The Doctoral Triage & Defense Directory
Independent diagnostic tools, checklists, and reference pages.
For doctoral candidates, writing-centre staff, and graduate-student advocates facing probation, a detector score, or a committee that will not settle.
Back to What Help Do You Need?
One of eight pages on when things go wrong. Browse all 68.
Related links
Probation, dismissal, and committee impasse are often described as "academic judgment." That phrase can hide contradictory instructions, a moving target, or a detector score that does not mean what it appears to mean.
This directory points to the public pages on this site that reconstruct a paper trail, test a detector accusation, check a bibliography, or give a Chair something they can actually forward. Nothing here is behind a form, and nothing requires an email address.
How to use this directory
Find the situation that matches, then open the page. Each row is a public page on this site — not a form, not a download wall, and not legal advice.
The directory
| Crisis or grievance | What is needed | The page | Open it |
|---|---|---|---|
| The "academic judgment" shield — probation or dismissal without actionable directives | A paper trail that shows what was asked and what changed | Panic — reconstructing a baseline and the next concrete step | Panic |
| An AI-detector accusation — a Turnitin or GPTZero score treated as proof | What a score actually means, and the process around it | Detector page, and the Chair-facing brief | AI detection and Chairs and AI |
| Empirical drift from AI copyediting | A pre-submission check against documented failures | The twelve textual failure modes | Ghost in the Machine |
| The 45-minute appointment trap — an 80-page unaligned draft | A rapid filter that separates prose from structure | The 63-question diagnostic | What help do you need? |
| Predatory commercial packages | A clear line between coaching and ghostwriting | Coaching versus editing | Editor, coach, or sherpa? |
| Citation contamination — phantom sources or a hijacked journal | A manual check that does not need paid software | Bibliography purge and journal check | Citation purge and Journal check |
| Vague feedback — "needs more depth" that produces summary padding | Definitions a Chair can forward | Chair snippets, and the clarity tests | A reference for Chairs and Clarity |
Independence and integrity
One of eight pages on when things go wrong. Browse all 68.
