Your final credit of EPOL 599 will culminate in an oral presentation and defense to your committee. You should only register for this course once a final defense date has been established.
Refer to the Thesis Resources pages for specific details and recommendations regarding your final defense and deposit.
Planning Tip
Be sure to pay attention to the thesis deposit deadlines for the relevant semester. Your committee may have some feedback for you that you’ll need to apply in your final thesis manuscript after the defense. These timelines allow you some time after your defense to make final revisions before the thesis deposit deadline, which is usually a month prior to the end of the semester.
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EDS Survey
- Complete the EDS Survey
Milestones
- Send your advisor-approved final dissertation Word document to the Dissertation Advisor for dissemination to your committee. Ensure that the document is free of comments, change notes, tracked changes, etc.
- Send your presentation PPT to Dr. Francis and Dr. Kalantzis for approval
In addition to your full dissertation manuscript, you will present to your committee your final defense
- Prepare a 15-minute oral presentation and present to your peers (30-minute peer session). Their feedback will help you prepare for your final defense committee presentation.
- Present your final defense (15 minutes) to your committee in a 60-minute session.
- Revise your work based on your committee feedback during the final defense oral exam.
Chapter 4: Findings and Results
Chapter 4 focuses on your results and findings. Key elements to include:
- Brief recap of the study’s methodology
- Actual implementation and research site context
- Actual participants; a table overview may be useful
- Results and Findings, typically grouped by category/theme and triangulated, including connection to the existing literature.
Results and findings should be presented in a combination of narrative and graphics (tables and figures):
- Do not provide results on every survey question
- Be as specific as possible; use an actual number of respondents rather than saying “many participants said…”
- Triangulate multiple data sources, including existing literature; draw on your literature review as a data source
How you present your results and findings may vary from other dissertation examples depending on your specific methodology, research questions, and implementation.
Chapter 5: Implications and Conclusions
Chapter 5 focuses on your implications, recommendations, limitations, and conclusions. Key elements to include:
- Brief recap of the study’s findings
- Implications of findings
- Recommendations, supported by your findings
- Study limitations
- Suggestions for future research
- Conclusions
Maintain your Checklist
Post Preliminary Exam Checklists (online form)
Related: University’s Academic Calendar