Draft Reviews

The draft review service will resume when the Winter Quarter begins.

A draft review is helpful but not comprehensive; we do not edit dissertations. Our goal is to be sure you are on the right track with the formatting and submission process. We want to help you understand the basic requirements so that you can check your final PDF yourself and graduate as planned. It is your responsibility to follow the requirements consistently in your final dissertation.

• We review drafts during the first few weeks of each quarter, not later in the quarter and only sometimes during the interim between quarters.
• If you plan to submit your dissertation early, you may want to request a draft review at the beginning of the quarter before you plan to graduate, even if your draft is incomplete.
• We are happy to respond to your questions at any time, but we do not review late drafts.
• The turn-around time for a draft review is usually within two weeks.
• We review drafts in the order that reviews are requested via the Ask the Dissertation Office form per Step 4 below.

Follow these steps to ask us to review a draft of your dissertation.

1. Format your dissertation draft according to the formatting guidelines.
2. Upload your draft in PDF format to UChicago Box and share the draft with a staff member who will be determined at a later date.
3. Ask for a draft review via the Ask the Dissertation Office form. We will use the email address you provide on the form to get back to you.
4. We will respond shortly after we receive your draft review request, usually within 1 business day. Let us know right away if you do not receive our initial response acknowledging your request. You should keep an eye on your junk mail in case our messages are filtered out as spam.
5. We will send comments on your draft within a week or two.