Dissertation Formatting Requirements
The Graduate School sets the minimum formatting standards for the PhD dissertation to ensure uniformity, legibility, and to comply with ProQuest and University Library requirements for publishing/archiving. These guidelines do not address all facets of formatting and style. Students should consult with their adviser, committee, and academic program’s choice of style manual for formatting questions outside what is described below.
A sample template providing examples of what is outlined below can downloaded as either a PDF or Word document.
Arrangement of Pages
Dissertations must be arranged in the following order. Items in italics are optional.
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Abstract
- Acknowledgment page
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations (required in dissertations with significant use of abbreviations)
- Glossary
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- List of Tables, Illustrations, Figures, or Graphs
- Introduction
- Text body
- Tables, Illustrations, Figures, Graphs (if not incorporated into body of text)
- References
- Appendices
- Vita (optional, but recommended)
Page Size
- The page size should be 8.5" x 11”, standard US Letter size (not A4).
Margins
- Margins must be 1” on all sides with the exception of page numbers, figures, headers/footers, footnotes/endnotes, and full-page images, which may be ¾" from edge of page.
Spacing
- The abstract, dedication, acknowledgements, table of contents, and body of the manuscript should be double spaced.
- Quotations as paragraphs, captions, items in tables, lists, graphs, charts, footnotes/endnotes, bibliographic entries, and lists in appendices may be single spaced.
Fonts
- Any legible font is permitted except script or ornamental fonts.
- Fonts must be embedded.
- Font size should be equivalent in scale to 10pt Arial or 12pt Times New Roman.
Pagination
- Every page in a dissertation is numbered, except the title page.
- Page numbering will begin on the second page with Arabic numeral 2.
- Page number should appear in upper right corner of page at least ¾” from both the top and right edges of the page.
- Page numbering for landscape-oriented pages can be set in one of the two following manners:
- For best screen readability: page numbers should appear in the upper right corner when the page is viewed on a screen. This is usually what word processing software does by default when pages are changed to landscape layout within a document. Note that page numbers with this layout may end up being obscured in bound copies of the dissertation.
- For best on-paper readability (for printed/bound copies): page numbers should appear in the correct position when the page is printed and bound, i.e., as if the page were actually portrait-oriented. A landscape page tutorial appears in the formatting template.
Language
- If the primary language of the dissertation is not English, a 10-20 page summary of the dissertation in English must be included as an appendix.
- The abstract of a foreign language dissertation must be in English.
Title Page
- Layout: The title page should conform to this sample.
- Dissertation Title
- The title of the dissertation should be in mixed case; the first and last words and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs are capitalized. Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor), and prepositions, regardless of length, are lowercased unless they are the first or last word of the title or subtitle.
- Special characters cannot be used in titles. Use word substitutes in place of formulas, symbols, superscripts, or Greek letters.
- See Dissertation Title Best Practices
- Program name: Should be the name of the students’ academic program as listed here.
- Date: The date should be the month and year in which the degree will be officially conferred (December 20XX for Fall graduates, March 20XX for Winter graduates, June 20XX for Spring graduates, September 20XX for Summer graduates).
Copyright (optional)
- If the choice is made to register copyright in the manuscript, a copyright notice should be included on its own page immediately after the title page.
- Additional information about dissertation copyright can be found on the University Library Copyright Basics website as well as on ProQuest’s resources and guidelines website.
Abstract
- A double-spaced abstract is required and should immediately follow the title page (or the copyright page, if one is included).
- There is no word limit.
- The abstract of a foreign language dissertation must be in English.
- Mathematical formulas, photographs, diagrams, and other illustrative materials should not be included in the abstract.
Lists of Tables, Illustrations, Figures, or Graphs
- Lists should reproduce the specific titles and page locations of illustrative materials.
- If not incorporated into the main body of the text, these items should immediately follow the text, not at the end of chapters.
References
- Each dissertation must include references to document the text.
- References may be included at the bottom of the page or at the end of the text, but cannot be placed at the end of each chapter.
- The format for references should conform to the guidelines in an approved style manual. References may be single-spaced.
Supplementary Materials (optional)
- If supplementary materials—such as audio, video, data sets and spreadsheets—are part of the dissertation or thesis, they can be submitted as supplementary files during the online submission process.
Use of Copyrighted Material
- Information about including previously published materials can be found in the ProQuest Copyright Guide.
- In many cases it is fine to include sections of previously published (or in-press/forthcoming) papers in the dissertation, but students should (1) obtain written permission from co-authors in order to quote extensively and/or reproduce tables, figures, etc. and (2) seek or verify permission from the original publisher of the paper to ensure it is permitted.
- It is recommended that a line be included in those chapters such as, “Printed with permission of [co-author] and [original publisher].”