Final Oral Defense

You must pass your final oral examination before your dissertation will be accepted by the graduate school. You should begin to schedule your final oral at least two months in advance to ensure all your committee members can attend. Check the Graduate School deadlines for defense dates; a defense cannot be held within 2 weeks of the last day of class unless the entire committee has consented to hold the defense during those 2 weeks. This guideline is not to prevent students from graduating – the formatting, paperwork, and other last-minute details necessary to finish the dissertation and submit in time for the Graduate School deadline means that you need time between the defense and final deadlines. While you can hold a defense in the last two weeks of classes, it is not recommended.

No less than four weeks before the date on which you intend to defend the dissertation, a copy of the final draft of the dissertation, reviewed for technical and grammatical correctness, should be submitted to each member of the dissertation committee, after receiving approval from your supervisor.

Two weeks prior to the defense date, a written request to hold the final oral examination must be submitted to the Graduate School. This request signifies the receipt of the doctoral dissertation for the purpose of administering the examination. The committee’s decision to hold the examination must be unanimous. After all the committee members have signed the document, the graduate advisor must sign the form before you submit it to the Graduate School.

It is expected that all members of your committee will attend, either in person or via teleconference (i.e. Zoom). The Graduate School allows for one committee member (not your supervisor) to miss the defense if they agree to still read the dissertation and sign the Report of Dissertation Committee. If one of your committee members will be unable to make your defense, you will fill out the second page of the Request for Final Oral Exam form.

Along with the Request for Final Oral Exam, you will also submit specific documents from your dissertation for a format check. Your dissertation does not have to be completely formatted in order to submit these documents; you can format these pages per the Graduate School formatting instructions and submit them before you finish formatting the rest of your dissertation.

In addition, you must reserve a room for the defense. Students usually hold their defense at their primary research location. Contact the Graduate Program Coordinator for help with reserving a room for your defense. All dissertation defenses at UT are technically open to all members of the University committee and the public, unless restricted by the GSC. When you submit your Request for Final Oral Examination form, the Graduate School will update the Final Oral Exam Schedule to meet the requirements of an open defense.

At the final defense, you will begin by making a short public seminar presentation about your research (30-45 minutes). Remember that since the committee members have already read your dissertation, you need to highlight the importance, significance, and originality of your work. Following your presentation, the public and committee members will ask you questions during the final oral examination concerning your research and results.