Preliminary Essay

In the Spring Quarter of their second year students will register for the first quarter of a two-quarter (Spring, Autumn) workshop on the preliminary essay. The workshop involves discussion of general issues in writing the essay and student presentations of their work. Although students do not register for the Summer quarter, they are expected to make significant progress on their preliminary essay over the summer.

By the end of the eighth week of the Spring Quarter at the latest each student will submit to the Director of Graduate Studies a proposed topic and a ranked list of possible readers in the Philosophy Department. The Graduate Program Committee will evaluate proposed topics along the following lines:

• is the topic philosophically interesting?
• can a paper on the topic be completed within the given time?
• can a committee be formed to supervise an essay on the topic?

If the topic is approved, the Committee will form a preliminary essay committee consisting of two equal readers, both of whom students are expected to consult regularly. The committee will supervise the writing of the essay which should be no longer than 8,000 words in the body of the text and 1000 words of footnotes, not including bibliographical and philological footnotes and block quotations in the text.

The final draft of the Preliminary Essay must be submitted by the first day of the Winter quarter of the student's third year. Essays submitted late are penalized as follows: One third of a grade is deducted if the essay is submitted after the deadline but before the first day of the sixth week of the Winter quarter. Two-thirds of a grade is deducted if the essay is submitted after the first day of the sixth week of the Winter quarter but by the end of Exam Week of the Winter Quarter. Essays submitted after the end of the Winter quarter do not count toward satisfaction of the requirement.