Dissertation preparation

When you are preparing your dissertation, be sure to follow the formatting requirements specified by the Graduate Division of UCI. The earlier you apply the formatting, the better. You don’t want to be revising your dissertation at the last minute just to re-format it. Also, when you submit your dissertation to your committee for evaluation, it gives a better impression if it’s already formatted and meets all the general requirements of the campus.

Your dissertation should have the following structure:

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

More chapters (optional)

Conclusion (optional, but recommended)

Each chapter should represent one published (or publishable) manuscript. You can have more than three chapters if you’d like, but three is the minimum. Consider that for our last Assistant Professor search in Ecology, the average applicant had published 4 (plus or minus 1) journal articles as first author by the year that they finished their dissertation. This does not include articles that were in press, or that had been written for the dissertation but not yet submitted. Therefore, if you want to be competitive for a job at an institution like UCI, you should aim for more than three chapters. Probably a lot more.

At least two chapters should present primary research (i.e., new data or results). These chapters could be from lab work, field work, modeling, or a combination. A dissertation that includes both modeling and empirical work would be particularly strong, but very few people can do that, so don’t feel like that’s expected. The reason that primary research is emphasized is that you should have experience generating new knowledge as a student. It gives you a context for assessing others’ work as you advance in your career.

Additional chapters can be review papers or meta-analyses. Typically, Chapter 1 falls in this category. (See the Advancement to Candidacy page for more details.) You can have more than one review/meta-analysis chapters in your dissertation, as long as you also have two chapters with primary research.

There is no real need for all the chapters to fit within the same theme, or to be integrative. It’s nice, because that makes your Introduction and Conclusion easier to write. It’s not the end of the world if the chapters don’t fit neatly together, though.

Usually, by the time the student defends, at least one chapter has been published, at least one additional chapter is in press, and the final chapter is submitted to a journal (or will be submitted shortly after the defense).

Regardless, the chapters should be complete, polished, and of publishable quality. It is very risky to submit anything less to your dissertation committee– they will probably not pass you in that case.

Here’s a great paper describing how committees evaluate dissertations: “What examiners do: what thesis students should know” by Clinton Golding, Sharon Sharmini & Ayelet Lazarovitch

Your Introduction should clearly state your dissertation’s theme, hypotheses and/or goals (sometimes called “the research question(s)”), and provide sufficient background information to enable a non-specialist researcher to understand them.* Aim for about 3 pages, double-spaced.

The Conclusion is not officially required, but it is recommended. It’s a good thought exercise to go through before your defense, and it’s an opportunity to think about the larger and future implications of your work. A good Conclusion will demonstrate to your committee your mastery of the field and describe the work’s overall contribution to the broader discipline in context.*

A strong conclusion includes the following:

-Conclusions regarding the goals or hypotheses presented in the Introduction,

-Reflective analysis of the research and its conclusions in light of current knowledge in the field,

-Comments on the significance and contribution of the research reported,

-Comments on strengths and limitations of the research,

-Discussion of any potential applications of the research findings, and

-A description of possible future research directions, drawing on the work reported.

The Conclusion need not be long– about five pages, double-spaced, should be sufficient.

*From the University of British Columbia’s guidelines.

Essentially, you should have a complete draft of your dissertation written by the start of the quarter in which you would like to finish. This probably sounds early, but the final stages are fairly drawn out. You’ll need to exchange multiple drafts of each chapter with Kathleen, with a two-week turnaround each time. In addition, you’ll need to submit your final dissertation to your committee two to four weeks before your defense date. (Ask each committee member how early they’d like to receive the dissertation.) You’ll also need time to revise your dissertation in response to comments from your committee during the defense. If the revisions are substantial, you’ll have to give your committee members the revised version, and allow them time to evaluate it. Finally, there are filing deadlines each quarter that are specified by Graduate Division. You’ll need to have the absolute final, formatted version to them by that date.

You should wait until Kathleen says the dissertation is ready to give to the committee before you schedule your defense. Otherwise, you might end up canceling and rescheduling your defense, which is not ideal. It might take a while to find a date that the entire committee is available, so that can also draw out the process.

Basically, to avoid undue stress, it’s better to plan ahead and be realistic about the timeline.