All graduate students completing a thesis or dissertation at the University of Illinois must deposit in the Graduate College Thesis Office. The Thesis Office assures the quality standards established by the Graduate College Executive Committee. In general, manuscripts for doctoral degrees are called dissertations and those for master’s degrees are called theses. For the purposes of this handbook, the term thesis will be used for both.
This guide contains requirements for theses deposited in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is current as of September 2007. Individual graduate programs or departments may have additional requirements. Please consult with your program regarding any departmental requirements. Material relevant to thesis deposit and degree conferral that is referred to in this guide is provided for informational purposes only and is subject to change. For the most up-to-date information, please consult the Web sites and contacts provided throughout the handbook.
The Thesis Office is open from 1:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. every day University offices are open, which includes summer, spring break, and winter break. The Thesis Office does not currently schedule appointments; rather students are seen on a first-come/first-served basis. Prior to deadlines, the Thesis Office generally expands its regular office hours to accommodate the higher volume of deposits. Information about extended hours and printable versions of required forms are posted on the Thesis Office Web site. Some forms are also available in the hall racks outside the Thesis Office.
204 Coble Hall
801 S. Wright Street, MC-322
Champaign, Illinois 61820
Web site:
www.grad.uiuc.edu/thesis/
Phone: (217) 333-6278
Fax: (217) 333-8019
E-mail: thesis@uiuc.edu
In order to graduate, a student must meet (1) the deadline to apply for graduation for the desired degree period, (2) the deadline for taking the final examination or oral defense (usually this applies only to doctoral candidates), and (3) the deadline for depositing the thesis. Deadlines are set each term and are posted at www.grad.uiuc.edu/thesis/deadlines.htm.
For policies regarding degree requirements and final examination committees, please see the Graduate College Handbook at www.grad.uiuc.edu/gradhandbook/.
Students are required to submit the thesis within 1 year of the final examination date. If more than 1 year has elapsed between the date of the final examination and the date of deposit, the student must submit a letter issued by the advising department, and signed by the department chair, indicating that the document being deposited is essentially the same as the work previously defended. The letter must be submitted with deposit materials.
Doctoral candidates who will be using any course work that is more than 7 years old at the time of the degree conferral (i.e., October, December and May) they select, and master's degree candidates who will be using any course work that is more than 5 years old at the time of the degree conferral (i.e., August, October, December and May) they select, must petition the Graduate College asking that the course work be accepted for the degree. The petition must include an explanation from the department regarding how the student's knowledge in the field meets current standards. This justification is needed for degree certification and is required when the student is placed on the degree list. As an example, a master’s student planning to graduate in October 2007 would have to petition to apply coursework taken in the Fall 2002 or earlier semesters. (Please note that this date refers to the date of graduation/conferral not the date of defense.)
Students who will have passed their Expected Graduation Date (EGD) before their degree is conferred, will need to petition for a time extension in order to deposit their thesis. Normally master’s students have 5 years from their first enrollment in the Graduate College. Doctoral students have 6 or 7 years depending upon their previous earned degrees. For more information, see Section C, “Time Limits,” in the chapter for your respective degree in the Graduate College Handbook (Chapter V, “Requirements for the Master’s Degree,” or Chapter VI, “Requirements for the Doctoral Degree”). If you do not know your EGD, your department can tell you.
Information on the graduate student petition process can be found at www.grad.uiuc.edu/admissions/petition_instruct.cfm.
There are several campus resources available to students as they are writing their theses and preparing to begin the deposit process.
The Writers’ Workshop is part of the Center for Writing Studies. Students are encouraged to contact The Writers’ Workshop for help expressing their ideas through writing. Consultants offer free writing assistance to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign students from all disciplines and are willing to help students through all stages of the writing process. For more information or to schedule an appointment with a consultant from The Writers’ Workshop, call 217-333-8796 or visit www.english.uiuc.edu/cws/wworkshop/index.htm.
The Dissertation Writing Workshop, facilitated by Greg Lambeth, PhD, from the campus Counseling Center, focuses on some of the difficulties typically encountered by doctoral students writing the dissertation and proposes time management and organizational strategies to solve these problems. Participants evaluate how a variety of issues, including procrastination, perfectionism, adviser conflicts and academic and personal challenges and responsibilities, affect the dissertation and propose specific solutions. There will also be a series of exercises that allow participants to analyze their goals and priorities related to the dissertation, formulate a time management plan and construct a method of monitoring future progress. The primary goal is to help participants identify the obstacles to progress on their dissertation projects and develop realistic, pragmatic solutions. This workshop is usually offered twice a year. Visit www.grad.uiuc.edu/mastercalendar for upcoming dates or call the Graduate College at 333-4610. Advance registration is required.
To help familiarize students with the deposit process and requirements and answer students’ questions, the Thesis Office offers workshops during each deposit period. These workshops cover procedures, deadlines, required deposit materials, and basic formatting rules. While all graduate students currently working on theses are welcome to attend, each workshop is geared primarily toward students who are preparing to deposit during that particular period. Details about thesis deposit workshops, including dates offered, are posted on the Web at www.grad.uiuc.edu/mastercalendar.htm. No registration is required.
