Technical Reading Process and Requirements:
Graduate Action Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations are submitted to the Technical Reader Coordinator for technical reading after the first and second academic readers have indicated their approval of the document by signing the Certification Page. The Certification Page must be submitted with the document for technical reading.
DEADLINE: There is a necessary deadline for the submission of the final, signed thesis in order to permit all processes to take place preceding graduation. The student must allow no less than ELEVEN (11) weeks from initial submission to complete the entire technical reading process (including library processing). This means the initial submission to the technical reader should be made at least eleven weeks prior to the anticipated graduation date.
The Technical Reader Coordinator will assign the final document draft to the technical readers.
The Technical Reader: The technical reader will review the document for grammatical, format, and style quality, note his/her corrections on the manuscript and return to the Technical Reader Coordinator. The document should be as error-free as possible before submission to the technical reader.
Completion of Submission Process: All steps of the submission process remain the student's responsibility even if the student leaves the Wheaton area.
Cost of Technical Reading: The Technical Reader Coordinator’s office assumes financial responsibility for the technical reading process up to and including ten (10) hours for MAT Action Research Papers, fifteen (15) hours for all M.A. Theses, and thirty (30) hours for all Doctoral dissertations and Doctoral projects. Hours required over and above this amount of time may be charged to the student at the rate of $18.50 per hour. Presenting a manuscript which has been carefully checked for the above mentioned technical qualities will make it possible for the student's work to be processed within the hours allowed.
Final Corrections and Submission: The student will be notified when the technical reader has returned the paper to the Technical Reader Coordinator via email.
When the corrections have been made, the student will submit a clean (no tracked changes) Word document to the Technical Reader Coordinator by uploading it to the Technical Reading Edits Submission Form. It will be returned to the technical reader to review the corrections that have been made. This process will be repeated until the technical reader determines the document is technically correct. When the document is technically correct, the Technical Reader Coordinator will email the Wheaton College Library, stating that the student has completed the technical reading process.
The document is now ready to be submitted to the Library. Complete instructions for the Wheaton College Library submission process can be found here. The student will send the final manuscript as a PDF for review by the Library according to the Library's instructions. When the Library approves the PDF, the student may make any personal copies the student wishes to have bound and provide them to the Library.
After the Wheaton College Library’s requirements are met, the Library will email both the Registrar's office and the Technical Reader Coordinator indicating that final obligations have been met. The Registrar will note the records to this effect for purposes of graduation eligibility and transcript release. Entering a course grade for the manuscript is the responsibility of the academic first reader. It should be done after final approval of the completed final draft. If not done, the Registrar's office will request same from the department. Those grades received before Library requirements are met will be held by the Registrar until all final steps as outlined have been completed.