Guidelines for the manuscript conference
At the dissertation manuscript conference, a more or less final thesis manuscript is discussed. If it is a monograph thesis, all chapters should be included and be sufficiently complete to give a clear idea of what the final product will look like. A compilation thesis should contain all articles (even if they have not yet been accepted for publication) and an introductory essay (”kappa”).
The main supervisor, after consultation with the assistant supervisor and the PhD candidate, invites 4-6 people to attend a half-day long seminar on the dissertation draft. The participants should primarily come from the department, but one participant could also come from another department (or discipline). One or two of the participants should be PhD candidates from the department. If someone who was not invited still wants to participate, this person should be welcomed, upon approval by the supervisor, and provided he or she has read the manuscript in advance.
As a rule the participants should be expected to have read the draft in its entirety, but it is also possible to ask different participants to concentrate on different parts or aspects of the text.
The tone of discussion should be informal in order to give the PhD candidate the best feedback possible. This also implies that a reasonable amount of time should be reserved between the draft seminar and the dissertation defense, so that necessary improvements and changes can actually be carried out.
The department pays for up to 6 “lecturing hours” (lektorstimmar) to compensate the participants. This means that the supervisor has to keep an eye on compensation when inviting participants. As a rule, PhD students are compensated with 1 lt, as are other participants from the department, with the exception of the green readers and professors. If external expertise is deemed necessary, an external participant can be compensated with a maximum of SEK 3000 (as part of the 6 available lecturing hours). Ideally, the external participant should participate through zoom to avoid travel and hotel costs. The seminar is to be held in Eden and the department pays for coffee and sandwiches/cookies that can be ordered through Helen Fogelin. Due to representation rules, it is not possible for the manuscript conference proceedings to include lunch before or after the seminar.
After the seminar, the supervisors and the PhD candidate meet for a brief discussion regarding the input on the thesis manuscript and what changes that are most important to undertake before the “green light” process. Two of the participants at the manuscript conference should act as green readers. The prospective discussant at the dissertation defense or any of the prospective external members of the grading committee (“betygsnämnden”) may not take part in the manuscript conference.