Skip to main content

Thesis and Dissertation Formatting Requirements

Order and Content

Front Matter

Title page – The format must be followed exactly. Use upper case letters as shown in the Title Page example (located on the Thesis and Dissertation web page under Standards and Guidelines). The month and year must be the actual month and year in which you officially graduate.

Copyright or Creative Commons Notice Page – year is the graduation year – Centered at the bottom of the page as follows.
For copyright page:
© 2018
Stacy Smith
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
For Creative Commons page: (Please include the correct Creative Commons logo that corresponds with the attribution selected on the
Creative Commons Website: Creative Commons.com)
Stacy Smith
SOME RIGHTS RESERVED
This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial
4.0 International License.

Electronic Approval Page – Format must follow the format exactly as shown in the Electronic Approval Page Example (located on the Graduate College Forms Page).

  • Dedication
  • Acknowledgments
  • Abstract
  • Table of Contents
  • List of Tables (Required if you have tables)
  • List of Figures (Required if you have figures)
  • List of Maps (Required if you have maps)
  • List of Abbreviations
  • List of Symbols (Optional)
  • Text – Main body of document with divisions indicated by appropriate headings and sub-headings
  • References

Appendix or Appendices

Pagination

Except for the title, Copyright/Creative Commons, and Electronic Approval pages, each page of the document must be assigned a number. The
font and size of the pagination must match the text font and size in the document.
1. For front matter pages use small Roman numerals (iv, v, vi, etc.) that are centered on the bottom of the page. Front matter page numbers will
start with the dedication page, which will be numbered iv.
2. For the remainder of the document use Arabic numbers (1,2,3, etc.) that appear in the top right hand corner. The beginning of the main text of the document will start with number 1.

Font

Must be a serif font and 12 pt. size (Times New Roman is preferred)

Margins

All document text and elements must adhere to the following margin requirements for binding and publication purposes:
1. For Portrait pages:
a) Inside margin must be 1.5 inches
b) Right and bottom margins must be 1 inch
c) Top margin must be 1 inch unless it precedes a major heading (all Heading1s) in which case it will be 2 inches
2. For Landscape oriented pages:
a) Top Margin must be 1.5 inches
b) Left, right, and bottom must be 1 inch

Paragraph, Spacing, and Text Alignment

The document text and spaces between paragraphs must be double spaced. Indent the first line of each paragraph. Block quotes
may be double or single spaced depending upon choice of writing style. Ensure text is normal style and left aligned or justified depending upon the field. Ensure that only one space follows all periods.

Headings

The appropriate headings must be consistent with the following:
1. Heading 1 – Centered, all caps, appearing 2 inches from top and beginning on new page
2. Heading 2 – Centered, bold and title cased (Title case means that the first letter of each word is capitalized, except for certain small words, such
as articles and short prepositions.)
3. Heading 3 – Left aligned, title cased and underlined
4. Heading 4 – Underlined, title cased and indented once

Captions

Captions are required for all figures and tables. Figure captions appear below the figure and formatted in figure caption style and table captions appear above the tables and formatted in table caption style.