Page 19 - DISSERTATION AND THESIS HANDBOOK 2017 -2020

✦ High standards for original research in the field,
✦ Academic integrity,
✦ Mastery of the research and the appropriate methodology,
✦ An understanding of the relationship of the work to the broader field in
which it is lodged,
✦ The standards of academic and scholarly publications in general readability,
and
✦ University standards of excellence in content, grammar, and formatting.

II. WHAT IS A CANDIDATE? WHAT ARE A CANDIDATE’S
OBLIGATIONS?

A graduate student achieves candidacy when he or she has
passed the doctoral comprehensive examination and completed
all course work prescribed for the doctoral degree. It is the
candidate’s responsibility to ensure that the dissertation is
completed with academic integrity and excellence. It is vital to
attribute properly all work that is cited in the dissertation.
Plagiarism, even an unintentional infraction, is a serious offense.
If students have any uncertainty about proper citation, they
should consult the overview of plagiarism offered at the Purdue
University Online Writing Lab (http://owl.english.purdue.edu). A
candidate must ensure that the dissertation demonstrates
adherence to grammatical and formatting conventions. Candidates should proofread,
copyedit, and format their work carefully.

If students need help with writing, they may visit the Smith Vidal Literacy and Language
Center. The master’s program in English offers ENGL 760, Advanced Composition, for
master’s or doctoral students from any discipline to work on writing skills.

Finally, it is the candidate's duty to be familiar with the dissertation process, to stay in close
contact with advisors, and to meet due dates in a timely manner. A candidate will have a
dissertation advisory committee and a dissertation examining committee. These two
committees help to keep our standards high.

III. DEFINITION OF TERMS

The following offers definitions of the terms of the dissertation process.

A. Dissertation Advisory Committee
A dissertation advisory committee consists of faculty members who have agreed to
oversee the project and whose signatures appear on the proposal. The committee
must include at least three (3)senior faculty members from Bowie State University;
two of these, including the chair, must be from the Department that represents the
candidate‘s area of focus.

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