Dissertation and Thesis Formatting Guide

Previously called the Signature Page, this page contains the committee members’ names. The Supervising Professor (Chair) should appear first, followed by the Co-Chair (if applicable), then other committee members should be listed in alphabetical order by last name unless there is a reason to do otherwise. This page is unsigned in the electronic version of the thesis/dissertation.

The author of the thesis/dissertation automatically owns the copyright of their original work once it is “fixed” in some medium – written on paper, stored on a computer drive, etc. It is not required to place a copyright notice on page 2 of the thesis/dissertation, but it is highly recommended. If the notice is included, the student’s name must be identical to the name on file in the Registrar’s Office and as it appears on the first page, title page and the abstract. For further information about copyright protection, ownership and fair rights, visit the U.S. Copyright Office website.

The student’s name must appear here as it does on the first page, copyright page and on the abstract. The date on this page is the date of the conferral of the degree, not the date of the defense of the thesis/dissertation.

If the thesis or dissertation has a main title and a subtitle, put the main title on a single line, followed by a colon, and organize the subtitle in inverted pyramid form below the main title. If the main title is too long to fit on a single line, organize the main title in inverted pyramid form.

At the end of the acknowledgments page, leave two single line spaces below the last line of text and add the “Month Year” in which you defended your thesis or dissertation.

The abstract should be a concise statement of the nature and content of the thesis/dissertation, indicating its significance as a piece of research. It should be a continuous summary, not disconnected notes or an outline. Both doctoral dissertation and master’s thesis abstracts should not exceed 500 words. Even though ProQuest/UMI no longer has a word limit on abstracts, they will truncate any abstract over 500 words when they publish it in print indexes such as “Dissertation Abstracts International” and “Master’s Abstracts International”. The candidate must make certain that the name appearing on the abstract is the same as that on the first, copyright, and title pages. The title of the abstract must be the same as the title on the finished dissertation. The year on this page is the year of degree conferral.

The Table of Contents is required. The Table of Contents should accurately reflect the outline and organization of the manuscript. It should include the Acknowledgments, Abstract, List of Figures (if any), List of Tables (if any), List of Abbreviations (if any), chapter titles of the text (and any sections/subsections you choose to include), Appendices (if any), Bibliography/References, Biographical Sketch, and Curriculum Vitae (the Curriculum Vitae is listed in the Table of Contents but it is optional to include a page number).

Materials which are peripheral but relevant to the main text of the thesis/dissertation should be placed in appendices. Appendix material must meet the same requirements of margins and pagination as the text. Reduction of materials to meet margin requirements is acceptable only if the print remains clear and legible.

Reference guidelines and appropriate citation standards should reflect the author’s style guide choice and discipline. They must be detailed consistently throughout the document. The bibliography or list of references should indicate materials actually used (and the edition, if that used is not the first). Reference format should be consistent with discipline and publication standards and/or style guide choice.

A brief biographical sketch of the author should be included and written in third person. Information may include education and degrees awarded, publications, and any teaching, business, industry, or military experience. The Curriculum Vitae (CV) should be consistent with discipline standards. For examples and information, see Sample Pages (pdf).

Specific format requirements for videotapes, paintings, and so forth should be obtained from the Office of Graduate Education prior to the start of the creative project.

The dissertation/thesis represents an organized, cohesive document of original scholarly research. Content will always include a descriptive title and subtitles. It must also include an abstract, a full introduction delineating a research question, a comprehensive literature review, and a final overall discussion describing the results of the research and the contribution of the dissertation/thesis to the field.

As a representative document, the dissertation and thesis should be produced in a format with a consistent style and appearance. Consistency extends to pagination, font, table presentation, etc. Refer to selected style guide for recommendations.

The document should be written in Standard English and adhere to appropriate spelling, grammar and punctuation conventions.

Page size must be 8.5 x 11 inches (or 216 × 279 millimeters), also known as “letter” size in U.S. standards.

• All top margins- 1.25”
• All left margins- 1.25”
• All right margins- .75”
• All bottom margins- 1.25”

Margins must be consistent throughout the manuscript, including pages containing tables, figures, or other illustrative materials.

• 12-point font is standard and recommended for legibility
• Font size should remain consistent throughout. Within the document, keep all figure/table captions and chapter headings the same font size as the text
• Smaller font size may be appropriate for footnotes or other material outside of the main text

The document must be either double-spaced or spaced with 1.5 spaces, throughout. Exceptions to this include the following:

• The Acknowledgements, Abstract, and Biographical Sketch sections must be double-spaced
• References/Bibliography should be single spaced within each entry while maintaining a double-space between each entry—this convention also holds true for Table of Contents entries, List of Tables/Figures entries, and Table/Figure captions that are more than one line in length
• Quotations as paragraphs, captions, lists, graphs, charts, footnotes/endnotes, bibliographic entries, items within tables, and lists in appendices
• Lengthy tables may be single-spaced
• Irregular spacing may be used to accommodate poetry, creative writing or other forms of artistic expression

Avoid:

• Widows: a short line ending a paragraph at the top of a page
• Orphans: a heading or subheading at the bottom of a page that is not followed by text
• White space: When a figure or table won’t fit on a page and you move it to the top of the next page, sometimes blank space or “white space” is left on the first page. Please continue text from the second page to fill up the blank space on the first page.
• Conversion errors: If you are working in Microsoft Word, please make all edits in your Word file and convert the file to PDF once edits have been made. Our office cannot make changes to a document that has been converted from PDF to Word. All track changes must be turned off before converting to PDF.

