Your thesis or dissertation must comply with certain formatting guidelines.
Be sure to read the list of requirements thoroughly before you begin, and check the list carefully before you submit.
Your formatting requirements vary depending on whether your degree is conferred through IU or Purdue.
The graduate office is dedicated to all the graduate students it serves and is constantly striving for improved and more efficient ways to better serve you as graduate students. With this in mind, we created this dissertation/thesis formatting template. This template addresses many of the formatting issues that students regularly struggle with during their format reviews. We encourage you to use this at the start of your writing. While this template addresses many issues, it cannot account for all formatting errors, please review our format requirements and guidelines in addition to using this template.
IU Thesis and Dissertation Formatting Workshop
Common formatting errors
IUPUI Graduate Office formatting template
Contact gradrec@iupui.edu for any questions regarding the formatting template.
The links below will explain to you all of the formatting requirements for your thesis/dissertation, including fonts, required sections, numbering pages, and more.
Your thesis/dissertation must include the required sections, listed in order. Please view the example.
The title page will be your first page. Keep in mind that the title approved by your committee is the title that must appear on the title page.
* The month and year is the date when all requirements have been completed for the awarding of your master’s/doctoral degree by the University Graduate School. This is not necessarily the month in which you submit your thesis/dissertation.
The acceptance page confirms the committee's approval and acceptance of your thesis/dissertation.
Master's
The acceptance page should be a separate page and no longer than one page. The first sentence should be centered, “Master’s Thesis Committee” should be left-justified, and all other content should be right-justified.
Have your committee sign the page when they approve the thesis.
When uploading the format-approved document to ScholarWorks, the acceptance page will not contain signatures. A copy of the signed acceptance page will be submitted separately to the University Graduate School at gradrec@iupui.edu.
Doctoral
The acceptance page should be a separate page and no longer than one page. The first sentence should be centered, “Doctoral Committee” and the date of dissertation should be left-justified, and all other content should be right-justified.
Have your committee sign the page when they approve your dissertation.
When uploading the format-approved document to ProQuest, the acceptance page will not contain signatures. A copy of the signed acceptance page will be submitted separately to the University Graduate School at gradrec@iupui.edu.
The copyright page should be a separate page and no longer than one page. All content on this page should be centered. Please view the example.
© [year]
[Student's name as it appears on the thesis/dissertation title page]
Depending on your personal inclination, you may wish to include a dedication, a preface, or a set of acknowledgments. The latter is designed to recognize people or agencies to whom you feel grateful for any academic, technical, financial, or personal aid in the preparation of your thesis/dissertation. As a matter of courtesy, you would ordinarily mention the members of your committee here, as well as institutions that provided funding or anyone else who helped.
Your name and the thesis/dissertation title should be centered, while the rest of the content format will match your document, and is limited to 350 words. The title will be Title case and underlined, or all capital letters.
Many people will learn about your work through your abstract published in the ScholarWorks Repository (master's) or ProQuest ETD Administrator (doctoral), so take care in the composition of both the abstract and the title. Try to convey the flavor of your work, not just the bare bones of your findings. You should also phrase your title so that it truly describes the contents and will be easily found in the index of the database. The index is based on key words, so be as specific as you can be about your subject.
Include a table of contents to guide readership of your thesis/dissertation. The table of contents will contain the material occurring after the table of contents. The curriculum vitae entry will not have a page number.
Supplemental materials will include lists of tables, figures, appendixes, abbreviations, or other materials, if appropriate.
Include your Curriculum Vitae at the END of the thesis/dissertation. The Curriculum Vitae entry will not have a page number.
Footnotes: (if used)
Headings:
Hyperlinks:
Symbols:
Labeling, consistency in text, chart, figure, table, etc.:
Quotes:
Punctuation:
Spell Check:
If photographs or detailed graphics are part of the work, make sure they are crisp and clear when printed. It is OK to use special laser or photo paper for the page of the thesis/dissertation that contains images to achieve the best possible quality.
Theses/dissertations should be written in English, unless you and your department/committee have decided otherwise.
The dots are called Leaders, and often are referred as leader Dots.
The dots can be created by using the table of contents template. However, this will import Word's font, size and style, which will not match your document layout. If using Word's template, you will modify the setup of choose the correct font and size.
This process may also be applied to the list of tables, list of figures, and list of abbreviations.
The IUPUI Graduate Office offers a formatting worshop for Purdue theses and dissertations in both Fall and Spring semesters. You can view the most recent Thesis and Dissertation Formatting Workshop Guidelines here »
