One of the most important choices a student in a doctoral program makes is that of a dissertation supervisor. Students will want to ask many questions in coming to a decision: Who is an expert in areas that the dissertation will address? Who can offer important bibliographical data or teach key methodological skills? What about this dissertation would an individual professor find rewarding enough to justify spending many hours working on it? Who can offer guidance on how to employ and maintain a particular critical approach? Who will read chapters judiciously, carefully, and fairly? Who will encourage the dissertation's completion and its excellence? Who will be able to write eloquent, forceful letters - and perhaps make key telephone calls - about the dissertation's contribution to knowledge when its writer enters the job market? Faculty mentors, trusted professors, student colleagues, and Program Officers can all offer advice. Students are free to make their choices, and faculty members are free to accept, or to decline, the request.

Usually, student and supervisor will have established a good working relationship before the dissertation has taken much shape; the supervisor may well have been the chair of the Second ("Orals") Examination Committee, the chief reader of the prospectus, and a long-standing adviser. The process of writing a dissertation may lead a student to alter an original understanding with a supervisor, however; in such cases it may seem mutually wise for the student to seek a different supervisor. Approval of the Executive Officer is required.

The dissertation prospectus should consist of at most ten (10) pages of descriptive material. (This is the usual length of most project descriptions that accompany applications for dissertation-year awards in national competitions.) The prospectus absolutely cannot be longer than ten pages. The prospectus should provide a compact, concise blueprint for a dissertation by including:

1. Additionally, each prospectus should include as supplementary pages an ample working bibliography for the project. The bibliography has no page length requirements. Students must submit a copy of the prospectus within six months of passing the Second ("Orals") Examination (nothing prohibits them from submitting it beforehand). While there is no deadline for submitting the prospectus, students should be aware that faculty are not required to participate in the Prospectus Approval Process during winter break and over the summer. Students who intend to apply for a dissertation-year fellowship from The Graduate Center should submit the prospectus, approved by their supervisor, to the English Program Office by early November so that there will be adequate time for its review (and possible revision) before the Graduate Center wide dissertation-year fellowship deadline.

Writing a prospectus is one focus of English 91000 ("Dissertation Workshop"), a practical workshop that students who have completed their course work are urged to attend.

When the dissertation supervisor judges that a prospectus warrants approval, the following procedure is followed.

1. The supervisor approves the prospectus by signing Prospectus Review Form; the student submits one copy of it and the Prospectus Review Form along with e-mailing a copy to the Assistant Program Officer.
2. The prospectus is read by a committee of four readers, all members of the English Program's doctoral faculty. The Executive Officer is one of the four readers and serves as the committee chair; two readers are named by the dissertation supervisor in consultation with the student; the fourth reader, chosen by the Executive Officer, is usually someone in a different field of English literature whose expertise may prove a valuable complement to the reports by area experts. The dissertation supervisor is not one of the readers, and other committee members are not necessarily those who will read the student's dissertation and examine the student in a formal defense.
3. Readers have three weeks within which to make their reports. Each reader must indicate that the prospectus is: