What lies ahead of you when you finish your coursework? The Preliminary Examination.
Finishing up the coursework is just the first step in the PhD (or MA) degree seeking process. According to the Graduate Student Manual, there are 8 necessary steps for a successful completion of the PhD. So after you have finished (or close to finishing up) your coursework for both your primary and secondary areas, the next step to take in order to remain in the ring is to take the preliminary examination. This, however, only pertains to PhD students. M.A. requirements after the coursework can be found here.

An important note: the preliminary exam procedure is changing. For more accurate information, check the Graduate Study Guide.

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Set of Four Papers
Writing the papers is not just that: sitting down, doing the research, and writing four papers. A lot of bureaucracy is also involved with deadlines you don’t want to miss, and steps you want to follow.

After you decide on this option for your prelims, you need to figure out what is that is actually required from you. Here is what the “Graduate Study in ESL: A Guide for Students and Faculty” tells you:

• Four 20-page (5000-word) papers written over a period of several months not to exceed one     calendar year
• Each paper topic corresponds to one of the core areas: theory, research, curriculum, and sociolinguistics
• Students are encouraged to relate the focus of these papers to their particular areas of interest and research for the dissertation
• The papers are new projects, not extensions or revisions of prior work (p. 10)

This way, you need to meet the professor you took the respective course with (ENGL 516, 518, 565, and 618) and decide on the issues you could successfully discuss in the paper, also trying to figure out how the respective topic will fit later on into your dissertation. This time you should discuss also when your professor expects you to hand in the possible drafts and/or the final paper, as well as any other special requirements your professor has. Be sure to follow up on any question you might still have that you did not get answers to in the first meeting. All faculty members known by me in the ESL field are happy to assist you with any further question.

The first important deadline for you in the paper process is the registration for the exam in the English Graduate Office which should be done at the beginning of the semester you choose to be the first semester of you prelim. From this time on, and no later than the end of the fourth week of the semester, you also need to write a 250-word summary of each paper for the particular professor and give the professor a copy. Here are some samples of such summaries.

When all four summaries are completed, the Graduate Office secretary will mark down the official starting point (date) of your prelim exam period. At this point, you also need to submit to your major advisor Form EGS-3, “Checklist for the Four-Paper Preliminary Examination” that can be found in the “Graduate Study in ESL: A Guide for Students and Faculty” or the “English Graduate Manual”. Both these manual can be found online on the departmental website.

Now you have 12 months to successfully pass your prelim exam by writing and handing in the four papers. Successful completion of this process means a grade of “Pass” on each paper. However, not meeting the required deadlines may result in a “No Pass.”

What you need to keep in mind regarding deadlines is that the paper you consider the final version might not be the actual final version. Therefore, you need to submit it at least four weeks prior to the submission of the version considered final by your professor. This way you get the chance to revise or address any problems your professor might find in your paper.

Wow! You submitted all four papers? Great job! Now each professor will evaluate and comment on your papers in two weeks after receiving them. If your paper is in good shape and no more revisions are required, your professors will present the grade they assigned to your paper to the ESL program director, Prof. Margie Berns who will forward the final grade to the English Graduate Office.

Now, you still don’t know what is going on behind the scenes? No wonder. You are not supposed to be notified by any of your professors of where you stand. The English Graduate Office is the official party who can notify you of the final grade.

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Sit-Down / Take Home
There is the second option to take the prelim exam which resembles more to actual exams then the paper form. This is composed of two separate parts: a 24-hour exam and a 7-day exam. You basically take both exams home and work at home on them, however in a much more time constrain.

A basic restriction of this type of examination is that you can only take it in two months of the year, either August of March. August can probably work very well with your schedule since many students do not teach in the summer semester, thus you can really focus only on the exam. I see no such advantage with the March date.

Similarly to the four papers, the 24-hour part examines your knowledge in the four core areas: theory, research, curriculum, and sociolinguistics. Studying for the exam seems pretty straightforward. You get a reading list of books and articles to prepare from. Then you will get four questions based on those four areas.

