INSTRUCTIONS FOR M.A. AND PH.D. EXAMS

1. The Graduate Studies Committee will coordinate the preparation and administration of the M.A. and Ph.D. exams. The M.A. exams will be created and evaluated by the faculty. The Ph.D. exams will be created and evaluated by a committee of faculty members chosen by the student, which should be constituted in the semester preceding the exams. A first draft of the major and minor subfield lists should be submitted to all members of the exam committee no later than May 1 or October 1 in the semester preceding the exams. The student should consult regularly with members of the exam committee until a final draft is produced. The final list should be submitted to the exam committee members and the Director of Graduate Studies during the first week of the exam semester. It should name the exam committee member(s) responsible for each subfield.

2. M.A. and Ph.D. exams will be held during the last week of September and the first week of February. All candidates for the M.A. and Ph.D. taking exams in a given semester will follow the same schedule.

3. The M.A. Comprehensive Examination will be taken on one day, at a location on the Tulane campus to be determined by the Graduate Studies Committee. It will consist of five questions, on each of which the student will spend one hour. Three questions are to be answered in the morning, (9am -12am), and two in the afternoon, (1pm - 3pm). The five questions are drawn from the reading list in the following manner:

Four questions are drawn from four categories comprising a total of 60 works:
Medieval/Renaissance/Golden Age Spain, 18th century to present-day Spain, Colonial and 19th century Latin America, 20th century to present-day Latin America, Luso-Brazilian Literatures to 1900 and Luso-Brazilian Literatures to the Present. There will be one question for each category.

The fifth question is drawn from critical theory, cultural studies, film studies, or linguistics. The student must notify the Director of Graduate Studies by the last day of classes of the preceding semester as to which of these fields he/she wishes to be tested on. A reading list for this question will be drawn up in consultation with a faculty member.

M.A. Reading Lists

4. The Ph.D exams are based on three reading lists: one in a major field and two in minor fields, with the major field divided into six subgroups and each of the minor fields into three or four. Students enjoy considerable freedom in developing individual research agendas and addressing particular intellectual concerns in the preparation of the exam fields. They are then responsible for creating their own lists in close consultation with the members of their exam committees. Each sub-list should consist of primary works and key secondary studies and be preceded by a paragraph articulating the main critical issues and questions it aims to address. The preparation of the lists is considered a fundamental step in students’ training both for scholarship and teaching. Students should thus approach them with a serious eye towards the area of dissertation research and complementary fields of interest. All members of the exam committee must approve the lists with a written signature before the exam can be scheduled. Failure to submit lists in a timely fashion and obtain faculty approval may result in termination from the program.

5. The Ph.D. Qualifying Examination will be taken over a weekend, at any location that is convenient to the student. It will consist of nine questions on the fields that the student has prepared in consultation with his or her committee, of which the student will answer six. The nine questions are formulated from the fields in the following manner:

Three questions are drawn from the six subfields of the major field. One of these is compulsory and the other is chosen by the student from two alternatives. Six questions are drawn from the three subfields of the two minor fields. For each minor field, one question is compulsory and the other is chosen by the student from two alternatives.

6. The answers may be typed or printed from a computer (PC or Mac), on standard (8.5" x 11") white paper in a 12 pt type face. The text should be double-spaced, margins should be at least 1" on all sides, and only one side of a page should be used.

7. The answers should not exceed fifteen pages per question. Students should avoid long quotes, paraphrases, or any other rhetoric that suggests excessive conceptual or theoretical dependence on secondary sources.

8. Each answer is evaluated individually; the entire exam is evaluated as Fail, Pass, or Pass with distinction. For less than adequate answers, the following rules apply:

If an answer is judged to be incomplete or inadequate but barely passing, a conference will be set up with the student's committee no later than three weeks following the evaluation of the exam. The student may choose to invite the Chair or the Director of Graduate Studies to participate as well If less than half of the answers are failed, only those areas will be tested in a make-up exam. If more than half of the answers are failed, the entire exam must be retaken. Only one make-up exam will be allowed. The make-up exam will be taken in the last week of October and in the first week of March unless it conflicts with a holiday.

9. Only under exceptional circumstances will a postponement of an examination be permitted. These include physical ill health, mental or psychiatric problems (such as depression), or any kind of incapacitating injury. All such contingencies must be documented by a recognized medical authority. Other contingencies include a family catastrophe, the death of a close relative, or funeral at short notice related to such deaths. In all such circumstances the Director of Graduate Studies should be notified as soon as possible about the crisis. Changes in area of concentration, academic interest, or field of intended research do not constitute admissible grounds for a postponement.

10. A student may be terminated from the program if they fail more than 50% of the Ph.D. Qualifying Exam.  Approval to take a full make-up exam and/or to continue on to the dissertation phase of the program will be constituted by exam results, history of class performance, and assessment by the faculty of the student's potential for performing independent research.

Ph.D. candidates are reminded that within two weeks of finishing the exam, they must submit to his/her Committee a dissertation prospectus, consisting of an eight-page abstract and a two-page bibliography, to be defended a month after notification of sucessful exam results. Please see the instructions here (link deleted). [add to Ph.D. page that the Graduate School's short prospectus is condensed from the successfully-defended long prospectus.] After the defense, a final copy of the prospectus must be submitted to the Director of Graduate Studies.

Revised August 2006
Item 9 effective for students entering Ph.D. phase of program in Fall 2007.

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Inception: 9/29/00. Last revision: 8/31/06