Many students, particularly doctoral students, have already moved away from the Champaign-Urbana area prior to deposit. In such cases, the Thesis Office recommends that a friend or faculty member on campus assist with the thesis review and deposit process on behalf of the student. Because this is not always feasible, the Thesis Office also accepts deposits by mail in certain circumstances. Students must contact the Thesis Office at least 6 weeks before the intended deposit date in order to receive permission to deposit by mail, and must explain the reason for needing to deposit by mail. Each case is reviewed independently. The long-distance review and deposit process takes more time and coordination; therefore students will be assigned individualized deadlines and will be expected to submit all materials for deposit 1 to 2 weeks prior to the regular deposit deadline. Please contact the Thesis Office at thesis@uiuc.edu for more information about these options.
If you have a question that is not addressed in this handbook or need additional information, please contact the Thesis Office. Because formatting rules occasionally change and special exceptions are sometimes made on a case-by-case basis, it is important that you do not copy formatting from a previously deposited thesis.
This chapter provides a detailed outline of the eight steps necessary to deposit a thesis and graduate successfully. Please print out the appropriate checklist in appendix A as you read through this chapter. The checklist will help ensure that you do not overlook a step.
The Graduate College does not require students to be registered at the time of deposit. However, all doctoral candidates must be registered for the entire semester or term during which they take the final examination. For this purpose only, "term" is defined as extending through the day prior to the first day of the following term. If enough thesis credits have been accumulated, registration for 0 hours is acceptable. There is one exception to the registration requirement. A student who was registered during summer session need not register for the fall semester if the final examination occurs on or before the final October examination deadline for the doctoral degree students. This date is published at www.grad.uiuc.edu/thesis/deadlines.htm. This exception provides a grace period at the beginning of the fall semester for students who are unable to assemble their dissertation committees over the summer. For example, in Fall 2007, a doctoral student who wants to defend but does not want to register for the fall term must: (a) have been registered for Summer 2007 and (b) successfully defend by September 14, 2007, the deadline for holding the final examination for October 2007 graduation.
The date of degree conferral is determined by the date of deposit. For example, suppose an anthropology student who was registered during Summer 2007 takes the final examination on September 14, 2007 (the defense deadline for an October 2007 degree) and deposits the thesis on November 7, 2007 (after the deposit deadline for an October degree and before the deadline for a December degree). That student does not need to register for the fall semester, and would be eligible for the December 2007 degree list.
The University of Illinois confers graduate degrees four times each year: August, October, December, and May. Only master’s students are eligible for August graduation. All graduate students must apply for graduation prior to the deadline. Deadlines for each term are posted at www.grad.uiuc.edu/thesis/deadlines.htm. If you apply for graduation and then do not deposit in time to graduate during that term, your name is removed from the Pending Degree List and is not automatically added to the next degree list. You must reapply for graduation.
The Main Menu page of UI-Integrate Self-Service displays three menu options. Students can use one of these, “Graduation Information,” to add themselves to the Pending Degree List for the next degree conferral. This online option is only available for students until the 10th day of classes. After that, students may apply for graduation by submitting an official Application for Degree form to their department office. This form is available online at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/Application_for_Degree.pdf or in paper at the Thesis Office.
The Thesis Office requires that you format your title page according to the guidelines defined in this handbook. See chapter III and appendix B for more details.
It is essential to ensure that your name, previous degree(s), and degree and department information, printed on your title page, on your Departmental Format Approval form, and on your Certificate of Committee Approval form, correspond exactly with University records. Therefore, it is best to have a title page check early in order to allow time for making any necessary changes. You should ask your department to check to see how your name is written in the Person block of the SPAIDEN form in Banner, before you submit any paperwork for deposit or obtain signatures on any forms. If you need to make corrections or wish to change the way your name appears, consult the Name Change Procedure located at www.grad.uiuc.edu/pubs/contacts/05c.cfm. You may be asked to provide official documentation to the Office of Admissions and Records (OAR) to clarify any discrepancies. You will not be permitted to deposit until your name corresponds with University records and is used consistently in all deposit materials.
All students depositing theses or dissertations must follow the Graduate College guidelines for thesis format as defined in this handbook. Some departments, however, have additional format requirements. To ensure that any departmental requirements have been met, a departmental format review must take place before the Graduate College format review.
After your thesis has been approved by your adviser and you believe it is formatted correctly, take a complete copy to the designated thesis reviewer in your department. If you do not know who this is, check with your department or contact the Thesis Office. Many departments have deadlines each semester for the departmental format review. The departmental reviewer will provide you with a signed Departmental Format Approval form (available at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/DeptFormAppr.pdf), which you will need to bring to the Graduate College. The Thesis Office will not begin the format review of your thesis without the original of this signed form.
After finishing the departmental format review and making any required format changes, bring a complete copy of your thesis and your signed Departmental Format Approval form to the Thesis Office. Sign in at the Graduate College reception desk; students are seen in the order of arrival. Thesis Office staff will review your thesis with you and will note any format changes required for deposit. You will receive a list of required changes on a lavender form called the Master’s/Doctoral Thesis Format Review Form. Keep this form: it is necessary for any additional reviews in the Thesis Office and for the final deposit. Failure to provide this form will require a new review by the Thesis Office and could potentially delay your deposit.
Deposit your thesis at the Thesis Office during regular office hours prior to the deposit deadline. There are no exceptions to deposit deadlines.
