To remain in good standing in the department, each PhD student in the five-year program must meet the Revision Paper Requirement by August 31 of Academic Year 3, or in other words by the end of the academic year in which they complete their Qualifying Year. It is highly recommended, however, that students satisfy this requirement either sometime during coursework or in the summer immediately following coursework as there are many other requirements to complete during the Qualifying Year. In addition, completion of the Revision Paper prior to the Qualifying Year can be an opportunity to work with a faculty member who might be an appropriate member of the student’s Qualifying Year committee, and the Revision Paper can form the basis of the Qualifying Paper.
Students will designate a particular paper typically written during coursework as their Revision Paper and will solicit supervision on the revision of the paper from a faculty member using the Revision Paper form. Students will receive verbal and written feedback on their paper from their Revision Paper Requirement faculty supervisor and will revise their paper in the light of this feedback. A second round of feedback and revision may be sought by the student or the faculty supervisor, after which time the student will again revise and submit. Students should plan to complete the requirement over one or two months depending on whether one or two rounds of revision are undertaken.
Where a course paper is used for the Revision Paper Requirement the default assumption is that the requirement will be supervised by a faculty member who did not originally grade the paper for the course. A strong justification would need to be provided for working with the same faculty member who taught the course. The Revision Paper Requirement is a chance for the student to expand their faculty contacts within their area of interest, and this is encouraged by seeking out a supervisor who has not previously evaluated the paper. It also gives the student an opportunity to receive different feedback than provided by the original faculty member as well as to discuss preparing the paper for publication or presentation.