I have a proposal defense on January 10th. In terms of page length, what would you consider too long for a proposal defense? Mine, I think, is very long, perhaps too long. It has me quite worried. My literature review is 160 pages. The other chapters meet page requirements; however, we have no page length requirements for the literature review. So, combined with the other chapters of my proposal, I top the scale at 261 pages [including references].
I have read complete dissertations that are shorter than that. It seems really long, but as Kizmet said, your dissertation adviser would be the one to ask. It would take an awful lot of extra work to cut it down and still have a quality product.
Be prepared to defend the long lit review, but your dissertation chair signed off on having the defense - so he/she must believe the proposal is defendable.
Naturally, I would run this by my Chair before asking for opinions. My team noted that whereas Chapters 1, must meet page length requirements, Chapter 2, the literature review does not have a page length requirement. My question relates to the difficulty level of defense when the review is 160 pages long.
Having already spoken about this with my team, I am asking your opinions as it relates to how the defense will likely go when the literature review is 160 pages long.
I'm still stressing over the length. It will be extremely difficult but with the help of my editor and my team, I will be reducing the amount of pages. Thanks,
The difficulty of your defense in specific regard to your literature review will depend on three factors: 1. How relevant the lit review articles are to the core of your dissertation topic. 2. How well the members of your dissertation committee get along with one another and if your advisor is well-respected by them. 3. How well you know your literature overall. I asked the exact same question to a relative of mine over the holidays. Turns out he's on two committees and brought the dissertations with him for some light reading over the holidays. His answer was as follows: If the student did a broad lit review and after a cursory glance the literature makes sense when compared to the dissertation topic (its relevant and concise) we generally won't focus on it save for making sure that the candidate actually proves that he's read through and considered a few pieces of it. If the student did a broad lit review that creates questions when we think about relevance to the dissertation we'll ask about relevancy. If it becomes clear that the candidate hadn't asked the questions we're asking then we start asking more probing questions leading to general preparedness to undertake the dissertation. If this happens it's a 50/50 shot the proposal defense fails. Sometimes the candidate proves competency by elaborating on the literature in a way we hadn't considered.. other times not. So what I'd say is this. Make sure you know the key points of all of your literature and are ready to advise how the literature supports or creates a paradigm where your dissertation is feasible to pursue. Point 2 above: Committee dynamics is mentioned only because I've known two people who have gone through sciences dissertations knowing that two eminent people on their committee not only were diametrically opposed in what they believed the outcomes of the dissertations should be but how the experiments should be handled. They honestly didn't like each other and this personality conflict created a lot of stress for the candidate. Best, ITJD
Maybe it's just me, but I would tend to think the lit review would be the last thing to worry about at the defense stage. After all, that is work that has already been done by others. From the sound of it, you did a pretty comprehensive one. I'm sure you will do fine. Good luck!
