Steve Tippins Ph.D.Helping doctoral students get their dissertation accepted, succeed in their careers, & change the world | Academic Career Advisor | Dissertation Chair & Founder, Beyond PhD Coaching | 35 + years of experience.

How to Find Your University Outline

29 Jan 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:54

In this brief segment, the speaker explains practical ways to locate a university’s dissertation rubric when it isn’t directly provided. The primary recommendations are to ask the department chair for any existing guidelines and to search the university library for recent dissertations that the chair has supervised, using those approved documents as a proxy for the required chapter structure. The speaker then promotes a Free Dissertation Help Community, offering a Five‑Step Dissertation Acceptance Framework, mentorship from veteran committee members, community access, and a complimentary one‑on‑one call to accelerate dissertation completion.

Chapters

And if your school does not provide a rubric, and most do, but there are some that don't, one of the best ways to find out, you can ask your chair if they have anything. But you can also go to your library and look at a recent dissertation that your chair has chaired or at least been involved in, and find out what they have approved. And that's going to give you oh, in chapter one, they want this, this, and this. And in chapter two, they've accepted these things. So it can be a proxy for a university outline. If you want help with your dissertation outline, join our Free Dissertation Help Community. You'll get our five Step Dissertation Acceptance Framework, real support from veteran dissertation committee members, access to our free community, and a free one on one call to help you finish faster. I'll see you inside.