Sociology Department

Sociology Department> Degree Programs> Graduate Program> Dissertation Procedures

There are a number of common elements to both dissertations and theses: There are strict graduate division guidelines on the defense of a dissertation or thesis, including its composition and timing. Among other things, all committee members must attend personally unless permission has been given for remote participation through a graduate division Petition for Remote Committee Participation form submitted through the department or permission has been given by the graduate chair for use of a proxy. However, the use of a proxy is discouraged except when there are no other feasible alternatives.

The result of the oral defense is either a pass or fail, while the decision on the written dissertation or thesis is to accept as is or demand further specified revisions. The defense should be passed if the committee feels that the dissertation or thesis is already acceptable, or is confident that that the candidate will be able to carry out all necessary revisions without further examination. An attempt should be made to reach a consensus on this issue. The student is invited back into the room, and informed of the result and recommendations. In any case, committee members (and any proxy) who are present sign the Student Progress Form III, indicating their individual judgment on the defense, and arrangements are made to obtain the signature of any member participating remotely. The defense is judged as a pass overall if and only if the majority vote of participating faculty vote to pass. In case of a failure, the student may write a memo to the department graduate studies committee requesting a second and final defense. If case of a successful defense, the completed Form III should be submitted without delay by the student to the department graduate secretary for routing to graduate division.

If the decision is to accept the written dissertation or thesis as is, the committee members sign the document’s signature page, which is given to the student, who duplicates the page and inserts into the copies of the dissertation that will be turned in by the student to the graduate division. If revisions are demanded, then members of the committee may at their individual discretion not sign the signature page or sign conditionally, which means that they entrust the page to the committee chair for safekeeping until the student is deemed by all to have completed the required revisions. The dissertation or thesis should also follow all graduate division guidelines, including those on content, style, format, and acknowledgements. Among things that are disallowed is writing that has been co-authored with someone else, or secondary data that has not been used in a way that is not explicitly authorized by the original researcher.