Second Year Paper Requirements

Paper Description and Expectations

The second-year paper requirement is designed to develop and demonstrate a student’s ability to identify a research question, develop related theory and hypotheses, and test these hypotheses empirically.

The written work should be of sufficient quality to be accepted to a high-quality academic conference in the paper’s subject area (e.g., AoM, EGOS, SMS).

The paper may be co-authored with a faculty member, but the student should clearly be the first author with the co-author in a supporting role only. Co-authors cannot serve as examination committee members.

The second-year paper may comprise part of the student’s dissertation, but this is not a requirement.

Forming a reading committee – Ideally by May 1 of YR2, and no later than September of YR3
The second-year paper committee includes an “advisor” and two “readers.”

The advisor is the person who has had the most previous exposure to the paper. Then, for the requirement, you must have two additional readers (not including your advisor) approve the written paper. Co-authors cannot serve as examination committee members.

You are encouraged to solicit feedback from the reading committee on working drafts of the paper, but this is at the discretion of each individual reader. Some committee members will want to offer feedback, others will prefer to wait for the oral presentation.

Scheduling the oral presentation – Ideally by September 1 of YR3, and no later than October 15
The student is responsible for securing a presentation date and time that works for the reading committee and a member of the doctoral committee (typically the doctoral coordinator), who will also attend the presentation.

Once the presentation has been scheduled, the student should notify the doctoral coordinator as well as the department administrator (currently Kyle Jordan) so that they can publicly announce the presentation.

A draft of the paper must be submitted to the reading committee no later than two weeks prior to the oral defense date. The advisor must approve the paper before it is distributed to the broader committee.

The oral presentation takes about 2 hours, with about 90 min dedicated to presenting and receiving questions on the work. The remaining 30 min are for committee deliberations.

The paper must be approved and defended no later than October 15th of the third year or the student risks losing good standing.

Grading
After the oral presentation, the committee grants a pass, a conditional pass, or a fail.

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“Pass” means that the paper is of sufficient quality to satisfy the requirement, and the student should continue moving the paper toward conference or journal submission.

“Conditional pass” means that the student needs to make limited, but important, revisions to the paper before receiving a “pass” grade. The nature and timing of the revisions are at the discretion of the reading committee.

“Fail” means that the paper has demonstrated serious deficiencies and a new, or fundamentally revised, paper will be required to receive a “pass” grade. This outcome is exceedingly rare, so long as the advisor has approved the paper for oral presentation.