EMP 980   EMU Professor  3 credits
Dissertation Proposal and Qualifying Exam

Audience and Prerequisites

This course is open to graduate students in Energy Medicine who are ready to proceed to candidacy for the doctorate and to formally define their dissertation research project. Participants must complete (or be concurrently enrolled in) all academic coursework (except the dissertation) required for the PhD degree before enrolling in this course.

This course provides guidance and experience for defining a doctoral research project; developing initial drafts of the literature review and assessing research methodologies appropriate and adequate to the substance of the project. The course culminates in a written and oral examination, to demonstrate the student’s competence to advance to doctoral degree candidacy.

Objectives

To prepare the applicant to formally begin the dissertation research stage of their program, as the final step towards completion of the requirements for the PhD degree. Once the oral and written examinations are successfully completed, the applicant is officially a candidate for the doctoral degree.

The final project is the cornerstone of graduate degree work. It may take any of several forms, quantitative, qualitative, or participatory action research, or a major project demonstrating excellence, depending upon the expectations of the program faculty. In whatever form it takes, it must represent original work by the participant. At the Masters level, it is the demonstration of mastery of an advanced body of knowledge in a given field. At the doctoral level, it is an original contribution to the field.

The final project will take the form of a standard “traditional” academic dissertation of 150 or more typewritten pages for the dissertation. The document will conform to the guidelines of the University, the expectations of faculty, and an acceptable style manual. This research preparation course is intended to empower the participants:

• To effectively plan and prepare to complete a major work of research which permits the demonstration of excellence within the student’s general area of study.
• To state a problem or formulate a hypothesis for intensive study and research.
• To prepare an overall design of a project, an experiment or a critical analysis and synthesis in the chosen field of study.
• To plan for the effective interpretation of data and information from the planned study.
• To determine techniques for drawing valid conclusions.
• To understand the proper manner of reporting results to other scholars within the field of study.
• To understand the guidelines that governs the structuring of the academic argument, the presentation of the scholarly discussion, and the formatting of the document.

close window