Diplomas are mailed to your “Diploma Address” (as it appears in UI-Integrate Self-Service) eight or more weeks after the degree conferral. You must go to the following link to enter or update your “Diploma Address”: https://apps.uillinois.edu/selfservice/ , before leaving campus to ensure delivery of your diploma to the correct location.
Students holding fellowships must notify the Graduate College Fellowship Office in advance of thesis deposit, as it may result in a change in the terms of an award, including termination. Please visit the Fellowship Office (209 Coble Hall) during one of your deposit visits or contact them at (217) 333-0036 or gradfellowships@uiuc.edu.
Often an employer requires confirmation that a student has completed all degree requirements for graduation. After you have deposited your thesis, you may request a certification of degree letter from the University if you need it for employment or visa purposes. To do this, download the “Request for Certification of Degree Letter,” which can be found at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/Cert_of_Deg.pdf. Fill out the form, and the Thesis Office will verify on it that the thesis has been deposited. Then you must take the form to your department for approval that you have met all departmental requirements for graduation.
After your department has confirmed that you have met all degree requirements, the department must send the form to the Office of Admissions and Records (OAR) for processing. Students will not be allowed to deliver the form after the department has verified that requirements have been met. Once OAR receives the request, the letter will be mailed as soon as it can be done, usually within 1 to 2 weeks. If you need it quickly, you may take the form to your department and request they expedite it by immediately completing their part of the form and faxing it to OAR with a note that pick-up is desired and the pick-up box checked. You will be notified by OAR when your letter is ready to be picked up. Letters will not be issued until OAR can confirm that all requirements have been met.
Each term there is a deadline to request the certification of degree letter that corresponds to the date on which degrees will be posted to the transcripts. Students who miss the deadline but cannot wait to receive the diploma in the mail can request a transcript when their degree is posted. To do this, visit www.oar.uiuc.edu/current/transcripts/index.html and follow the instructions. Check the box that says “HOLD FOR DEGREE” in order to receive your transcript as soon as your degree is posted. You must pay for each transcript copy.
Campuswide commencement ceremonies are held each May for all degrees conferred since the previous May. Students are eligible to participate in commencement if they have graduated since last May or will finish their degree requirements this May. If you are planning a May deposit and want to be listed in the campuswide commencement program, you must apply for the degree before the deadline, usually April 1. The exact deadline to apply for the 2008 program will be noted in the graduation materials you receive from the Chancellor’s Office.
If you are a master’s student and have 8 or fewer credit hours remaining and expect to complete your master’s degree requirements in August, you may participate in commencement; however, your name will not appear in the campuswide commencement program. In this situation, check with your department for more details about attending graduation.
Doctoral students must have deposited their dissertations in the Thesis Office by the May deposit deadline in order to participate in the campuswide commencement ceremony, and they must register and obtain tickets in advance. See www.grad.uiuc.edu for details during the spring semester.
Departments and colleges hold separate ceremonies and have separate guidelines for participation. For more information about the campuswide ceremonies and convocations sponsored by colleges, schools, or departments, contact the Commencement Office at (217) 333-8834 or visit the Web at www.uiuc.edu/commencement/.
The two copies of your thesis that you deposit in the Thesis Office will become the property of the University of Illinois Library. If you wish to have copies of your thesis bound for yourself, your family, or your adviser, you will need to procure them independently. Three options are:
The format guidelines established by the Graduate College help guarantee a University-wide standard. Each thesis deposited in the Thesis Office is bound and made publicly available through the University Library. Format guidelines ensure the quality and legibility of available copies and subsequent reproductions of a thesis.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign grants graduate degrees in over 100 units. Due to the diversity among programs and disciplines, documentation and format styles vary widely. The Thesis Office does not mandate a single documentation style for all theses at the University of Illinois; rather it recommends using the documentation style preferred within a student’s discipline.
Many students use the Chicago, MLA, APA, or Turabian style manuals. Students in the sciences and engineering often use LaTeX style files to format their theses because it easily accommodates numerous figures and tables and aids students in the manipulation of equations. Whichever style is selected, it must be followed consistently throughout the thesis.
For binding, microfilming, and copying purposes, every page of the thesis must meet these minimum margin standards, including figures, tables and appendices:
Top: 1 inch
Bottom: 1 inch
Right: 1 inch
Left (binding edge): 1.5 inch
All materials, including tables, figures, and graphs, must fit within these requirements. A thesis with material displayed beyond these margins will not be accepted. The margins used should be consistent throughout the manuscript. Page numbers must be at least 0.5 inch from the edge of the page.
Twelve-point Times New Roman is standard, but any legible font of comparable size, except those that are script, italic, or ornamental, is acceptable for the body of the text. A consistent font style and font size must be observed throughout all sectionsof the thesis, including the curriculum vitae, with two exceptions. Italics may be used for quotations, words in a foreign language, or emphasis. The font used for appendices, charts, drawings, graphs, and tables may differ from that used for the text, but consistency throughout the document is strongly recommended. All print should be letter quality with dark black characters that are uniformly clear and dense.
The thesis, including the abstract, acknowledgments, author’s biography, and introduction, must be double-spaced or one-and-one-half-spaced. Spacing must be used consistently throughout the document. Footnotes, endnotes, bibliographic entries, long quotations, items in lists, and appendices may be single-spaced if recommended by the committee chair or department. The line spacing observed in a thesis must be consistent throughout, including the spacing between a chapter heading and the first line of text.
