Doctoral

Dissertation front matter should be in the following order. The front matter refers to the title page through the end of the table of contents/supplemental materials.Required sections are indicated in bold while optional sections are italicized.

• Title Page (required)
• Acceptance Page (required)
• Copyright Page (optional)
• Dedication (optional)
• Acknowledgements (optional)
• Preface (optional)
• Abstract (required)
• Table of Contents (required)
• Supplemental Materials (lists of tables, figures, appendices, etc) (optional)
  

Additionally, all students are required to include their resume/curriculum vitae at the end of their dissertation.

For more information about each section, please see below.

Title Page—Required

The title page should be a separate page and no longer than one page. All content on this page should be centered horizontally and vertically. Keep in mind that the title must be able to fit on the spine of a bound manuscript.

See a sample Title Page
Tips for Title Page Formatting

Acceptance Page – Required

This page confirms the committee's approval and acceptance of your dissertation. The acceptance page should be a separate page and no longer than one page. 

• The Acceptance statement should be centered at the top of the page:

  Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

•  The words "Doctoral Committee" immediately follows the Acceptance statement and are left-justified.

• Your Research Committee member names and signature lines follow and are fully right-jusitifed. Behind each name, place the appropriate post-nominal initials for that individual (Ph.D., M.F.A., O.D., etc)
• After the names, should be the date of your defense, left-justified.
• The page remains unsigned for inclusion in your dissertation.

Learn about submission methods »

Copyright Page – Optional

If you choose to copyright your dissertation, you should include a copyright page. The copyright page should be a separate page and no longer than one page. All content on this page should be centered horizontally and vertically.

Copyright © [year]

[Student's Name]

Dedication, Acknowledgements, or Preface - Optional

Depending on your personal inclination, you may wish to include a dedication, a preface, or a set of acknowledgments. The latter are 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. 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. For the dedication page, all content  should be centered horizontally and vertically. Only the dedication itself should be on the dedication page; no title should appear. Acknowledgements and Prefaces pages should have a title.

Abstract – Required

As many people will learn about your work through your abstract published in the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database, you should spend a good bit of effort in the composition of both the abstract and the title of your work. Try to convey the flavor of your work, not just the bare bones of your findings. You should also work to 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. Go to the database »

The abstract page should start with the student's name, centered, followed on the second line by the title of the dissertation, centered and in either all capital letters or underlined. The content of the abstract itself should be double-spaced and limited to 350 words. The paragraph(s), layout, indention, and line spacing should match the formatting of the rest of the dissertation.

You may list your entire committee at the end of the abstract, with the committe members' names and the signature lines right justified, or you may leave the committee members' names off the abstract. The choice is yours. The abstract remains unsigned for inclusion in your dissertation.

Table of Contents – Required

Include a table of contents to guide readership of your dissertation.

Add an entry for your curriculum vitae (CV) to the table of contents. The CV should be the last item in your dissertation and listed last on the table of contents.  Since CV pages should not have a page number, the table of contents entry for it should note only the presence of the CV at the end with no page number indicated.

Add an entry/entries (as is appropriate) for the reference/bibliography page/pages to the table of contents.

Supplemental Materials – Optional

Include lists of tables, figures, appendixes, abbreviations, or other supplemental materials, if appropriate.

Resume/Curriculum Vitae - Required

Include a resume/curriculum vitae at the end of the dissertation, after the main content. Do not add any page number(s) to the resume/curriculum vitae.

Your CV should be in the same font and have the same margins as the rest of your dissertation and should not contain your home address, phone number, nor any page number. It is not common, nor it is recommended, to list personal references on the CV within a dissertation. Please list your PhD degree as completed in the same month as listed on the title page. The PhD major, concentration, and/or minor listed on your CV should be the PhD major, concentration, and/or minor that is displayed on your official transcript.

Students who place an embargo on their dissertation must submit a bound copy to the UGS for inclusion in the Wells Library. The bound copy must be printed on paper that meets the following requirements. Learn about submission methods and embargo requirements »

• Watermarked, 100 percent cotton, 20- or 24-pound bond paper, 8½" x 11" sheets.
• IU Bond, which bears the IU watermark or seal, is not 100 percent cotton and not acceptable..

