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Ph.D. Graduate College Review

When the Chair of the Supervisory Committee believes that the student has produced a complete, defense-ready draft of the dissertations, the student submits an unbound, one-sided, standard print quality document to the Graduate College for review.  The following requirements must be met before the document is submitted for review:

• The approved Program of Study is on file;
• The supervisory committee has been approved by the Graduate College;
• Both comprehensive examinations have been passed, the prospectus has been approved, the appropriate paperwork has been submitted to the Graduate College, and the student has been admitted to candidacy;
• The student must be enrolled for at least one credit hour that appears on the Program of Study, or one hour of appropriate graduate level credit, during the semester or summer session in which the defense will take place;
• The student has a completed "Format Approval Sheet" signed by the chair of the supervisory committee indicating that that Formal Manual and the student's selected style guide have been followed;
• The student has a completed "Doctoral Defense Schedule Form", which must be signed by the chair of the supervisory committee.

All of the required forms mentioned in the Format Manual or from the Graduate College.  When submitting for format review, the student must turn in all forms and the dissertation at least 10 working days before the anticipated date of the dissertation defense.  A ten working-day calendar for submitting dissertations can be found on the Graduate College website.

At the time of submission for format review, the student should also submit a Survey of Earned Doctorates or from the Graduate College.  After all of these items have been collected and all necessary requirements have been checked by a Graduate College staff member, the dissertation will be released to a format advisor for review.

A format advisor checks the dissertation against the Format Manual and the selected style guide or journal. The student will be contacted via email upon completion of the review.  Most students will be required to make some corrections, which will be indicated on the Formal Approval Sheet and the actual document pages.  Students will then resubmit either a full document or selected pages.  The approval page must be corrected and approved for format prior to the oral defense.  The student must have final formal approval before the dean's signature can be obtained on the approval page.