PhD in English
The PhD (ENGL 790) involves the writing of an original piece of research up to 80,000 words in length over a period of three years under two or more supervisors. As a Doctor of Philosophy, you are considered prepared for an academic job or for a variety of research-related positions in government, education, administration and business.
PhD Thesis
This section sets out the way in which Doctoral thesis studies are conducted in the English programme. You should also familiarise yourself with the University's regulations about Doctoral studies which you will find in the annual Calendar.
Staff Involved
Supervisor of Thesis Students
The Postgraduate Coordinator, who supervises the PhD, is elected by the School. You should feel free to approach the Postgraduate Coordinator with any problems or difficulties you encounter in the course of your work. This includes any problems or difficulties relating to supervision. The Postgraduate Coordinator will treat any such communications with the strictest confidence, and will attempt to find a satisfactory resolution to them.
Thesis supervisors
Two supervisors will be appointed. The Senior Supervisor will be a full-time member of staff appointed after consultation with the student and members of staff. A second supervisor will be appointed in the same way, either from within the English programme, or, as the topic requires, from outside the discipline.
Acceptance of Topics
Acceptance of your enrolment within the English programme depends on two main factors - whether the programme has the necessary expertise to offer you high-quality supervision and whether the University of Canterbury has the library resources necessary for you to complete the project to the required standard.
Availability of supervision
See the people pages for the areas of teaching and current research interests of members of the continuing staff of the programme. This will provide some indication of the areas of study in which the programme is able to offer supervision at doctoral level. There may be others, and you are encouraged to discuss your project as widely as possible among members of the staff. Supervisors will be appointed by the Academic Administration Committee on the recommendation of the Postgraduate Coordinator in consultation with the candidate and appropriate academic staff.
Available resources
Members of the staff will be able to advise you of the nature and quality of the research resources at Canterbury in your chosen area of research. They may also be able to advise you of resources at other New Zealand universities and at libraries such as the Alexander Turnbull Library.
Supervision
Once accepted for doctoral studies in English, you will be expected to pursue research under the supervision of the appointed supervisors and to meet regularly with them.
The University has drawn up a standard Supervision Agreement governing the terms in which thesis supervision is to be undertaken. The Agreement, which sets out the responsibilities of both supervisors and student, is to be signed by both and returned by the supervisor to the Postgraduate Coordinator. Variation of the terms, or the addition of further terms, may be undertaken by mutual agreement.
Prospective supervisors planning to go on leave, or to be otherwise absent during the course of a supervision, must keep students informed of this and arrange for a replacement supervisor.
Progress Reports are required from both doctoral students and their supervisors at six-month intervals. Copies of these reports should be sent to the Postgraduate Coordinator before they are sent to the Registry. The Postgraduate Coordinator may require a candidate to attend a meeting to explain any progress deemed unsatisfactory.
Presentation of Proposals
Every Ph.D. candidate in the School of Humanities delivers an oral presentation of his or her thesis proposal several weeks before that proposal is due to be registered. At the time of presentation, the proposal will be in its final stages. The presentation should run for about twenty minutes and be followed by discussion.
Invitations to these presentations will go to all academic staff of the School, to all postgraduates in the School, and to any other people identified as appropriate by the candidate and the supervisors.
The Postgraduate Coordinator will consult with the supervisors and the candidate about who might chair the presentation and will be available to serve as chair if required.
Presenting the Thesis
The thesis should not generally exceed 80,000 words.
For the purposes of examination, three softbound copies must be submitted to the Registry.
After a successful defence of the thesis, two of these copies must be hardbound and presented to the University Library. More detailed information will be found in A Guide to the Presentation of Theses published by the University Library and available from the information desk in the Library.
Examination of the Thesis
Once three copies of the thesis have been presented to the Registry, the Postgraduate Coordinator and your supervisor will seek appropriate persons to act as external examiners. There are generally two external examiners plus one of the supervisors of your thesis. One of the external examiners will conduct the oral examination of the thesis which will be chaired by the Postgraduate Coordinator. As a result of the examination your thesis may be accepted, accepted with some recommendations for change, referred back to you for more major re-writing, recommended as acceptable for a lesser degree with or without changes, or rejected.