Second-Year Project

Students enrolled in the doctoral program will be required to produce an original empirical research paper by the end of the second full year of study. The research will be presented as part of the COMMColloquium Series.

Second-Year Project Goals

These are:

A mechanism for students to gain experience in conducting independent empirical research prior to embarking on their dissertation research.
A means for faculty to evaluate students’ ability to conduct such research.
An introduction for students early in their careers to important professional skills, such as producing high-quality scholarly work by a specified deadline, and making professional research presentations.
An important socialization and community-building event, in the form of the yearly presentation, for the department and graduate field as a whole.

Second-Year Project Process

At the end of the second semester of the PhD program, each student will begin work with their chair to identify an empirical research project on which they will take the scholarly lead.

The key requirement is for the student to be the primary intellectual leader of their second-year project.
This might be an entirely independent project or a component of a group project for which the student will have primary responsibility. It can originate in a course or be developed outside of coursework. It may explore a potential dissertation topic, or it might be unrelated to the student’s intended dissertation research.
Although the advisor for the student’s second-year project will normally be their special committee chair, the project advisor may be any member of the Communication Graduate Field Faculty.
In consultation with the project advisor, the second-year project must be formatted properly for formal submission. The student may choose among the guidelines provided by an appropriate journal, an appropriate conference, or the graduate school's thesis formatting.
By May 1 of the second year of study, the student must submit at least a three-page summary of the project’s status to the project advisor (a draft paper would also meet this requirement).
By August 15 following the second year of study, students must submit a completed paper to their project advisor and special committee chair (if they are not the same person), in polished form appropriate for submission to a conference or journal. (Plan to get initial drafts to the advisor by late June to allow time for revisions.)
During September of the third year of study, students will formally present their second-year project during a Department Colloquium.

Second-Year Project Evaluation

Faculty, staff, and students who attend the presentations are invited to participate in the question-and-answer session after each presentation.
For formal evaluation, the project advisor will provide a brief written assessment of the project, including both the paper and the presentation, and make a recommendation for a pass or fail to the Director of Graduate Studies by September 30. In cases where the project advisor is not the student’s special committee chair, the project advisor will provide the assessment to the chair for consideration of a pass or fail.
In addition, the Director of Graduate Studies will provide the Field with a judgment based on the special committee chair’s feedback and assessment of the student’s suitability for continuing in the program. If the assessment is negative, the Director of Graduate Studies and the special committee chair will meet with the student to discuss the suitability of continuing in the program. Subsequent decisions about funding and other support will be affected by the assessment.
Students who fail to meet the deadline for the written or oral versions of the Second-Year Project will be considered to not be making satisfactory progress toward their degree. This will affect their status in the program, particularly their continuing ability to receive funding in the form of teaching or research assistantships.