The 7-day exam is similar to the four papers in respect that you get to choose the topic you want to write about. Basically, you suggest several topics that are related to you research interests and dissertation area, and then your professor picks one of them. Your job is to write an essay on the respective topic.

Both 24-hour and 7-day exams are then evaluated and you need to get a “Pass” on both of them. The rest of the process is similar to the four-paper exam. The final result of your efforts will be announced to you by the English Graduate Office.

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Tips and Tricks
Now here are some tips and tricks from former ESL students who have successfully passed their prelims, either recently or several years ago:

Anonymous PhD candidate
If you’re trying to decide whether or not to take the year-long paper option, start off by asking
yourself this question: do you have a fairly good idea about where you’re going with your
dissertation? If you do, then it’s easy to write papers that will be useful to you down the road—
something that you can use directly in your prospectus and dissertation. If you don’t have a clear
idea, though, it’s best to stick with the more traditional short answer exam. Assuming you are
relatively clear about your dissertation and you choose the year-long paper option, it’s crucial
for you to check in with each of your prelim readers often. Let them see your work often, rather than waiting to give them an entire draft. If your thinking doesn’t match your reader’s thinking, it’s best to catch the mismatch early, before you’ve gone too far in the wrong direction.

Anonymous PhD candidate
Prelims?! I never thought I'd hear that horrible word again!
Here are two pieces of advice for the year-long prelims that are sort of obvious, but are very
easy to neglect: start working on the prelims right away, and try fulfilling a personal quota of
work every day. As a (semi)independent researcher, it is far too easy to put research and writing
off until later, and to let things slide into the future. Being able to be productive early not
only gives you more time to revise the prelim if necessary; it will also serve you exceptionally
well when you move beyond the other "P Word" (prospectus) into the dissertation.


Martha Moraa Michieka, Purdue ESL Alumna, Assistant Professor, East Tennessee State University
It will depend on the prelim option one chooses. Both options have their advantages and I believe the choice is based on each individual's circumstances. I did the year long prelim and that is what I can comment on. Due to its flexibility, the four paper prelim option gave me an opportunity to read widely on my dissertation topic and prepare for my research. I was also able to pace myself and complete the prelims on time. A word of caution however, a year sounds like a very long time to write four papers but once the clock starts to tick, and you are teaching a class and maybe still taking some courses, days move faster than one can think.
-Discuss the prelim options with your advisor and with post prelim friends.
-these are exams so try to create time to work on the papers like you could with other exams.
-Set clear goals/ dead lines for yourself and push yourself to meet them. It might sound like a good idea to ask for extension of a dead line and maybe our very kind and understanding professors will give you the extension but they cannot extend your official prelim time.
- The paper option does not have to take you a whole year, you can finish much earlier.
- Aim at turning those four papers into publications. I wish I did that.


Brita Banitz, Purdue ESL Alumna, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, MX
I guess the advantage of the exam is that you can get through it quite quickly (if you study hard, of course) and get on with your work for your dissertation. The disadvantage is that you waste a lot of time studying for that without being able to use your knowledge in your dissertation. At the same time, the disadvantage of the prelim papers is that you spend a whole year with them, you might have to revise and re-revise until they are accepted; so it could take actually longer. The big advantage that I see is, and that's exactly what I did, to already know your dissertation topic (in agreement with your advisor) and actually write those four prelim papers on your chosen topic and then to simply include those papers in your dissertation. This requires a LOT of careful planning beforehand, but it'll also save you a lot of time in the long run.

Scott Baxter, Purdue Alumni, Lecturer, University of Minnesota
I took the exams rather than write the papers. For me, that was a good choice. I spent the summer reading and studying, and was done with them and ready to move on to the prospectus in the fall.
Studying for the exam was pretty straightforward. There was a reading list I got from Jill Quirk. I read all those books and took detailed notes. I went through my notes and materials from classes too, but reading the books on the reading list was the most useful thing for preparing for the exam.
There were four areas that corresponded to the core courses, and there was a fifth question that demanded a longer answer. I was able to suggest two topics for this. I would say that it would be most helpful if you pick a topic as close to your planned dissertation topic as possible. This is the area of the exam you have the most control of and it is to your advantage to shape the topic to resemble your dissertation area.