UT Sociology Department: Entering Candidacy for the PhD and Defending the Proposal 2014-15

Before a student applies to the Office of Graduate Studies for admission to PhD candidacy, adissertation proposal should be prepared and successfully defended. The defense will only occur after comprehensive exams have been passed and the program of work approved by the GSC chair. The proposal willinclude the following:

1) a well-defined statement of the sociological problem

2) a critical review of the theoretical and/or empirical literature

3) a formulation of the research design and methods to be deployed

4) a clear statement of the contribution the proposed study will make to the field of sociology

The proposal should be double-spaced and typed. All bibliographic, reference and tabular material will follow the Chicago format as required by the Graduate School. Proposal lengths may vary but they willgenerally be between 30–50 pages in length (inclusive of all endnotes, appendices and references). Appendices may be used if samples of questionnaires, scales, sampling design, etc., are relevant.Students are encouraged to defend the proposal in the semester following the completion of all other degree requirements, and should in any case defend not later than the second semester following them. The proposal will be developed by the graduate student in consultation with members of the Dissertation Committee. When the proposal is approved by the dissertation supervisor, the student should submit a copy to each member of the Dissertation Committee along with a memo informing the Committee of the date fixed for the proposal hearing. Members of the Dissertation Committee should have at least 10 working days (i.e. two weeks) between the receipt of the dissertation proposal and the proposal hearing.

The dissertation proposal hearing is to be held at the earliest convenience of the Dissertation Committee but no later than four weeks (excluding summer months) after the proposal has been distributed to the committee for review. It is up to the student defending the proposal to arrange the date and time for the defense and to book a room for at least a two-hour period. The purpose of the hearing is to determine the soundness of the proposed research and to offer guidance for improving the dissertation project. The student should treat the defense as a comprehensive oral examination (or viva voce) and be prepared to defend the theoretical perspective and methodology of the proposal and be ready to answer any other questions concerning the proposal raised by the committee members.

The Dissertation Committee may advise the student about any aspect of the project. The dissertation supervisor will submit a letter to the Graduate Adviser (with a copy to the student) indicating the outcome of the hearing. If the Dissertation Committee has serious reservations about the proposed project, the student may be asked to convene a second hearing beforeproceeding with the dissertation. If after a second hearing the student does not meet the reservations of the committee the student will not be allowed to proceed to candidacy. Please consult the OGS website for instructions and the forms required for entering candidacy.

As you write your dissertation proposal, and before the actual defense, consider the following questions (your proposal should implicitly or explicitly address all of these questions)*

  1. What main sociological questions will your study address?
  1. Why, how, and to whom do those questions matter?
  1. What sorts of answers to those questions are worth considering?
  1. How will your study address the questions?
  1. What form will the evidence take?
  1. What are some possible conclusions from the evidence?
  1. What are the main technical, conceptual or theoretical problems you will have to solve?
  1. What are the main practical problems you will have to solve?
  1. What are the main ethical issues that arise from your study?
  1. Where will you start? Why there?
  1. What form will the final product(s) take?
  1. What subfields, theorists or areas within sociology will your study directly engage with?
  1. Who will benefit from your research and what form will this benefit take?

As you move from the (hopefully) successful defense of your proposal and begin to write papers based on your research, thedissertation itself or the subsequent book based upon your dissertation, consider the following questions*

  1. In one sentence, what sociological question(s) does this work address?
  1. In one sentence, what answer(s) does it give?
  1. Who should care about the question(s)? Why and how?
  1. What other answers must we reject if we accept yours?
  1. Why should we prefer your answer(s)?
  1. How have you investigated the question(s)?
  1. What arguments and evidence are you presenting for your answer(s)?
  1. Why should we believe your arguments? Your evidence?
  1. If you are right, what general conclusions should we draw?
  1. What contribution (general or specific) to sociology does your work make?

* Ben Carrington, University of Texas at Austin, March 2012, adapted from Charles Tilly, Columbia University, October 2003

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