Qualifying papers offer students the opportunity to make their own distinctive intellectual contribution while fulfilling the requirements of the program. The qualifying papers should be seen as a bridge between coursework and the dissertation. As with any set of requirements, students will have questions about how to do a qualifying paper. In the following memo we outline some frequently asked questions about qualifying papers and our answers to these questions.
-- Graduate Program Committee

When should I begin thinking about and working on a qualifying paper?
Most qualifying papers begin as course papers, and some students begin working on their first qualifying paper as early as the summer after their first year in graduate school.  Under the recently revised guidelines, we expect you to have the proposal for the first qualifying paper signed on by your committee early in the spring semester of your second year (by February 15, prior to the Annual Review for second year students).  This means that you should begin formulating a proposal and compiling a committee by the fall of your second year.   Likewise, you should have the proposal for the second qualifier signed on by your committee by February 15 of your third year.  Please note that these are “outer edge” deadlines – you are welcome and encouraged to have your committee sign on to the proposal well prior to the deadlines.  You also do not have to complete the first qualifier to begin thinking about (and compiling a committee for) the second.

Why does the committee need to meet to “sign-on” to the proposal soon after I begin to work on the paper?
The “sign-on” meeting with the qualifying paper committee is valuable opportunity to have your entire committee together in one room to help you brainstorm and refine your ideas for the paper soon after you begin work on it.  Working synergistically, the committee can also help you to focus and specify your methodology, which can significantly ease subsequent data collection and analysis.   These early critiques and brainstorming sessions can save you a great deal of time by raising 'red flags' early in the process and helping you develop a clearer sense of purpose and direction in the paper.  We expect that prior to the “sign-on” meeting, you will have met with each of the three committee members individually to discuss your initial paper ideas.  Please note that this sign-on meeting is not a “defense,” but rather a constructive planning session to help get you on track with the paper writing process. 

How do I know which course paper to develop into a qualifying paper?
The organizing idea for a qualifying paper should be an idea that you sense can be 'developed' into a significant intellectual contribution in the form of a journal article, a chapter in your dissertation, or both! The faculty can help you decide whether or not a particular idea or course paper should be developed into a qualifying paper.

Who should I choose as readers for the paper?
The three readers for each qualifying paper should be faculty members who have some kind of  substantive expertise in the general area in which you are writing the paper (although given complex intersections in the department, they might have quite distinct research orientations among themselves).  One of them may be the professor for whom you originally wrote the paper.   If you are having trouble deciding whom to ask to serve as a reader, ask other faculty for recommendations. Don't be shy about asking faculty whom you don't know to serve as a reader. They like being asked!  Keep in mind that you can have only one overlapping reader on the two committees, and you cannot have the same person serve as principle reader on both papers.  This means that you need to work with five or six different faculty members as you complete your two qualifying papers.   We want to encourage you to maximize the number of faculty that you work with in order to learn from a diverse group of faculty.

How long does it take to complete a qualifying paper?
Qualifying papers can take up to eight months to complete, but students do complete them in much less time as well.  Again, please regard the deadlines in Appendix B of the Graduate Student Handbook as outer limits; you are encouraged to submit your proposals and complete the papers well prior to the deadlines.

What is the relationship between qualifying papers and the dissertation?
Frequently, one (and occasionally, both) of the qualifying papers will serve as an 'intellectual springboard' for the dissertation, launching the intellectual inquiry that eventually results in a doctoral thesis. In other words the qualifying papers can serve as 'testing grounds' in which you try out ideas for the dissertation. If the idea for a qualifying paper does eventually become a dissertation, you can use portions of the qualifying paper in your dissertation. Successful qualifying papers come out of good ideas that may or may not be related to your dissertation. It also true that students who only write qualifying papers that become part of their dissertations may end up being overspecialized. For this reason, we require that your second qualifying paper be significantly different from the first in its substantive focus.  This allows students to demonstrate mastery of at least two sociological subfields before completing their degrees, only one of which may be central to the dissertation. Qualifying papers also provide you with an opportunity to work with as many as six different faculty members. These experiences should prove useful when you have to decide whom, among the faculty, you want to have serve on your dissertation committee.

How do I go about turning my qualifying paper into a published article?
Many students use their qualifying papers as the basis for articles that they submit for publication.  We strongly encourage you to write your qualifying paper with this objective in mind.  In this way, you treat the QP process as the first step toward your own personal scholarly intervention in the sociological field, rather than simply as an exercise you need to “get done” in order to complete the degree.   You should also expect that your committee members will request that you do multiple drafts of the paper with this purpose in mind.  Many faculty members will not approve a qualifying paper until they think it is near publishable in quality.  Once a qualifying paper is in the works, there are a number of additional ways in which you can shepherd it toward publication.  First, you can present the paper in professional conferences, such as the ASA, ESS, and other national and regional meetings.  Second, you can use internal forums such as the Writing Seminar and other departmental workshops to get feedback on your paper as it approaches publication-readiness.  And third, you should use the “sign-off” meeting  with your committee as a focused conversation about what you need to do next to ready the paper for submission (including what journal to submit it to and how to frame your ideas for specific audiences).  We strongly encourage you to have at least one paper ready to submit to a journal by the time you are ABD.  Ideally, you will have two (or more) papers published or in the publishing pipelines by the time you complete your doctoral degree.