Thesis and Dissertation Guide

Introduction

Please read this Thesis and Dissertation Guide (Guide) carefully before preparing your thesis or dissertation. Staff members in the Admissions and Enrolled Students area of The Graduate School are available to assist you in preparing and submitting your thesis or dissertation. You are encouraged to visit the Admissions and Enrolled Students Contacts website and contact Graduate School staff if you have questions about these guidelines.

This Guide is not meant to be an exhaustive manual. For specific questions of style, consult the most recent edition of the style manual used in your disciplinary field (e.g., Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations; The MLA Style Manual; or the American Psychological Association (APA) Style Manual). When using a style manual, follow the specifications for published documents, but do not include typesetting notations often used when submitting manuscripts to a publisher. For assistance with style manuals, consult the following library resource site, or visit a campus library or the Writing Center.

For assistance formatting your document in Microsoft Word, visit the Microsoft Office support site and search online for various elements, such as customized table of contents, section breaks, and footnotes. For assistance formatting your document in LaTeX, you may want to visit this LaTeX resource site, or review this tutorial guide for text formattingpdf icon. There may also be formatting workshops offered through The Graduate School's Professional Development program and recordings of the formatting workshops for both Mac and PC users are available to view at any time. Please note that The Graduate School does not offer technical support for Microsoft Word, LaTeX, or other word processing programs that students may use. It is each student's responsibility to ensure that their document is formatted appropriately according to the requirements set forth in this Guide.

Pay careful attention to spelling, punctuation, and grammar in your thesis or dissertation, as your work will be available for others to access online. The Graduate School will not review your thesis or dissertation for proofreading and editing purposes. The Graduate School will check your thesis or dissertation for proper formatting only.

Please note that the work in your thesis or dissertation must be your own. Consult the Honor Code or the Graduate School Handbook if you have questions about plagiarism. See Section IV of this Guide for information on Copyright.

If there is a discrepancy in formatting between a style manual and this Guide, the regulations set forth in this Guide take precedence. Please do not use another thesis or dissertation as a model for your work since a particular style or example in a previous year may not meet current guidelines. Also, certain commonly used software packages may require format modifications in order to comply with current guidelines. It is your responsibility to ensure that your thesis or dissertation is formatted correctly before you submit it to The Graduate School.