Every page of the entire thesis must be numbered, except for the notice of copyright page and title page. Page numbers must appear in the same location on each page, not less than 0.5 inch from the edge of the page, and must be consistent in font style and font size. The Thesis Office recommends placing page numbers at the bottom center of the page. Preliminary pages of a thesis are numbered in lowercase Roman numerals. The first page of the thesis text follows the preliminary pages and begins in Arabic numerals with ‘1’. Please double check all page numbers before deposit to assure there are no pages missing.
Both copies of the thesis must be on white, 8 ˝" x 11" paper. The Thesis Office accepts 20-pound, standard grade paper.
Thesis copies submitted for deposit should be high quality. Laser copies are preferable, although many ink jet printers also produce acceptable copies. If you are concerned about print quality, bring a sample page to the Thesis Office. Photocopies without any smudges or blemishes may be submitted for deposit.
Pages with illegible or disfiguring erasures or corrections, or with changes likely to be unclear in photographic reproduction, will be rejected, and the pages will have to be replaced. All corrections should be made on the original manuscript before it is photocopied.
Color copies are acceptable and even encouraged for illustrations. However, for the purpose of microfilming, labels or symbols rather than colors should identify lines on a graph. Microfilming is done in black-and-white only. For this reason, illustrations or computer generated images in black will reproduce well, while those in color may not because colors will be converted to shades of gray and may no longer be easily distinguishable. Shaded areas, such as countries on a map, will be more distinct and have better contrast on microfilm if crosshatching is used instead of color.
Compact discs may be included with the thesis. However, it is recommended that the thesis be understandable without the material contained on the CD. These materials are best considered part of the appendix. CD-ROMs must be clearly marked with your name, degree, department, university, and thesis title.
Example:
Anne Elizabeth Garvie, Ph.D.
Coffee Consumption of Graduate Students Trying to Finish Dissertations
Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 200x
Appendix A: Interview Transcriptions
CD-ROMs should be submitted in a secured plastic CD case approved by the Thesis Office. If a CD is included, a related appendix page must be included. This page should include information about the contents of the CD-ROM, such as “Appendix C: CD of Flight Images.”
Students with manuscripts over 2 ½ inches thick (more than approximately 500 pages) must consult the Thesis Office for specific deposit guidelines to facilitate binding. Manuscripts that are more than 2 ½ inches thick must be separated into two volumes of approximately equal size. Pagination should remain continuous throughout the second volume (i.e., do not begin renumbering the second volume at page 1). Each volume must be deposited with two title pages, and each title page must indicate the appropriate volume number. The phrase “VOLUME 1” OR “VOLUME 2” should appear two spaces above the heading “DISSERTATION” or “THESIS” on the title page. Please use Arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals. Each volume must be deposited in its own accordion folder. The first volume will look like any other manuscript, with the required preliminary pages, etc. The second volume will have a copy of the title page added at the beginning, to identify its origin.
The manuscript must be arranged in the following sequence: front matter, text pages, and back matter. The front matter of a thesis is numbered in lowercase Roman numerals. The first page of the thesis text follows the front matter and begins in Arabic numerals with ‘1’. The following table shows the pagination and arrangement rules.
The Table of Contents and all sections occurring before the Table of Contents should not be listed in the Table of Contents. All major sections following the Table of Contents (e.g., chapters, appendices, references, author’s biography) must be listed.
| SECTION | REQUIRED | OPTIONAL | PAGINATION |
| Notice of Copyright | * | Has no page number | |
| Title Page | * | Counts as page i, but number does not appear. | |
| Abstract (For inclusion in the thesis. This is not the ProQuest abstract.) |
* | This is page ii, the first page to be numbered with lowercase Roman numerals. | |
| Dedication | * | Continue with lowercase Roman numerals throughout front matter. | |
| Acknowledgments | * | Continue numbering. | |
| Table of Contents | * | Continue numbering. | |
| List of Figures • | * | Continue numbering. | |
| List of Tables • | * | Continue numbering. | |
| List of Illustrations • | * | Continue numbering. | |
| List of Symbols • | * | Continue numbering. | |
| List of Abbreviations • | * | Continue numbering. | |
| Preface | * | Continue numbering. |
• Lists of figures, tables, illustrations, symbols, etc., may appear in any order, provided they appear after the table of contents.
The Thesis Office does not require that students include the notice of copyright—it is optional. Whether or not you include a notice of copyright on your thesis, you retain the right to publish all or any part of the work by any means at any time unless you no longer own the copyright due to an existing publishing agreement. Additional information is available in chapter IV.
If the notice is included, it must appear on a separate page immediately preceding the title page. This page does not have a page number. The copyright notice must appear in this format:
The notice of copyright must be centered vertically and horizontally, and no other information may appear on this page. Your name must be consistent with its appearance on the title page. See the sample in Appendix B.
The title page must be formatted according to the models in Appendix B and must include the following five sections:
BY
YOUR NAME
First Degree Abbreviation, Institution, Year Granted
Second Degree Abbreviation, Institution, Year Granted
DISSERTATION
(1) Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
(2) for the degree of <add earned degree> in <add major>
(3) with a concentration in <add concentration>
(4) with a minor in <add minor>
(5) in the Graduate College of the
(6) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 200x
Note: Your major may or may not be the same as your department. You can check your major in UI-Integrate Self-Service, by going into the “Registration and Records” section and selecting “Student Records”, then selecting “View Student Information”. Your major will appear toward the bottom of the screen.