A word of caution: DO NOT use another thesis/dissertation as a model for your work without also checking the current guides. Do not assume that because another thesis/dissertation was accepted with the same format, yours will be. A number of situations could arise: requirements or interpretations may have changed; an inexperienced checker may have let faulty formatting slip by, etc. When in doubt, check with the Office of Graduate Education. Theses/dissertations that differ significantly from the requirements outlined in these guidelines will not be accepted.

Tables and figures may be numbered in one of two ways: 1) consecutively throughout the document (e.g. Table 1 – Table 10), or 2) double-numbered so that the tables’ or figures’ numbers reflect their locations in the document (Figure 2.3 is the third figure in Chapter 2, or Figure A.2 is the second figure in Appendix A). For consistency, do not mix these two types of numbering schemes within your dissertation or thesis.

The caption must be placed above a table, but below a figure. A List of Figures and a List of Tables should be placed after the Table of Contents if there are 5 or more figures and/or tables in your dissertation/thesis. Also, figures/tables should appear within the text as close to the reference as possible. Note: Figures/tables should not be arranged using text- wrapping that positions text to the sides of the figure/table. Text should only appear above and below the figure/table.

There are a few different options on how to incorporate figures within the dissertation/thesis. Please do not list figures/tables at the end of a chapter. We ask that figures/tables either be integrated into the text, moved to an Appendix, or uploaded as Supplemental Files. Each option is explained below.

If the information is pertinent to the surrounding text, it may make sense to integrate the figures/tables into the text of the chapters. This is very common for smaller figures/tables, but can apply to larger figures/tables as well. If some of these figures/tables are more supplemental to the dissertation/thesis content, there are a few additional options. Figures/tables can be moved into Appendices after the final chapter of the dissertation/thesis, directly before the References. These sections have headings in the same format as the chapters, for example:

APPENDIX A

SUPPLEMENTAL FIGURES FOR CHAPTER 3

Alternatively, figures, tables or data sets that should be included with the dissertation/thesis material but don’t necessarily need to appear within the dissertation/thesis itself can be uploaded as Supplemental Files. These will be published with your dissertation/thesis online, but not as a section within the dissertation/thesis. Please note that Supplemental Files will appear within UTD’s digital repository, Treasures @ UT Dallas, but cannot be published to ProQuest UMI.

Chapter headings should be centered, bold, in all caps, and 1.25” from the top of the page. Note: Page 1 is the first time any text can appear in bold face type—do not bold text within the preliminary pages.

(line 1) CHAPTER X
(line 2- leave one single line space)
(line 3) CHAPTER TITLE
(line 4- leave one single line space)
(line 5- leave one single line space)
(line 6) Begin text on this line, against the left margin

Lowercase Roman numerals, centered .75” from the bottom of the page, should be used to number preliminary pages, beginning with the preface and/or acknowledgments (see template for examples). Arabic numerals, beginning with “1” are used to number all pages of the body of the dissertation/thesis. All page numbers should be centered, .75” from the bottom of the page.

At the discretion of the advisor and program, the graduate candidate has the option to include as part of the dissertation or thesis, the text of an original paper or papers that have been or will be submitted to journals in the field. The inclusion of manuscripts co-authored by the candidate is acceptable. Where the student is not the sole author of a manuscript, the introductory material to the chapter must explicitly describe the student’s contribution to the work and acknowledge the contributions of the other author(s) of the work.

Contents

• The manuscript thesis or dissertation must be more than a mere collection of manuscripts published or to be published. It must include a comprehensive abstract, a full introduction and literature review, and a final overall conclusion which interprets the results of the research and describes the contribution to the field.
• On the first page of the chapter based on a previous publication, a footnote must be included which acknowledges or gives credit to the previous publication. Also, use of a separate chapter title page, with authors and their affiliations listed, may be appropriate (see Sample Pages (pdf)).
• In addition, the styles used in manuscripts previously published or submitted for publication may follow the styles required by the journals. The pagination of the pages, however, must follow the guidelines for the traditional thesis/dissertation as outlined in this guide. The preliminary pages are the same as for the traditional thesis/dissertation.
• The figures/tables should appear within the text as close to the reference of the figure/table as possible. If it is absolutely necessary not to include figures/tables within the text, they should be grouped in an appendix.

References

References can either be listed chapter-by-chapter, or be presented in a single list at the end of the thesis/dissertation. If the chapter-by-chapter approach is used, each chapter, including chapters that are not manuscripts (such as the introduction and concluding chapters), requires a list of references.

Each separate chapter may be set up with the following elements:

• Title page
• List of Tables (if any)
• List of Figures (if any)
• Sections within each chapter may include:
  1. Acknowledgments (may be included with chapters or at the beginning of the
     entire paper)
  2. Abstract
  3. Introduction
  4. Materials and Methods
  5. Results
  6. Discussion
  7. References

Use of Previously Published Papers within a Dissertation/Thesis

Because many papers will have already been published by the time final dissertations are submitted, the candidate should be careful to refer to the Submission Guide (“Use of Copyrighted Material”).