Steve Tippins warns against padding comp exam answers with excessive citations and unrelated material. He recalls facing an unexpected oral component and shares how he now helps others prepare for comps through his dissertation help group.
Now, one of the things I did that I was told, and that's a common mistake people make, is not only did I answer the questions, I wanted to show them how much I knew. So I added all kinds of citations and other material that most likely didn't answer the questions. So I almost did like a dump of everything that I think I knew so that I could show them I know a whole bunch of stuff. Let me go forward. Maybe you just want to concentrate on answering the questions. To follow on that, I also had an oral component to my comprehensive exams. Interestingly, nobody in my college had had an oral in years. And since I was the first, so they wanted to be very technically on the doing everything properly, they said, "We have to give him an oral." So I couldn't go ask people what to expect in an oral. I've also worked with a number of people to prepare for their comprehensive exams. If you're interested, become a member of our dissertation help group.
