The Qualifying Examination
At the end of your first year in the PhD program, you must pass a Qualifying Exam, which is a formal evaluation of your progress by the Qualifying Exam committee. That committee consists of the entire TCR faculty, the Writing Program Director (if you are employed as Graduate Instructors), and the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS).
You are evaluated on the criteria listed below, based on the evidence of your transcript, your Curriculum Vitae (CV), your Program of Study worksheet, and your Annual Progress Report Form. You will also be evaluated based on testimony from the faculty who have observed your performance as a graduate student and Graduate Instructor.
| Criterion | Examples | Source of Evaluation |
|---|---|---|
| Quality of written work in class | Writing strong seminar papers and other class assignments | Transcript, faculty observation |
| Quality of contributions to oral or online class discussions | Participating frequently and well in class discussion, either face-to-face or online | Transcript, faculty observation |
| Scholarly activity | Submitting proposals and presenting conference papers; submitting journal articles; participating in grant proposals | Transcript, faculty observation |
| Evidence of taking initiative and making progress towards the degree | Completing a steady, committee-approved coursework load; approaching faculty members with ideas for research projects for the dissertation; actively working towards forming a Dissertation Supervisory Committee | CV, annual review form, faculty observation |
| Participation in civic life of the department | Attending workshops, guest speaker presentations, meetings, committees, and other events that PhD students are encouraged to attend | CV, annual review form, faculty observation |
| Evidence of professional conduct | Listening to advice from faculty, following suggestions, collaborating respectfully with faculty, fellow students, and staff | Faculty observation |
| Ability to deliver on required tasks | Completing assignments; meeting class and program deadlines; attending class; fulfilling teaching duties; avoiding Incomplete grades or completing them in a timely manner | Transcript, faculty observation |
Based on the criteria listed above and a meeting with you, the Qualifying Exam committee will make one of the following assessments:
| Pass | You are performing satisfactorily, though there may be a few areas for improvement. |
|---|---|
| Pass with Probation | You have underperformed significantly in some or all areas. The committee will provide a remediation plan—a list of needed improvements that you must make during the second year in order to advance to a third year in the program. |
| Dismiss | You have failed to make adequate progress during the first year. The committee will recommend to the DGS that you be dismissed from the program. |
If you receive a “pass with probation,” you will be evaluated again by the Qualifying Exam committee the following year. If you fail to meet the conditions of the remediation plan after a year of probation, the committee will recommend that you be dismissed from the program.
Once you have passed the Qualifying Exam, you will be reviewed each spring semester by your Supervisory Committee. If you have performed poorly since the previous review, the committee may recommend to the Qualifying Exam committee that you be put on probation or dismissed.
The Comprehensive Examination
At the end of your formal course work, you will take the Comprehensive Exam. The Comprehensive Exam allows you to meet the following learning objectives: 1) convey broad knowledge of your academic field and situate yourself as a scholar within that field, 2) convey deep knowledge about a particular area of the field that will become your area of expertise, 3) identify and read scholarship relevant to your interests beyond what you read for your coursework, 4) revisit the most relevant of your course readings, and 5) respond to questions about your field and your scholarship in the moment based on knowledge you've developed and internalized. The comprehensive exam has two parts: a written component and an oral component.
Written Component: For the written component, you will produce two essays of ~4,500-5,000 words each. These essays are due to your Supervisory Committee by April 10 or November 10 the semester after you finish your coursework. (Typically, students finish coursework in the spring, so most students will submit their essays by November 10 of the following fall semester.) Your essays should address the following prompts:
Essay 1: Please describe your research interests at two levels: 1) the broader 'umbrella' issue or problem that all of your work addresses and 2) two or three specific research questions that might inform particular research studies. Then situate your research interests within the broader field of technical communication and rhetoric. Characterize the field and explain why your work should be considered TCR scholarship. In what ways does your scholarly work inform the field of technical communication and rhetoric and extend existing scholarly conversations? Illustrate your answer with material from your reading list.
Essay 2: Design a 15-week undergraduate technical communication course on your area of scholarly expertise. You may design a traditional seminar course, an online course, or a hybrid course. Be sure to include the following details and a rationale behind each:
- course description
- student learning outcomes
- syllabus (a brief outline of topics and assignments each week)
- reading list
- assignment descriptions
In your rationale, be sure to refer to specific works on your reading list for the best practices represented by research in the field. How will your course design engage students’ interest and prompt them to interact?
Oral Component: Your Supervisory Committee will review your essays before meeting with you for the oral component of the exam. This meeting will take place before the end of the semester in which you submit your essays. You should coordinate with the chair of your Supervisory Committee to schedule this meeting. (For students taking the Comprehensive Exam in the spring, the oral component of your Comprehensive Exam will typically occur during your annual review meeting.) Your Supervisory Committee members will provide feedback on your essays and will ask questions that allow you to expound upon your essays, to further characterize yourself as a scholar, to discuss the scholarship of the field, and to further demonstrate your knowledge. At the end of the oral component of the exam, the chair of your Supervisory Committee will notify you of the results. At this time you will be told whether you are ready to proceed to the dissertation research phase of the TCR program. If you do not pass the Comprehensive Exam, you will be allowed to retake the exam within one calendar year. If you do not pass the exam the second time, you will be asked to discontinue the program.
Reading List: Although you take the Comprehensive Exam at the completion of coursework, you should begin preparing for this exam upon starting the program. To complete the exam, you are responsible for generating a reading list and four contextualizing paragraphs which characterize the four themes below according to your own scholarly perspective. Given the scope of the Comprehensive Exam, the reading list should equally exemplify breadth and depth in the field.
You will work with your supervisory committee chair to develop a Comprehensive Exam reading list around four themes central to technical communication and rhetoric:
- Theory & Rhetoric
- Technology & Design
- Pedagogy
- Research Methods
For each of the four themes, you will write a contextualizing paragraph, defining the theme and situating your specific research focus within the broader theme. In these four paragraphs, you will contextualize and explain your approach to the themes, highlighting how your own research focus fits within the fields of technical communication and rhetoric and explaining your strategy for selecting appropriate works to include on the reading list.
You are strongly encouraged to draw from foundational, well-cited, and award-winning works relevant to technical communication and rhetoric, such as those that have won CCCC Technical and Scientific Communication awards, the Nell Ann Pickett award, and the Frank R. Smith award, as well as those in Central Works in Technical Communication (Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart Selber, Eds.), and in Elizabeth Overman Smith’s 2000 article, “Points of reference in technical communication scholarship,” as well as other scholarly publications specifically applicable to your research focus.
The reading list will have approximately 100 works total, comprised of a well-balanced mix of scholarly books and articles. The reading list must address all four themes in a proportion to be negotiated with the committee chair.
After submitting your reading list, you should meet with the members of your Supervisory Committee to discuss your readings.