Early stage assessment

ESA requirements are:

• Timely submission of a written report
• Undertaking an oral assessment prior to the 12-month deadline.  
• You must achieve two Graduate School credits by the Early Stage Assessment (ESA)
• Plagiarism online course

Your report should be no more than 20 pages in length and no more than 9,000 words including captions, appendices and references. An excellent report may be shorter than these guidelines.

Reports should demonstrate an appropriate quality of written English and formatting. Get feedback on your writing style from a colleague or friend. Anyone can give constructive feedback on writing, so impose on friends, family and office-mates to look at your report with a critical eye. Ensure that you allow sufficient time to send a draft of the report to your supervisor(s), so that you can get critical feedback from them as well.

A typical structure of the report is the following, unless your supervisor asks to use another one:

• Title page
• Abstract
• Background/literature review
• Research strategies/methods
• Progress to date
• Plan to completion (Gantt chart)
• References

When writing your report, please ensure you are familiar with the College policy on plagiarism.  Students who started their postgraduate research degree on or after the 28 September 2019 will need to follow the College’s policy on using Turnitin as part of the Early Stage Assessment.

You should discuss the submission deadline with your supervisor and ensure that you send a draft report to them to get feedback well in advance of the deadline.  Extensions will not be given to accommodate those whose supervisor or assessor is on leave from the College or otherwise unavailable.

Your report will be examined by an independent assessor who will be an academic member of staff. The assessor will be selected by your supervisor. You are encouraged to get feedback on your report from your supervisor at an early stage in the writing process.

There are four possible outcomes of the ESA:

1. Pass (continuation of PhD registration)
2. Resubmission/re-assessment within 3 months
3. Transfer registration to MPhil status
4. Failure (withdrawal from College)

If a student is asked to resubmit, this must be done within three months at the most. Failure to meet this deadline will result in automatic transfer to MPhil status. Only one resubmission will be allowed. Resubmitting students will be provided with a clear written statement on which areas of the report were below standard and why.

In the event of failure, the student may be required to withdraw from College or transfer to MPhil status, in which case they will be given guidance on how to write up for MPhil within a 24-month deadline. Failure decisions will require consultation with the supervisor and Director of Postgraduate Studies.

Students who are required to take an English test at ESA should do this as close to the date of the ESA as possible (before the ESA seminar if possible). 

Progression will not be confirmed until the results of the English test have been received. 

Please contact the Centre for Academic English (english@imperial.ac.uk) to check the date of their next test at ESA.

You must fulfil the Graduate School Professional Skills Development and Online Plagiarism Awareness course requirements before the Early Stage Assessment. Failure to do so may result in transferring your status from PhD to MPhil.