Grad students ResourcesINDEX
In this page you have access to the most popular resources that will help you to carry out your academic project in a successful way. Below there is a preview of Ph.D and M.A. plans per year so you can check it once in a while and constrast with your current shape in the program.
General Information for PhD students
- Academic Tips for PhD Program Students
First year:
- Do your readings for the core courses electronically if possible since we are here for a short period of time and those hard copies will be hard to transfer when you complete your PhD here. You can use something like Dropbox or Google documents to store your articles.
- Take notes and write short summaries for these readings since these notes will come handy later, especially if you are considering taking the preliminary exam option.
- Buy the Endnote Program and start using it for the readings you do.
- Socialize with students who are ahead of you in the program since you will need their experiences in the future.
- Jot down topics of interest as you are reading for a potential dissertation topic.
- Build a community with your fellow graduate students in which you can discuss coursework or student life related issues and find solutions to problems.
- Get addicted to PhD Comics http://www.phdcomics.com/
Second year:
- Congratulations! You do not need mentoring for your teaching anymore and teaching becomes less time consuming and even enjoyable now. Consider teaching a variety of courses during your time at Purdue. You have to teach ENGL 106 for the first year but in your second year you have more options like teaching ENGL 106I, teaching at the OEPP, etc. Having a variety of teaching experiences will be good for your CV.
- Start thinking about your dissertation topic.
- Start building an online identity.
- Participate in the ESL Go.
- Learn as much as you can about the personalities and research areas of the professors in your program. Ask other graduate students, read the publications of your professors and take courses with them.
- By the third semester in your graduate study you have to submit your plan of study (October 15th), which means you have to choose your chair and advisory committee, secondary area, and the courses you will be taking. The plan of study is submitted electronically using Banner. Do not forget that you can customize your secondary area based on your research interests. In addition you have to submit a Plan of study Rationale to the graduate school. In the future if you make any changes in the courses you take or in your advisory committee, do not forget to update your plan of study electronically.
Third year:
- Try to complete your coursework including the courses you need to take in order to satisfy the secondary area requirements before the end of your third year. You need to take four graduate courses for your secondary area.
- After you are done with your course work, the next step is taking your preliminary examination. You have two options for this. You can either take the exam option or the paper option. If you choose the exam option, you can take the exam in either March or in August. In order to take the prelim exam, your plan of study should be up to date. The exam has two sections, a take home exam where you have 24 hours to answer four questions, one question from each of the four core courses, curriculum, theory, qualitative and quantitative research. The second part is a 7-day take home exam where you answer one question related to your specialization. You can take your preliminary exam off-campus . The Graduate School secretary has the former prelim questions so request these questions from Jill before you start preparing for the exam. Former questions will help you understand what to expect. Check this blog entry written by a student who has taken the exam http://berilarik.blogspot.com/2011/08/on-preliminary-exams.html
- After you pass you preliminary exam, the next step is the dissertation prospectus.
- You have 10 months to defend your prospectus after you pass your preliminary exam. You might consider taking the prospectus writing workshop ENGL 58900W.
- Talk to your advisor about your prospectus in a timely manner and make sure that you are on the same page about your topic.
- After you write the first draft of your prospectus send it to your advisor. Make the revisions s/he suggests. Upon getting your advisor’s approval schedule your defense by asking your committee members for a time that works for them and by scheduling one of the two rooms in Heavilon (306 with Jill or 320 with Janeen) for your defense.
- Fill out the Request for Appointment of Examination Committee”, GS 8 form and take the form to your advisor for his/her signature.
- Give the form to Graduate School 2 ½ weeks before your defense.
- Email the final draft of your prospectus to your committee members two weeks before your defense.
- Pick up the form from Jill on your defense day since your advisory committee is going to sign that form if they approve your prospectus.
Fourth Year & Fifth Year:
- Begin the year with your dissertation in decent shape because applying to jobs is time consuming and potential employers may ask you for a chapter.
- Monitor websites like The Chronicle and MLA for job postings and keep a lookout for emails sent from our department (especially the TESOL placement bulletin).
- Complete your CV and have your advisor review it.
- Ask professors to write letters of reference and set up a dossier with Julie Henderson in the English department office. More information is here: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/ English/graduate_studies/placement_services.html
- Apply to jobs!
- Buy clothing to wear to interviews.
- Participate in mock interviews with ESL faculty.
- Let Jill Quirk know early in the spring semester of your final year that you plan to graduate.
- Keep your advisor in the loop as to the status of your dissertation.
- Consider participating in activities that you will force you to make progress on your dissertation (like conferences or ESL GO! events).
Additional years:
- Hang in there! We love you:)
General Information for M.A. students
What lies ahead of you when you finish your coursework? MA Thesis or Examination?
