"Article dissertation" and language policy

[Adrian Ho]

Greetings!  

The graduate school here at the University of Kentucky has questions about two issues and would like to see what other institutions think about them.  

The graduate school has noticed some institutions offer an "article dissertation" option for certain doctoral programs that allows students to submit a dissertation composed of three distinct but related research articles that may have been published in journals before the oral defense.  It seems this practice is more common in disciplines like engineering, business, and management.  The graduate school is wondering if it is a growing trend for doctoral programs in general.  Has your institution considered the "article dissertation" option?  If you currently offer this option, what is the rationale and what benefits does the option offer?  

Also, the graduate school would like to know if other institutions have a policy on the language used to write a thesis/dissertation.  Does your institution have guidelines or restrictions on what language a thesis/dissertation is written in?  Does it depend on the subject matter and/or the department concerned?  If a thesis/dissertation is written in a foreign language, does the student have to provide an English translation for at least the abstract?  

Feel free to respond on- or off-line.  I will summarize the responses for the group.  Thanks in advance for any thoughts you can share!  

Adrian Ho 

University of Kentucky Libraries 

[Babcock, Renee E]

Hi Adrian, here at UT Austin, we are also seeing more students submitting dissertations that are a collection of 3 articles (or include articles as part of the dissertation), although we tend to see it more with our Economics students. We changed our catalog statement in 2013 on what is the dissertation to allow for this. Our statement basically says because the approach to the dissertation varies by discipline, we will allow dissertations that are consistent in practice to similar programs in AAU institutions. You can see our statement on the web at http://catalog.utexas.edu/archive/2013-14/graduate/degree-requirements/doctor-of-philosophy/#thedissertation.

We ask that the student identify the article as a footnote on the first page of that chapter. In addition, if there are coauthors on the paper, we require the student to make a statement telling us the contribution of each coauthor to that paper.

As to your second question, we do allow students to write their ETD in a language other than English with a few caveats. They must request permission in writing from the Dean at the time they enter candidacy. We have a form that their Graduate Advisor must sign. We don’t allow for this because of a student’s (lack of) proficiency in English. There must be a solid academic reason for this, and the entire committee must be able to read the dissertation in that language. If the reason for the request is because the student is planning to publish their ETD in a different language, we require supporting documentation. We require the student to supply an English-language abstract, plus a substantial summary and conclusion section in English. We don’t get very many of these requests, and most have been from one of our language departments (we see the most from Spanish and Portuguese). Our policy on this is available at the link above.

Please let me know if you have any  other questions I can answer.

Renee

Renee E. Babcock | Degree Plan Evaluator III | Graduate School | The University of Texas at Austin | (512) 232-3629

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[Katy Nelson]

Hi Adrian,
Many students at UVic produce theses or dissertations based on previously published articles.  This process is described in the calendar: http://web.uvic.ca/calendar2015-09/GRAD/FaAd/PR-MD.html and http://web.uvic.ca/calendar2015-09/GRAD/FaAd/PR-DD.html
Specifically "The general form and style of dissertations may differ from academic unit to academic unit, but all dissertations shall be presented in a form which constitutes an integrated submission. The dissertation may include materials already published by the candidate, whether alone or in conjunction with others. Previously published materials must be integrated into the dissertation while at the same time distinguishing the student’s own work from the work of other researchers." with similar wording for Master's theses.

Most of our theses are published in English, but we do have some language depts in the Faculty of Humanities, and I have seen a number of theses published in French and Spanish.  Abstracts are provided in English, generally but I am unaware of any specific language policies from the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

cheers, Katy
Katy Nelson, UVicSpace Librarian, University of Victoria Libraries

[Adrian Ho]

Hello, 

A month ago, I posed some questions about "article dissertations" and institutional policies with regard to writing a dissertation in a foreign language.  Many thanks to those who responded.  Below is a summary of the answers.  Have a good week!  

Adrian 

Georgia State U: 

We did offer an Article option for dissertations (pretty popular in the Sciences and Psych, in particular). We also offered 3 dissertation templates for students, one being a 3 journal article template for Word. 

We did not specify a language but, in practice, the issue never came up as the readers on all committees seem to be culturally diverse and the default is English. Only recently did a French Lit student write a dissertation in English and wanted to offer it in French as well. It was accomplished in the same document by using 2 columns per page, left column English, right column the French translation. Made for a really long dissertation, but it looked very cool.

UT Austin: 

Here at UT Austin, we are also seeing more students submitting dissertations that are a collection of 3 articles (or include articles as part of the dissertation), although we tend to see it more with our Economics students. We changed our catalog statement in 2013 on what is the dissertation to allow for this. Our statement basically says because the approach to the dissertation varies by discipline, we will allow dissertations that are consistent in practice to similar programs in AAU institutions. You can see our statement on the web at http://catalog.utexas.edu/archive/2013-14/graduate/degree-requirements/doctor-of-philosophy/#thedissertation 

We ask that the student identify the article as a footnote on the first page of that chapter. In addition, if there are coauthors on the paper, we require the student to make a statement telling us the contribution of each coauthor to that paper.

As to your second question, we do allow students to write their ETD in a language other than English with a few caveats. They must request permission in writing from the Dean at the time they enter candidacy. We have a form that their Graduate Advisor must sign. We don’t allow for this because of a student’s (lack of) proficiency in English. There must be a solid academic reason for this, and the entire committee must be able to read the dissertation in that language. If the reason for the request is because the student is planning to publish their ETD in a different language, we require supporting documentation. We require the student to supply an English-language abstract, plus a substantial summary and conclusion section in English. We don’t get very many of these requests, and most have been from one of our language departments (we see the most from Spanish and Portuguese). Our policy on this is available at the link above.

U of Victoria: 

Many students at UVic produce theses or dissertations based on previously published articles.  This process is described in the calendar: http://web.uvic.ca/calendar2015-09/GRAD/FaAd/PR-MD.html and http://web.uvic.ca/calendar2015-09/GRAD/FaAd/PR-DD.html  

Specifically "The general form and style of dissertations may differ from academic unit to academic unit, but all dissertations shall be presented in a form which constitutes an integrated submission. The dissertation may include materials already published by the candidate, whether alone or in conjunction with others. Previously published materials must be integrated into the dissertation while at the same time distinguishing the student’s own work from the work of other researchers." with similar wording for Master's theses.

Most of our theses are published in English, but we do have some language depts in the Faculty of Humanities, and I have seen a number of theses published in French and Spanish.  Abstracts are provided in English, generally but I am unaware of any specific language policies from the Faculty of Graduate Studies.