Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Graduate School-Newark
 
About the University
Graduate Study At the University
Admission
Tuition and Fees
Financial Aid
Student Services
Academic Policies and Procedures
Degree Requirements
Programs, Faculty, and Courses
Course Information
Biology 120
Chemistry 160
Computational Biology 197
Criminal Justice 202
Economics 220
English 350 (Includes American Literature 352)
Environmental Science 375
Environmental Geology 380
Global Affairs 478
History 510
Integrative Neuroscience 546
Program
Prequalifying Students (First Two Years)
First-Year Program
Second-Year Program
Early Research Project
Advancement to Candidacy
Qualifying Examination
Examination Formats
Doctoral Dissertations
Doctoral Dissertation Format
Teaching Requirements
Graduate Courses
UMDNJ Courses
Jazz History and Research 561
Liberal Studies 606
Management 620
Mathematical Sciences 645
Nursing 705
Physics, Applied 755
Political Science 790
Psychology 830
Public Administration 834
Urban Systems 977 (Joint Ph.D. Program with NJIT and UMDNJ)
Governance of the University
Divisions of the University
Camden Newark New Brunswick/Piscataway
Catalogs
  Graduate School-Newark 2004-2006 Programs, Faculty, and Courses Integrative Neuroscience 546 Doctoral Dissertations  

Doctoral Dissertations

Doctoral Dissertation Committee

As soon as possible after passing the qualifying examination, each student must establish a doctoral dissertation committee. The committee will consist of at least five members, who will serve as the examining committee at the student`s oral defense of the dissertation. Four members of the committee must be members of the graduate program in integrative neuroscience. With approval from the program faculty, the committee may include faculty members from other Rutgers or UMDNJ units. At least one member of the committee should come from outside Rutgers and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and be a recognized expert in the candidate`s research field.

In the early stages of forming a dissertation committee, the candidate, acting with approval of his or her dissertation adviser, should choose one member of the panel to serve as a coordinator. The coordinator, who should be someone other than the dissertation adviser, facilitates the closed sessions, introduces the candidate to the committee, and moderates the question and answer period of the proposal and the defense sessions.

Role of the Committee. All members of the committee must be present when the student makes the dissertation proposal. Following approval of the proposal, the student should meet with individual members of the committee as the research proceeds to discuss his or her work and to solicit their advice. At the conclusion of the data-gathering phase, the entire committee will meet to determine if the candidate has completed sufficient work on the project. If geographic restrictions make it difficult for the external member to attend this session, the other committee members should transmit written comments and questions to this member. The committee`s decision on data gathering will determine whether the student is ready to begin the final analysis and writing phase of the research.

At least three months before the student is to defend his or her work, he or she should submit a draft of the manuscript to the committee. Although this document should be as complete as possible, the committee will allow the student a certain degree of latitude at this point. For example, the bibliography may not be complete or some of the figures in the document may not be in final form. With the possible exception of the external member, the entire committee meets again to ensure that work on the thesis is progressing satisfactorily and to make suggestions to the candidate. When the candidate makes his or her final defense, all committee members, including the external member, must be present.

Doctoral Dissertation Proposal

Time Frame. The candidate must prepare and present a dissertation proposal after passing the qualifying examination and no later than one year before the date of the dissertation defense. This time frame is designed to ensure that the student gets a proposal ready and has full benefit of advice and guidance from the dissertation committee. For this reason, candidates should form their dissertation committees well in advance of the time they make their proposal presentations.

Written Proposal. The written dissertation proposal must be a scholarly writing that describes the experiments that have been completed for the dissertation and further experiments that are proposed. The proposal introduction gives the candidate a first chance to write a scholarly synthesis of the scientific literature related to the dissertation proposal. This introduction should be more comprehensive than the introduction to a single scientific experiment or publication.

The written proposal is not expected to describe a large number of completed dissertation experiments. Instead, the document should stress preliminary data that would illustrate the feasibility of the research direction of the proposal. In addition, the written proposal should demonstrate the appropriateness and feasibility of the experimental methods that will be used, and it should show that the candidate has the requisite working knowledge of these methods to proceed. In the case of proposed experiments, the paper should outline the expected results and their relationship to hypotheses and alternative hypotheses that are set forth in the introduction.

Oral Presentation and Examination. The oral presentation, which is open to the university community, is not expected to contain a large number of completed dissertation experiments. As with the written proposal, it should emphasize preliminary data that support the feasibility of the research direction the candidate plans to pursue. In addition to demonstrating the appropriateness and feasibility of the experimental methods that will be used, the candidate should show that he or she has a sufficient working knowledge of these methods to proceed with the research.

In the case of proposed experiments, which likely will constitute the majority of the seminar, the presentation should emphasize the rationale, hypotheses to be tested, methods to be used, and the expected results and their interpretation in relation to the hypothesis.

Thus, the presentation should include the salient aspects of the written dissertation proposal, but in an appropriate seminar style complete with visual aids. Slides are highly recommended. The seminar presentation is followed by a question-and-answer period at which the candidate takes questions from the univer- sity community.

The dissertation committee then will meet with the candidate in closed session to conduct a more detailed examination of the proposal and to determine the candidate`s grasp of its scientific content. At this point, the panel may ask the candidate to revise any aspect of the proposal. The goal of an accepted dissertation proposal is for the candidate and the committee to reach consensus on the expected scientific content of the doctoral dissertation.


 
For additional information, contact RU-info at 732/932-info (4636) or colonel.henry@rutgers.edu.
Comments and corrections to: Campus Information Services.

© 2005 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. All rights reserved.