- Academic Tips for PhD Program Students
Obtaining an MA in ELS involves two steps: the coursework and the MA thesis or examination. Thus after you complete your coursework, you have the option to either write an MA thesis under the direction of an ESL faculty member or take the MA Examination of the Department of English. The drawback of the MA examination is that is tests literature knowledge besides the knowledge in the field of ESL which is in this case is your area of specialization.
The MA Thesis
If you decide to write a thesis to obtain your MA diploma, the wonderful side-effect is that you get to work with your major advisor. The two of you decide on a topic for your thesis—a really exciting one—and the approach of how to conduct your research. You need to take into account the limitations you have for writing your thesis. Even though your thesis needs to be similar to a doctoral dissertation regarding topic strength, quality, as well as other aspect, it should be restricted in range and scope.
At the beginning of the thesis writing process, you also need to identify the faculty members to serve on the Advisory Committee. They will advise you on all questions you have regarding your thesis, and more. Do not ignore asking for help with even small detail-like questions like format requirements or citation style. The Manual for the Preparation of Graduate Theses contains all the formatting policies required for the final version of your thesis. If you know all necessary information from early on, they will save you time in the long run.
Now that you have started working on your dissertation, keep in mind the further deadlines. You need to plan ahead for your thesis defense, and since the last week of classes (dead week) is out of the question (no final examinations be conducted during that week), you need to plan the defense sometime before that. When you have decided on the date, you have to actually request for that time. And there is a deadline: you must schedule your thesis defense at least two weeks prior to the actual defense by completing Graduate School Form GS-8 “Request for Appointment of Examining Committee”. You hand it in to the English Graduate Office from where it will be forwarded to the Graduate School.
Another important deadline again is that you also need to distribute your thesis to the three members of your committee at least two weeks before the day of the defense. The committee members need to inform the English Graduate Office that they received it in a timely manner. There is a departmental foreign language requirement that needs to be fulfilled before you can defend your thesis, however, as far as I know, a foreign language knowledge is a prerequisite for being accepted, so you’re good there.
So, you have finished your thesis and you’ve defended it! Congratulation! On last step to get out from the way is to deposit your thesis. For this, you need to make a final deposit appointment with the Thesis/Dissertation Office in the Graduate School so that your thesis is officially deposited. You also need to deposit a copy with the English Graduate Office.
The MA Examination
Your other choice for getting your MA degree is taking the MA esamination. Now you have to know that this option is more restricted than wiring the thesis. The M.A. Examination is given only twice each year. The deadline is announced each semester, but you need to sign up in the Grad Office before that to take the exam.
The M.A. Examination is a four-hour sit down exam of two parts: Part I consists of essay questions in a) literature (based on British and American texts), and b) the student’s area of specialization; Part II is extemporaneous explication of poems. The problems in the exam are not random selections from all literature known. There is an MA Reading List posted on the bulletin board outside of the Graduate Studies Office that you need to prepare for. As an ESL student, time wise you will have one hour on a question or questions dealing with any book on the reading list, and two hours on ESL-related questions.
Now you have two weeks from the exam to get your results. You can get “High Pass”, “Pass”, “Low Pass”, or “Fail” for this exam. If you fail the MA examination, you may take it a second time within that calendar year; however, you don’t have the option to switch to writing a thesis instead of retaking the exam. You may want to see how you performed on the exam or if failed, you might want to make an appeal. However, keep in mind that this needs to be done within two weeks from when you were reported the grade.
Academic Tips for MA Program Students
Second year:
- Before October 15th of the second year you have to fill out your Plan of Study . You cannot graduate the semester in which you file your plan of study so update your plan of study in a timely manner.
- After you are done with the course work, talk to your advisor about your thesis topic.
- Register for at least 3 hours of research in the session of graduation.
- Communicate with your advisor regularly during the thesis writing process.
When your advisor approves your thesis schedule your defense:
- In order to schedule your defense you have to ask your committee members for the times they are available and schedule either room Heavilon 306 with Jill or Heavilon 320 with Janeen. When you find a time that works for everyone in your committee and schedule the room, fill out the Graduate School Form G8. Ask your advisor to sign the form and submit the signed form to English graduate office at least 10 working days before your defense.
- You should submit your thesis to your committee members at least two weeks before your defense. Ask their preferences before you give them your thesis, for example font size, one sided, electronic, hard copy, stapled, bound, etc.
- Pick up the form from the English Graduate School secretary before your defense since your committee members will sign this document at the end of your defense.
- After making the revisions your committee members request, submit your thesis electronically . The graduate School has very specific and detailed formatting requirements for electronic submission so it is very important to follow the instructions from the Grad School
- After you receive an email from the thesis office saying that your thesis satisfies the requirements, you make an appointment with the Thesis/Dissertation Office.
- Jill Quirk, located in Heavilon (HEAV)304 has copies of dissertations if you want to see one.
