of submission to the Graduate Chair, and a decision will be made by vote of the faculty. Supporting documentation may be requested. If the student’s petition is accepted, the postponement will not count as an exam attempt.
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The University’s comprehensive examination requirement is satisfied in two stages, following satisfaction of the preliminary exam requirement. These stages are: completion of a synthesis paper and successful defense of the dissertation prospectus. Note that the committee that will evaluate the synthesis exam is a three-member committee (which may have a different composition from the thesis committee), while the committee that will evaluate dissertation prospectus is the five-member thesis committee, which must contain at least one CU faculty member from outside the Department.
The Synthesis Paper
The Synthesis is the second major milestone in the PhD program. It is started after completion of the Prelim. The Synthesis process should help students explore and engage in areas relevant to their eventual dissertation. However, students need not know exactly what their evetual dissertation topic might be at the point of the Synthesis. Rather, the Synthesis is a step along the way.
The goal of the Synthesis Paper is to demonstrate a student's ability to engage critically and independently with questions of linguistic importance. Each student will complete a Synthesis paper that addresses a focused topic or problem that contributes to scholarly conversations in the student's chosen subarea of lingusitics. The Synthesis can be either (1) a critical review of the literature, or (2) original research that addresses and takes into account existing scholarship. The Synthesis paper should be the culmination of an approximately year-long process, undertaken in consultation with the three-memeber synthesis committee.
Step 1: The student, in consultation with the three-member synthesis committee, determines a general topic area for the Synthesis (e.g., aspectual systems, language and gender from an interactional perspective, models of coarticulation). The topic might be slightly broader or narrower, depending on the student’s background and the stage of development of their personal research interests. The student should establish a reading list in the topic area. The reading list may change as the project develops, but it should show thoughtful consideration of the context relevant to the chosen topic.
Step 2: Again in consultation with the synthesis committee, the student chooses a focused research question for the Synthesis. The student should submit a synthesis proposal to the committee outlining and motivating the question to be addressed and describing the approach that will be taken to address the question, whether that is a critical synthesis of existing literature or a paper that brings together existing literature and original research. Ideally, this question and/or research might extend from the Prelim or from reading or projects begun in the context of a course (e.g., one of the theory courses). The proposal should be no more than 1000 words, exclusive of references.
If the student is very clear about their interests and directions at the beginning of the Synthesis process, steps 1 and 2 may be combined in a proposal + bibliography.
Step 3: The final synthesis paper should demonstrate the student’s ability to address a question of linguistic importance and engage with the existing literature within their chosen subarea. The submitted work should not exceed 10,000 words. A synthesis paper would be more substantial than a typical term paper, although a term paper might serve as the starting point for a synthesis paper. The synthesis paper should be submitted to the committee by the end of classes in the sixth semester in order for the student to be viewed as making adequate progress.
If the student has chosen the approach of including original research, the Synthesis could provide the student with a research product that could be submitted for conference presentation and possibly publication. It could also serve as a pilot of dissertation research, though this is not an expected goal and should not be a justification for delaying the synthesis.
Evaluation: All members of the committee must approve the synthesis paper before the synthesis requirement is passed. The committee will provide timely feedback to the student on each submission and may require revisions and clarifications. The committee may also, at its discretion, ask the student to present the synthesis orally to the committee.
The student is welcome to discuss their synthesis project with any members of the committee and to receive feedback from the primary advisor on any draft prior to submission to the full committee. However, the synthesis paper may be submitted no more than three times to the full committee. If in the judgment of the three-member committee the third submission is unacceptable, the student will be asked to leave the program.
A suggested timeline:
| 3rd semester | completion of Prelim |
| 4th semester/ summer | step 1 - discussion with advisor of possible directions for Synthesis; develop reading list and read |
| 5th semester | step 2 - Synthesis proposal approved by committee early in the semester; continued reading, data collection / analysis (if applicable), and writing |
| 6th semester | step 3 - submit Synthesis paper to committee |
| summer/ 7th semester | complete any required revisions; begin prospectus |
The Dissertation Prospectus
In the second stage, the student prepares and defends a dissertation prospectus before the five-member committee. In the prospectus, you will set out the state of the art concerning the linguistic questions you have undertaken to address (citing appropriate prior literature), describe gaps in the state of the art and explain what new methods and perspectives you will bring to bear that will address those gaps. The prospectus should describe in detail the research plan, expected results, and the timeline for completing the project. A student officially becomes a candidate for the doctoral degree after successfully defending the dissertation prospectus. This step involves submission of paperwork to the Graduate School.
- By the end of the first semester, the student will select a prelim advisor.
- A 1-2 page proposal for the prelim paper, prepared in consultation with the advisor and approved by the advisor, must be submitted to the student’s Prelim committee by March 1 of the student’s first year in the program.
- Students will receive written feedback from the committee by March 15, and if required by the committee, will submit a revised proposal by the first Monday after the end of spring break.
- Any changes to the original proposal must be finalized by September 15 during the student’s second year in the program.
- The prelim paper must be submitted to the committee by February 1 and defended orally on February 15 during the student’s second year in the program.
- If any changes are required by the committee after the defense, these must be completed by March 1.
No prospectus defense can be scheduled until the synthesis paper has received final approval from all members of the synthesis exam committee.