For example, a student earning a master’s degree in Physics from the Department of Physics would write:
THESIS
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Science in Physics
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 200x
A student earning a doctorate in Musicology from the School of Music would write:
DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 200x
A student earning a doctorate in Environmental Science in Civil Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering would write:
DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Science in Civil Engineering
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 200x
Likewise, a student earning a doctorate in Civil Engineering, who is also in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering would write:
DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 200x
A student earning a Ph.D. in Astronomy with a graduate concentration in Astrochemistry would write:
DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Astronomy
with a concentration in Astrochemistry
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 200x
Urbana, Illinois
For example, an adviser would be listed for a master’s student as:
Adviser:
Professor Paul E. Morph
A final exam committee would be listed for a doctoral student as:
Doctoral Committee:
Professor John N. Quiry, Chair
Assistant Professor Colleen Vickers
Name of Committee Member #3
Name of Committee Member #4, University of Michigan
Please see Chapter II, Section 3 for information about title page checks in the Thesis Office.
An abstract is a short synopsis of the content of the thesis. The abstract should state the problem, describe the methods and procedures used, and give the main results or conclusions of the research. Inclusion of an abstract within the thesis is optional. If included, it must be numbered with lowercase Roman numerals. An abstract is usually 350 words or less, its line spacing must correspond with the rest of the document, and the heading must be consistent with all other headings in the document.
See Appendix B for a sample abstract. Many students confuse the optional abstract that may be included within the thesis with the ProQuest abstract. The ProQuest abstract is only for doctoral deposits, and its heading is formatted differently from the optional abstract. See Section 4 below for more information on the ProQuest abstract.
Inclusion of a dedication is optional. However, many students wish to dedicate their work to a friend, parent, or mentor. The heading “Dedication” should not appear on the dedication page. The text of the dedication should be centered vertically and horizontally, and the page must be numbered with lowercase Roman numerals. See the sample in Appendix B.
Inclusion of acknowledgments is optional. The line spacing of the text must be consistent with the spacing in the rest of the document, and the heading must be consistent with all other headings. This page must be numbered with lowercase Roman numerals. See the sample in Appendix B.
A table of contents is required in all theses deposited at the University of Illinois. It must list all major sections that follow the table of contents. This includes lists of figures and tables, introductions, bibliographies, appendices, author’s biographies, and any similar sections used. Listings for subsections in the table of contents are not required by the Graduate College. However, if subsections are listed for one chapter or section, all corresponding levels of subsections in other chapters or sections must also be listed. No pages prior to, or including, the table of contents may be listed in the table of contents. See the sample in Appendix B. The table of contents page(s) must be numbered with lowercase Roman numerals.
The wording and appearance (i.e., font style and capitalization) of all chapters, sections, and subsections in the table of contents must match those in the text. The only exception to this is the use of boldface, which is optional for the table of contents. The most common style of presentation is to use single spacing within entries and double spacing between entries. Use left justification for major entries. Subsections can be indented as long as the use of indentation is applied consistently to all entries and clearly expresses the hierarchy of the subsections. See the example in Appendix B. If a chapter or appendix title is long enough to require a second (or third) line in the table of contents, the words should not intrude upon the page number column. Generally all entries require leader dots and page numbers. Page numbers must be justified right.
The table of contents is sometimes problematic. Following are some basic guidelines for setting up a table of contents using Microsoft Word:
Establish these settings before you begin typing your table of contents.
These lists are not required by the Graduate College, but department requirements may differ. The format for these lists must be consistent with the format used for the table of contents. If included, this information immediately follows the table of contents on a new page. Be consistent in the inclusion of tables or figures; if tables from one chapter are included in the list of tables, then tables from all the other chapters and any appendices must be included. Each entry must list the same caption or title used for a table in the text, although a long caption may be abbreviated with only the first full sentence or clause. Single-spacing within entries and double-spacing between entries is typical, but not required. These pages must be numbered with lowercase Roman numerals.
The text must be divided into chapters or sections. The pages of the text must be numbered using Arabic numerals, beginning with the number ‘1’, and this number must be displayed.
Theses rely upon both secondary and primary source material. Copyright laws and professional ethics call for the acknowledgment of these sources. The Graduate College does not endorse a specific documentation style, but permits students to employ the documentation style preferred within their field of study. Footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical citations are acceptable. The font style used for footnotes and endnotes must be the same as the text. They can, however, be set in a smaller font size, as long as this is used consistently throughout the document.
All major headings and subheadings must be presented consistently throughout all chapters and major sections, in terms of capitalization, placement on the page, font style, and font size used. For instance, if the heading for chapter one appears centered in all capital letters, then the other chapter headings must also be centered, in all capital letters. The word “chapter” and the title of the chapter must be consistent in capitalization or mixed case. If the word “chapter” is part of the chapter titles in the table of contents it must also be part of the chapter titles in the text.
All major sections (including sections like the abstract, acknowledgments, table of contents, list of figures, chapters, bibliography, appendices, and author’s biography) must begin on a new page, but this is not true of subsections. Subsections must continue to fill a page within a chapter. A list of references included at the end of a chapter is considered a subsection, and, therefore, may not begin on a new page. Whenever the heading of a section or subsection appears near the bottom of a page, it must be followed by at least one line of text, or the heading should be forced to the top of the next page.
See the section of chapter III entitled "Table of Contents" for additional information about headings and subheadings.
A thesis may include tables, figures, photographs, musical examples, charts, graphs, line drawings, maps, and other illustrative materials. For discussion purposes, these media will be called figures.
Figures may be presented within the text, at the end of chapters, or in a comprehensive section at the end of the text section. The arrangement of figures within the thesis is the decision of the student and adviser. However, keep in mind that grouping the figures at the ends of chapters or at the end of the text section is often easier than positioning them next to their corresponding text. When tables or figures are grouped together at the end of a chapter, they are considered a subsection, and should appear as such in the table of contents.
Format figures so that the figure, number, and caption are placed on the same page. Figures must fit within the required margins (see Section 2, “General Guidelines,” above) either vertically (portrait) or horizontally (landscape). If a figure is too large to fit on one page, it may be divided or folded using one of the methods described below. In all cases, page numbers must be placed on figure pages to be consistent with page number placement in the rest of the thesis.
Numeration for figures
All figures must be numbered consecutively throughout the entire thesis. You may follow a straight sequence (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) or use a decimal system (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, etc., where the first digit corresponds to the chapter number and the digit after the decimal point is the figure number).
Captions for figures
Each figure must have a caption. Single-spacing within captions is acceptable, and often helps the reader distinguish between text and caption. Some students prefer to use a slightly smaller font size for captions, and this is acceptable, provided it is consistently used for all captions and easily legible. Captions should appear on the same page as the figure to which they refer. They may appear either above or below a figure, as long as they are consistent. If a figure is rotated, the corresponding caption must also be rotated, but not the page number.
Rotating Figures
Figures may be presented horizontally (i.e., using the landscape setting on the printer). When placing horizontal figures within the document, the top of the figure should be placed toward the binding (left) edge. When a figure is rotated, its caption must also be rotated, but not the page number. See example in appendix B. If a heading is needed on a page with a rotated figure, the heading should not be rotated.
Oversized Figures
If reducing a figure to fit on a single page would jeopardize its legibility, the following options are generally acceptable; however, it is best to consult with the Thesis Office in advance:
If neither of these options is suitable, it is essential that you consult with the Thesis Office.
White Space
Avoid large blank areas without text or figures. In general, do not allow more than one-quarter of the page to be blank. Grouping figures or tables together on the same page can often be used to minimize white space. Chapter or section titles should not appear by themselves on an otherwise blank page.
| Reference Pages | Required | Optional | Pagination |
| Bibliography or List of References | * | Continue numbering in Arabic numbers following the text. | |
| Appendix or Appendices | * | Continue numbering. | |
| Curriculum Vitae or Author's Biography | * doctoral candidates |
* master's students |
Continue numbering. |
Note: the bibliography may appear either before or after the appendices. If the appendices cite sources reported in the bibliography, however, the appendices should appear before the bibliography.
All theses must have a bibliography or list of references, and the documentation style should be appropriate to the discipline of study. If only the works referred to in the text are included in the list, then the title “Works Cited,” “Literature Cited,” or “References” should be used. If the list is more comprehensive and includes sources consulted for research and preparation, then it should be titled “Bibliography.” References must be in the same font style and size as the rest of the thesis. Reference lists are commonly single-spaced within and double-space between each listing. When placed at the end of the document, the reference section is not considered a chapter and, therefore, should not have a chapter number, however, the heading should be formatted in the same way as the chapters.
Avoid having a page break in the middle of a citation; instead, arrange page breaks to fall between citations.
In some scientific and engineering disciplines, the references may be given at the end of each chapter instead of at the end of the thesis. In this case, the heading “List of References” or “Literature Cited” is acceptable, but not “Bibliography,” which is only used for a summary of source material at the end of a thesis. When the list of references appears at the end of a chapter, it should not begin on a new page since it is considered a subsection of the chapter. Instead, as part of the chapter, it should begin immediately following the text.
Authors may wish to include additional supporting materials at the end of their theses. This information should be organized into an appendix or series of appendices. Appendix material may include tables, figures, maps, photographs, raw data, computer programs, musical scores, interview questions, sample questionnaires, CDs, and many other types of material. Appendices are placed only at the end of the thesis text: they may not appear at the end of a chapter. Any headings or subheadings used in an appendix that also appear in the table of contents must correspond in font style and size with headings and subheadings used elsewhere in the thesis. The font style and size of the materials in the body of the appendix, however, do not have to correspond with those used in the body of the thesis. Similarly, material in an appendix may be single-spaced. If there is more than one appendix, they should be numbered as A, B, C, etc.
Pre-rendered material included in an appendix, such as scanned images of questionnaires or release forms, should be reduced in size in order to allow for a heading that is formatted the same as similar headings elsewhere in the thesis. See the section entitled “CDs and Other Non-print Media” in Chapter III, Section 2, for additional information.
The Graduate College requires that either a curriculum vitae or short biographical paragraph be included with all doctoral dissertations.
A curriculum vitae (CV) is a comprehensive list of your educational credentials and teaching experience, research interests and areas of specialization, awards, presentations, and publication experience. All information on a CV should be arranged in reverse chronological order. A CV may be several pages long, but information on the CV appears in short, well-organized sections or lists. Examples are available on the Graduate College Career Services Office Web site at www.grad.uiuc.edu/careerservices/academic/cvs/.
Note: There is often confusion over the terms “curriculum vitae” and “vita.” The two are interchangeable and both are singular. “Vita” is the Latin word for “life” and is a singular nominative noun. The Latin phrase “curriculum vitae” translates into English as “course of life.” The word “vitae” is not plural in this instance; rather it is a genitive singular noun. You can use “Vita” or “Curriculum Vitae” as a heading, either is correct, but do not write “Curriculum Vita.”
An author’s biography is a short biographical paragraph that may include date and place of birth, educational institutions attended (after high school), degrees and honors won, publications, and teaching and professional experience. It should be written in the third person in paragraph form and begin with the name of the author and must be concise. The heading for this option should be “Author’s Biography.”
In either case, the font style and font size must correspond with the rest of the thesis. The appropriate heading “Curriculum Vitae” or “Author’s Biography” must appear at the top of the page. It must be included as the last item in the table of contents. Your name and previous degrees must be consistent with those listed on the title page. A sample author’s biography can be found in appendix B.
All students are required to submit one (1) signed Department Format Approval form and one (1) signed Certificate of Committee Approval Form. In addition, doctoral students are also required to submit a signed ProQuest/UMI Publishing Agreement, an abstract formatted for ProQuest, and a completed Survey of Earned Doctorates.
See Chapter II, section 4 for information regarding the departmental format review. The Departmental Format Approval form is available at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/DeptFormAppr.pdf. The Thesis Office will not begin the format review of your thesis without a signed approval form from your department.
This form certifies that the academic department has approved the thesis to partially fulfill degree requirements. Previously known as the “red-bordered form,” this form is available in PDF format at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/certificate/. You can either download this form or open it directly in your browser to complete and print the form. We highly recommend that you use the PDF version of the form.
If your thesis title contains special characters or is longer than four lines, you may not be able to complete the PDF form online. The Graduate College provides a Microsoft Word template version of the CCA form, called a .dot file, which accommodates longer titles. To use the Word template, you will need to download and install the template in your Word document template directory. Instructions for downloading and using the Word template can also be found at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/certificate/.
The CCA form must contain the student’s University Identification Number (UIN) in the upper right corner and must indicate a date that includes month, date, and year. For doctoral students, this date must be the date of the final examination. For master’s students it is usually the date the thesis was approved by the research adviser or the date of an oral examination, if applicable. A CCA form without the correct date of the final examination for a doctoral student or the correct date of approval by the research adviser (or oral examination) for a master’s student will not be accepted.
The student’s name and thesis title should appear in all capital letters on the CCA form.
Doctoral students must have the signatures of their entire committee, as well as their department chair and adviser. Master’s students need only the signatures of their department chair and adviser. Your department or college may require more. No one can “sign for” a committee member or department head on the CCA form, although persons authorized, via the Graduate College authorized signature form, to sign doctoral committee forms and theses can sign in place of the department head. Electronic or faxed signatures are not accepted. See the sample in Appendix B.
The Proquest/UMI Publishing Agreement and related material are available at www.grad.uiuc.edu/thesis/ProQuest.htm. See Chapter IV, Section 1, for more information.
The ProQuest abstract is not included in the thesis but it will be published in Dissertation Abstracts International (for more information, see www.umi.com/products_pq/descriptions/dai.shtml). For formatting see the sample in Appendix B and note that the abstract must observe the following five guidelines:
THESIS TITLE (ALL CAPS)
Your Name, Degree Abbreviation
Department or Unit Name
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 200x
Adviser’s Name, Adviser
The survey is located online at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/SurveyofEarnedDoctorates.pdf. Doctoral students are required to complete this survey. However, students may refuse to answer specific questions by writing the word “Refused” in the space provided for the answer.
The Graduate College requires that every doctoral dissertation and abstract be published, in order to best disseminate and archive the significant work of University of Illinois graduates. Submitting a completed ProQuest/UMI Publishing Agreement fulfills this requirement. ProQuest will then make arrangements to publish your abstract in Dissertation Abstracts International, create a negative microform copy of your dissertation for archival purposes, and sends a microfilm copy of your document to the University Library. ProQuest also maintains a digital copy of your dissertation, as an official off-site repository of the Library of Congress.
The agreement permits ProQuest to make copies of your thesis available to the public. Please note, however, that ProQuest holds no copyrights to your dissertation. Although ProQuest acts as a publisher, you do not give ProQuest the copyright when you sign the agreement. The contract gives ProQuest only non-exclusive reproduction, sales, and distribution rights.As the author, you retain control of the work’s intellectual content. The ProQuest/UMI Publishing Agreement is an agreement made between the student and ProQuest; the Thesis Office does not act as the student’s representative.
Students should read pages 1 and 2 of the publishing agreement (available at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/diss_pub/1-07dpa-2.pdf) in order to understand their options before signing the agreement. ProQuest offers students a choice between open access and traditional publishing options. Additionally, ProQuest has recently added new release and restriction options.