Font size should be either 11 or 12 point for the entire document with the only exception being the title on the title page, footnotes, tables/charts, and picture/table descriptions. Font up to size 16 point may be used for the document’s title on the title page, only. Font as small as 10 point may be used for footnotes, the content of tables/charts, and picture/table/chart descriptions.

Black font is used throughout the dissertation with the only exception being areas where a different font color serves a purpose in explaining or highlighting some aspect of the research/dissertation in a way black font could not. 

Be consistent in font style throughout your dissertation. The following font styles are recommended for the ease with which they convert to a PDF. All dissertations have to be converted to a PDF in the electronic submission process.

•  Arial
•  Bookman Old Style
•   Calibri
•  Cambria
•  Lucida Bright
•  Times New Roman  

The material should be double-spaced. Long quotations within the text should be typed single-spaced with wider margins.

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 dissertation that contains images to achieve the best possible quality. The IU Seal or Branding should not be used on any portion of the dissertation. These items may be used only with the written permission of the university.

• Top, Right, and Bottom margins must be one inch. If dissertation will only be electronically accessed, a one inch left margin is acceptable. Left margin should be one inch if the dissertation will be bound in paper form by ProQuest. If using a bindery other than ProQuest, please consult with the bindery about the size of the left margin needed for their binding process. Learn about submission methods »

  Proper margin space is critical for proper binding. Inadequate margins can result in part of your material being lost after the combination of copying and binding. Even if all the material remains, insufficient margins can affect the readability and appearance of your work.

• These margin requirements apply to all materials included in the dissertation, including figures, tables, maps, plates, etc., and any preliminary material you choose to include.

Running heads are not used in dissertation submissions. Please limit the content of your header and footer space to the page number, only.

• Page numbers must be clear, consecutive, and printed on every page, including appendixes, tables, figures, maps, charts photographs, etc., except for the title page and vita page.
• Lowercase Roman numbers (e.g., i, ii, iii) are used for the pages preceding the main body of work.
• Arabic numerals (e.g., 1, 2, 3) are used in the body of the work, the bibliography and the appendices.
• The title page counts as page i but does not bear a number.
• Begin the actual numbering with the acceptance page as page ii, and continue with lowercase Roman numerals until the start of the actual body of the dissertation. That page, whether part of your full introduction or of your first chapter, should be numbered using the Arabic numeral 1, and every page thereafter should be numbered consecutively until you reach the vita page.
• Ordinarily, page numbers should be centered at the top or bottom of the page, entered midway between the edge of paper and the text to prevent their loss during the binding process.

Dissertations should be written in English, unless you and your department/committee have decided otherwise.

Check with your department on this requirement. This format depends largely on your particular field or topic.

For example, you may opt to have footnotes appear on the page where the annotation occurs, the end of each chapter, or solely in the traditional reference/bibliography section(s). Be sure to follow the conventions of your department or discipline.

• If you are ordering a bound copy for your department or research committee, check with your department about whether it prefers to bind the abstract with the rest of the text.
• The bound copy must be identical to the final version that the University Graduate School accepts within your ProQuest account.
• The University Graduate School accepts only binding that uses the oversewn method. Velo binding available from some photocopying businesses is not acceptable.
• Ask the bindery to put the dissertation title and your full name on the front cover and the title plus your last name on the spines of the bound copies. Keep in mind that this title needs to fit along the spine of the bound dissertation. The IU logo or seal should not be used on any dissertation.

• If submitting a bound copy to the University Graduate School to fulfill the embargo requirement, you should arrange for the bindery to send the finished book directly to the University Graduate School:

  Indiana University Graduate School
  Attn: Graduate Recorder
  Wells Library, E546
  1320 E 10th St. E546
  Bloomington, IN 47405-7104

• “The Chicago Manual of Style”
• Turabian, Kate L., “A Manual for Writers”
• Modern Language Association (MLA) style sheet
• American Psychological Association (APA) style sheet (especially for works in the social sciences)

• Webster’s Third International Dictionary
• Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary