Comprehensive Exam

Timetable

While preparation for the Comprehensive Examination may begin as early as admission to candidacy, serious work on it should take place at the start of the semester before you plan to sit for comps. You should begin by meeting with the Director of Graduate Studies to discuss your plans and to get advice on your reading lists and committee. At this stage, you should identify the five faculty members who will serve as your Comprehensive committee and decide on your Comprehensive Areas, while also beginning to revise the paper you intend to submit as part of the Portfolio. You may wish to enroll in Independent Study courses for 2-3 semester hours each (in most cases, no more than six out of the 60 semester hours required for comps may be in Independent Studies) to work on one or more areas of your Portfolio under the supervision of the area's director; please note that the department does not offer Independent Study credit for reading groups. Reading for the Examination and crafting of the Portfolio (which includes writing the introduction, developing the two course syllabi, drafting the five questions, writing the review essay and annotated bibliography, and final revision of the Article) will usually take about six months. No later than three weeks before the date of the oral exam, the completed Portfolio, including the signed and approved reading lists and Article and the two completed checklists, should be turned in to the Program Assistant for final approval by the Director of Graduate Studies; at this time you should also contact the Program Assistant to schedule your oral examination. The department will provide free xeroxing of five copies of the Portfolio for all students who meet the three-week deadline.

Approximate Timetable

Six months in advance of oral exam:

• meet with Director of Graduate Studies to discuss comprehensive areas, preliminary reading lists, and composition of your committee
• choose three faculty members to supervise the portfolio:
  • 1 member--historical period (becomes the exam director)
  • 1 member--special area
  • 1 member--article*
• begin work on the portfolio
• begin reading, writing annotations, and revising the paper to be submitted as part of the portfolio (usually accomplished by enrolling in one or two Independent Study courses with Area Directors)

Three months in advance:

• choose two at-large members of the Exam committee
• continue working on the Portfolio

Three weeks in advance:

• turn in Eligibility and Portfolio checklists to the Director of Graduate Studies
• submit completed Portfolio for approval by Director of Graduate Studies (be sure the Portfolio includes signed and approved reading lists and Article)
• contact Program Assistant to file paperwork ("Request for Examination" and "Plan of Study" forms) with Graduate College, to xerox five copies of the portfolio and to schedule a time and place for the Oral Exam.

Two weeks in advance:

• distribute copies of the Portfolio to all five committee members (exception: if the student would like the department to xerox copies of the portfolio for the exam committee, the portfolio should be submitted to the Graduate Studies Office no later than three weeks prior to the exam)

Comprehensive Portfolio and Examination

Overview

A. The Comprehensive Examination is taken after a student has completed the foreign language, seminar, and distribution requirements, and no later than five semesters after admission to candidacy (although if a student has fewer than 24 semester hours of total graduate credit at the end of the semester of qualification, he or she is allowed five semesters after the completion of 24 semester hours). Students are eligible to take the examination during the semester in which they will have completed 60 semester hours of work, at least 54 of which should be in regular graded courses (i.e., no more than six of the 60 semester hours should be in Independent Study or S/U courses). In most cases, 58 semester hours should have been completed in the semester before the student sits for comps. The final credits making up the 72 semester hours necessary for the Ph.D. are frequently multiple enrollments in the independent research course entitled "Ph.D. Thesis."

B. Preparation for the Comprehensive Examination may begin soon after admission to candidacy, with serious work starting six months before the proposed date of the oral exam.

1. Coverage: The Comprehensive Examination contains three parts, each under the supervision of one of three principal members of the committee. These parts carry equal weight and represent the culmination of work done over a period of time in different courses as well as independent work done especially to prepare for the examination. The three parts of the examination are as follows:

a. Historical period: This part of the examination requires broad knowledge of writings in at least three different genres from a clearly defined historical period. Although other periods of at least 100 years may be approved by petition to the Director of Graduate Studies, the standard historical periods for this part of the examination are the following:

• British literature before 1500
• British literature 1500-1660
• British literature 1660-1800
• British literature 1800-1914
• American literature to 1914
• British and/or American literature, 1914-present

b. Special area: This part of the examination requires specific knowledge of the literature, criticism, and/or theory that constitute a particular field of study. This area, which must be demonstrably distinct from the Historical Period and Article, may be a second historical period, a literary genre, a body of theory, a major author or group of authors, a theme or topic, writing theory and/or pedagogy, or an interdisciplinary subject. Like the Historical Period, the Special Area allows candidates to develop and demonstrate their grasp of a field in which they hope to write and teach.

c. Article: This part of the examination is a 25-35 page essay of publishable quality written in consultation with a faculty member, approved by that faculty member and submitted as part of the Portfolio. The article might start from scratch or begin with a paper written for a previous course, but in its final form it should elaborate a sophisticated critical position with respect to a literary theme, issue, author, period, text, or group of texts.

Here are four sample Comprehensive Portfolio areas, offered for the purposes of illustration:

• American literature to 1914
• Feminist theories of criticism
• "Feminist Perspectives on Emily Dickinson"
• Medieval literature * Victorian literature
• "Pre-Raphaelism and Victorian Culture"
• Modern British & American literature
• 19th- & 20th-century British political essays
• "The Rhetoric of Homage to Catalonia"
• American literature 1850-1950
• Representations of ethnicity in the era of immigration (1875-1925)
• "Constructing White America"

2. The Committee: The Comprehensive Examination committee consists of five tenure-track faculty members, at least two of whom must be tenured faculty. In addition to the directors of the three principal areas of the examination, who form the core of this committee, each candidate asks two additional faculty members to serve as at-large examiners. Students whose doctoral programs include substantial interdisciplinary work should consider asking a faculty member from a related department to serve as a fifth member of their committee.

3. Reading Lists: In consultation with the directors of the Historical Period and Special Area, students will prepare two lists of readings for the examination. The Historical Period list should consist of 70-100 items covering 100 years and at least three different genres; a small number of the items (usually no more than ten) should be key historical or critical works for the period. The Special Area reading list should include 35-40 items, and is typically heavier on critical and theoretical texts.

Portfolio

The Portfolio consists of five sections: a five to seven page Introduction, a 25 to 35 page article of publishable quality, five substantial questions based on the Historical Period list, a ten to fifteen page review essay discussing seven to ten texts accompanied by an annotated bibliography of each one of the remaining items from the Special Area list, and two course syllabi. A detailed description of these five sections follows.

Introduction: The Introduction to the Portfolio is designed to provide a five-seven page overview of the comprehensive materials that follow, showing the relations among them. Because the Introduction represents the candidate's own sense of the interconnections among the various parts of the Portfolio, it does not require prior approval by the faculty members serving on the candidate's committee, although the candidate is free to seek their advice while drafting the Introduction.

Historical Period Questions: The Historical Period list should cover 70 to 100 texts. As a way of coming to terms with the fundamental issues animating the chosen historical period, the candidate should formulate five broadly conceived questions written in consultation with the area's director. Formal approval of the questions is not required; only the area's list needs to be approved and signed by the director. Fifty minutes of the oral examination will be set aside to examine the Historical Period beginning with one or more of the five questions that the candidate has written, before the period's list and the proposed survey course are opened to general consideration. Should the candidate elect to pursue two Historical Periods, at least seventy-five minutes of the oral examination would be spent on the Historical periods, with less time on the remainder of the Portfolio, which would include no review essay or annotated bibliography.

Special Area Review Essay and Annotated Bibliography: The Special Area is examined via a ten to fifteen page review essay, which delineates the area through key primary and/or secondary texts. The essay should examine seven to ten texts from the reading list of thirty-five to forty items. Each one of the remaining texts from the Special Area list should be annotated separately in a full paragraph (250-300 words or so); following standard bibliographic form (i.e., citing author, title, and publication information for each item). The purpose of the review essay is to allow the candidate to articulate important issues or patterns linking the texts in the Special Area, and should result in a working document that might be the basis for future investigations, including the dissertation. The purpose of the annotated bibliography is to provide a detailed synopsis of texts that can then be referred to in writing the dissertation or in preparing for job interviews. Since the Special Area represents the candidate's own construction of the field, the review essay and annotated bibliography are written by the candidate working for the most part alone after consultation with the area's director. Only the area's list needs to be officially approved and signed by the area's director.

Article: The Article should develop a sophisticated and original argument with respect to a literary theme, issue, author, period, text, or groups of texts in twenty-five to thirty-five pages. It should be of publishable quality and follow an acceptable format (e.g., MLA or Chicago) for citation of sources. The Article may represent new work, but more often develops out of a paper originally written for a course and subsequently revised under the guidance of its director, who is usually a faculty member for whom the paper was first written. With the help of comments and advice offered by the committee during the oral exam, the candidate should plan to submit a revised version of the article to a scholarly journal for consideration. The Article must be signed and approved by the area's director before inclusion in the portfolio.

Syllabi: The pedagogical component of the Comprehensive Portfolio is demonstrated by two course syllabi designed for courses the candidate might teach, each course drawing upon one of the main areas of the exam and distributed with materials for that area. Out of the Historical Period's focus on a broad range of texts, the candidate should design a lower-level survey course for undergraduate majors. For the Special Area the candidate should create a syllabus for an upper-level undergraduate course. Because constructing the syllabi for these courses indicates the candidate's ability to synthesize research with teaching, the pedagogical section should not be undertaken with close supervision by a committee member, but instead offer testimony to the candidate's near collegial independence.

Organization of the Portfolio: In order to help your committee locate items in your Portfolio, it is useful to paginate continuously and to provide a Table of Contents at the beginning. In most cases, the Portfolio should assemble its items in this order:

• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Historical Area List (signed by its director)
• Five Questions
• Lower-level Survey Course Syllabus
• Special Area List (signed by its director)
• Review Essay
• Annotated Bibliography
• Upper-level Specialized Course Syllabus
• Article (signed by its director)

Sample Portfolios are available for consultation; see the Program Assistant in 323A EPB.

Oral Exam: The Portfolio should be given to the Comprehensive Examination committee at least two weeks before the two-hour oral exam. Some fifty minutes of the oral will be devoted to an examination of the Historical Period, and another fifty minutes will review the Portfolio's additional sections, which have been prepared in advance. Although each examiner may raise questions about any portion of the Portfolio and reading lists, a typical Oral Exam might begin by asking the candidate to respond to one of the five prepared questions; thereafter, any of the remaining four questions, as well as all the items on the Historical Period list and the propsed survey course would be open to discussion. Similarly, discussion of the Special Area's essay might begin with the Portfolio, as the committee inquires about the texts chosen for review, those annotated from the list of thirty-five to forty entries, and those contributing to the advanced course proposed from the area. Finally, the discussion of the Article could productively lead to advice on publication.

At the conclusion of the oral examination, each member of the committee votes "satisfactory," "satisfactory with reservations," or "unsatisfactory." The Graduate College Manual of Rules and Regulations states "In the event of a report with two or more votes of 'satisfactory with reservations,' the exact stipulations of the committee should be recorded with the report form. The statement must specify the time allowed for satisfying the stipulations, and must be specific in defining the area if further examination in a particular area is required, or in describing any additional courses or other procedures that are required." Two "unsatisfactory" votes constitute a failure of the examination. At the option of the department, a student may repeat the examination once, but only once, and not within the same term. By regulation of the Graduate College, a student has five years, following successful completion of the comprehensive exam, in which to finish all substantive requirements for the Ph.D. degree. Please note, too, that the Graduate College does not permit the comprehensive examination and the defense of the dissertation to be scheduled in the same semester.

The following pages provide details about the various aspects of the Ph.D. in English.

• Graduate home
• Steps to the Ph.D.
  Policies & Procedures
  • Commencing Study
  • Distribution Requirement
  • Seminar Reqirement
  • Foreign Language Requirement
  • Other Requirements
  • Qualifications
    • Application for Candidacy form (PDF)
  • Comprehensive Exam
  • Dissertation
  • After the PhD
• Admissions
  
• Funding
  
• Courses 
  
• Current Grad Students
  
• Graduate Placement
  
• PhD Student Publications

See Also:

• The Graduate College
• Graduate Assistanship Bulletin Board
• Graduate College Sources of Financial Support