Dissertation and Defense – Tech Comm & Rhetoric

To help you develop, plan, and write your dissertation proposal, click the links below.

Committee Communications

Generally, the Technical Communication and Rhetoric (TCR) program expects your entire committee to work closely with you to prepare you for your qualifying exam and to help you develop a solid dissertation proposal.

After your proposal has been accepted by your entire committee, the next stage of work generally involves periodic progress reports to your chair and your entire committee. Every committee may set up its own guidelines for progress reports and how to share text and communication channels; however, the default position of the program is that you and your chair work closely to transition you from your post-quals proposal to a finished dissertation prose.

Midway, between quals and prior to your defense, your committee will expect to receive your first two or three finished chapters. Generally, an early approval of your first three chapters will keep your project on track

Your finished chapters may chapters include:

An Introduction
A Review of Literature which addresses your methodology and material(s) that deal with the nature and scope of your project
Relevant coverage of scholarship foundations and research methods

It is important to discuss the order of these submissions with your committee.

Every semester you should identify any work you have completed, changes made/proposed changes to your proposal, and any remaining work.

Set up good protocols for archiving and version control. Committee members will spend hours providing you with helpful feedback. To avoid any delay in receiving future suggestions, be sure to thoroughly review every comment prior to submitting another version, as your committee may refuse to review future submissions, until those suggestions have been resolved.

Typically, your committee can review and offer their feedback quickly; however, it is best to factor their workload into your expectations for progress.

Calendar

Setting hard deadlines for your graduation date can cause unnecessary pressure on you and your committee and create a contentious defense–both of which almost always results in a weak, unfinished dissertation.

To avoid this, and to outline the steps and timing of your dissertation and defense, we developed a Dissertation Defense Routing Form. Use this form to collect a signature or check a box at each stage. Then submit a copy of it to your committee and the Director of Graduate Studies.

You can schedule a date, and a room, for your defense after your committee approves your defensible draft.

Remember: It takes about three months from the time you complete and proofread your dissertation until you defend. During which time, your committee will spend four weeks with your dissertation defense draft and your committee chair will spend another four weeks with your work.

You may schedule your defense after eight weeks’ time, and four weeks after your committee approves your dissertation defense draft. Plan accordingly when considering a gradation date, as revisions may need to be made after your defense.

Quality and Completeness of Work

Your committee will return any work that is not deemed a defensible draft of your dissertation because your best work is required when submitting work for academic publishing and peer review, and this same principle applies to you and your dissertation.

A defensible draft of your dissertation is:

Well-argued, proofread, grammatically and structurally correct, and free of spelling errors and missing references
Formatted with consistent page numbers and font matter, and has a complete bibliography and appendices
Free from comments such as “to be inserted”
As close to a finished document as possible, with the understanding that your defense may raise questions that need to be addressed before your dissertation is finally approved
Complete with everything you know and is as perfect as you can make it
Approved by your advisor two months before your defense

Defense

For a more streamlined process, submit your advisor-approved dissertation draft to your committee two months prior to your defense. Doing so means, you will have a month before your defense to incorporate their comments and less work after your defense.

Expect to adhere to the Graduate School’s Doctoral Oral Defense Guidelines.

Per the Graduate School’s guidelines, the oral defense is an examination where you thoroughly discuss your dissertation, methods, findings and their significance–all of which require serious deliberation and your committee’s vote. Therefore, “introductory remarks” are not a comprehensive lecture, so rather than contextualizing remarks to kick off the exam, confine your remarks to 20 to 25 minutes–which is more than enough time to refresh your committee’s memory and introduce visitors in the room to the exigence of your problem, research question, approach, and findings.

It is best to bring the latest submission of your defense dissertation with you, to use as a reference, because your committee will ask you specific questions about your work.

Bring the signature form, the dissertation templates, and all relevant forms, for your committee to sign. You can access these forms from TTU’s Graduate School website.

The Graduate School’s Doctoral Oral Defense Guidelines reminds us that, “the examination is a public affair and the candidate should be prepared to defend his or her work before anyone who may question it”. Therefore, we strongly encourage our PhD candidates to be physically present in Lubbock to meet with their committees, and the public, for their dissertation defenses; however, if the committee agrees that this may create a hardship for you, they may decide to allow you to defend at a distance.

If you defend from a distance, your technological connections must be robust enough for you to be able to explain, discuss, and defend your dissertation in a manner equivalent to those students who are physically present for their defenses

If you are unable to defend, your committee will require you to postpone your defense which may delay your graduation.