What makes a good introduction for a dissertation? Graduate students practice critiquing one another’s thesis chapters, but they rarely read the introductions — usually because those are written to ...

Creating a successful dissertation dream team will look different for every graduate student, depending on their research and ...

Your dissertation gives you an opportunity to write a substantial piece of academic work on a topic of interest to you. It is an opportunity to produce a work of scholarship, using the academic skills ...

The dissertation proposal and the specialty exam serve different purposes and should be viewed as separate activities, even though often executed concurrently. The dissertation proposal marks the ...

The Department of Sociology at Western Michigan University follows all of the Graduate College policies regarding the doctoral dissertation procedures. The doctoral dissertation: Is an unpublished ...

The dissertation draws on historical archives to highlight the tension between faith, power, and resistance in early America.

Students take about eight years to complete a doctoral degree -- twice the time of a bachelor’s degree. Also, the average age of a doctoral student is 33. Many doctoral students work full-time and ...

Before you can write a dissertation, you must write a dissertation proposal. How to do that is worth a closer look. In my July 24 column, “It’s a Dissertation, Not a Book,” I emphasized the importance ...

*Updated as of Jan. 6, 2026: Since the Spring 2026 dissertation deadline to hold the defense lands during Spring Break, we modified the dissertation deadlines for Spring 2026 in an effort to make the ...

Your dissertation gives you an opportunity to write a substantial piece of academic work on a topic of interest to you. It is an opportunity to produce a work of scholarship, using the academic skills ...