Option OA-1 (Open Access) allows students to make their theses available to the broadest possible audience by allowing interested persons to freely access their work via the internet. In addition, readers will have the option to purchase a copy of the work on request and will be able to discover the work through major search engines. Students choosing this option will be required to pay an additional $95 fee and will not be eligible to receive royalties.
Option TR-1 (Traditional) allows students to make their work widely available for purchase. Readers will be able to purchase a copy of the work on request and will be able to discover the work through major search engines. Students choosing this option may be eligible to receive royalties on the sales of their work.
In some cases students may wish to embargo the release of or restrict access to their work through ProQuest/UMI. Options include embargo periods of up to 2 years, search engine restriction, and third-party sales restriction. For example, a student seeking book publication after deposit may wish to limit availability of the thesis for 2 years and/or stop it from being available via an online book retailer. To embargo the release of their work for a period of up to 2 years and/or to restrict access to their work through ProQuest/UMI, students may choose either option OA-2 (Open Access) or option TR-2 (Traditional) and check the relevant box(es). Students choosing option OA-2 will be required to pay an additional $95 fee.
Students choosing an embargo or restriction option should understand that such restriction of access applies only to availability of the work through ProQuest. Thesis copies sent to the University of Illinois Library will not be restricted unless a patent hold is approved by the Office of Technology Management (see Section 3 below for more information on patent holds).
You may use copyrighted works in your dissertation without securing permission and without paying royalties if the use of such work falls under the definition of fair use (United States Code 17, section 107). Fair use allows for the reproduction of copyrighted materials for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research. The following four factors are used to determine fair use:
If you are using materials or reproductions that do not fall under the provisions of fair use, then a statement from the copyright owner granting you permission to use the material must be submitted with the dissertation. A sample permission request letter is available at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/diss_pub/1-07dpa-G6.pdf. Students should be aware that the permissions process can be a lengthy one. Therefore, permission should be requested well in advance of the deposit deadline in order to allow time for copyright owners to review and grant (or possibly deny) permission to reprint. For doctoral students, this letter must also state that the copyright owner is aware that ProQuest (see below) may supply single copies upon request and may proceed under the contract on the agreement form. Two copies of this letter must be included with the rest of the deposit materials.
Inclusion of work that has been previously published by the degree candidate is a common practice in research institutions across the country, and it is permitted at the University of Illinois. In such cases, the Graduate College requires that the student state at the beginning of the chapter that the work includes previously published material. This is usually accomplished with a footnote following the chapter title, which acknowledges the previous publication, cites basic bibliographic information, and states that the copyright owner has provided permission to reprint. In scientific disciplines, it is also common for students to include material derived from a published paper with multiple authors. In such cases, the footnote must acknowledge the contribution of the other authors, including any figures, tables, or data that were not created by the author.
Students are strongly encouraged to make inquiries regarding copyright ownership for previously published material. If you have published a chapter of your thesis as a journal article or book section, you may no longer own the copyright, and you may need to request copyright permission in writing from the publisher. Most publishers are agreeable. Doctoral students must receive permission in writing from the publisher and include two copies with the rest of their deposit materials.
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of original works. Copyright protection exists from the moment the thesis is created.
The Copyright Act of 1989 does not require published works to display a copyright notice in order to secure legal protections. Many publishers, however, continue to carry the notice because the practice is considered an important means of discouraging infringement. The Thesis Office does not require that students include the notice of copyright—it is optional. See Chapter III for details on formatting the notice of copyright, if you chose to include it.
Whether or not you include a notice of copyright on your thesis, you retain the right to publish, reproduce, display, distribute, prepare derivative works from, or perform all or any part of the work—except in some unusual circumstances where students may not have sole ownership of their thesis.Such circumstances may include co-authorship of part of the thesis, support from a foundation or grant that may specify terms of ownership for resulting work, and previous publication of parts of your thesis in a journal or book. If you have published in a journal, you may have assigned the copyright to those portions of your thesis to the publisher. Please review your agreement and secure permission if necessary.
For more information about copyright law, visit www.copyright.gov.
Since revision of U.S. copyright law in 1978, it is no longer necessary to register a work with the Library of Congress to protect it, although registration carries additional benefits that you may wish to consider.
For more information about copyright registration, including procedures and current fees contact the U.S. Copyright Office at www.copyright.gov or (202) 707-3000.
Doctoral students may register their copyright themselves on the Copyright Office Web page (http://www.copyright.gov/register/literary.html) or by asking ProQuest to do it by signing the copyright registration authorization form available at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/diss_pub/1-07dpa-3.pdf and bringing a certified check or money order for the additional fee listed in the agreement (made payable to PQIL, the ProQuest Information and Learning Company) to the Thesis Office on the day of deposit.
If your thesis contains potentially patentable information, you may want to have it held by the Thesis Office while patentability is assessed. Holding a thesis does not postpone degree conferral or graduation. A student wishing to have a thesis held during the patent review process must contact the Office of Technology Management (OTM) at 319 Ceramics Building, 105 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, or (217) 333-7862. OTM will review the student’s request and notify the Graduate College if a thesis is to be held. Please contact OTM before the date of deposit. Shortly after each conferral date, all theses are shipped for binding; if a thesis has already been shipped, it may not be possible to recover it before it is made public. For more information, see www.otm.uiuc.edu. Request forms are available at www.otm.uiuc.edu/downloads/general-tech/ThesisWithholdForm.pdf.
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