FORMATTING GUIDELINES
Your thesis or dissertation committee will help you decide which style guide to use in your document, e.g., APA, MLA, Turabian, Chicago Manual of Style, etc., but there are some formatting items that the Graduate School requires in the document that may differ from that selected style guide. The PDF, "Organization, Formatting, and PDF Conversion Guidelines for Theses, Dissertations, and Doctoral/Lecture Essays," is a collection of formatting items that the Graduate School requires students make in the final document that may be different from the main style guide you've used in the document. This PDF should be downloaded and printed out for reference before you begin writing.
MICROSOFT WORD FRONT-MATTER TEMPLATES BY DEGREE
The way the main body of the thesis or dissertation is formatted is up to you and your committee with the goal of applying consistent formatting conventions throughout the entire document. However, the unnumbered front matter of all UM theses and dissertations must be uniform in appearance. To help you format the front matter, the Graduate School has prepared Word templates by degree for you to use in your document. Please download the appropriate Word file and use it to format the unnumbered front-matter pages of your thesis or dissertation:
Master's Unnumbered Front Matter Templates:
From the list below, please click on the degree you are working toward to download the appropriate template to format the unnumbered front matter of your thesis:
Doctoral Unnumbered Front Matter Templates:
From the list below, please click on the degree you are working toward to download the appropriate template to format the unnumbered front matter of your thesis:
SAMPLE TEMPLATES
FORMATTING SUPPORT
To schedule an appointment for formatting assistance, please use the following form: Electronic Thesis & Dissertation Formatting Assistance. For all other questions contact ETD Formatting Support at dfs@miami.edu
ETD Formatting Made Easy Workshop Video
The ETD Formatting Support Team recently hosted an “ETD Formatting Made Easy Workshop” and posted a video of the workshop online that can be accessed below:
Access Video
In the video, the Team describes solutions to common ETD formatting issues that students encounter when preparing the ETD.
The following time stamps in the video transcript to the right of the video will provide you with the Team’s helpful tips about how to handle commonly encountered ETD formatting-related topics:
| TIME STAMP |
TOPIC |
| 5:04 |
Starting Each Chapter on a New Page |
| 5:34 |
Updating Headings |
| 7:47 |
Headings and Styles |
| 9:40 |
Using the Navigation Pane |
| 10:44 |
Section and Page Breaks |
| 13:41 |
Table of Contents |
| 15:49 |
List of Figures and List of Tables |
| 17:45 |
Managing Page Number Styles |
VISIT THE SCHOLARSHIP@MIAMI INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY
When preparing your ETD, it can be helpful to go to the Scholarship@Miami institutional repository to see what a final, accepted thesis or dissertation looks like and how information about you and your work will appear online after your thesis or dissertation is approved. You can search for documents in the ETD repository by author, subject, or advisor.
PREDEFENSE FORMATTING REVIEW (optional)
If you want to get a head start on formatting issues, an optional predefense formatting review from the Sr. Editor is available upon request by e-mailing the draft to grad.dissertation@miami.edu. Students who request the predefense formatting review typically send the draft to the Sr. Editor at the same time the draft is sent to committee members for review before the defense date, usually two weeks before the defense date. Drafts can be sent as (1) one Word file of the entire manuscript; (2) the entire manuscript separated into no more than 4 Word files; (3) one PDF of the entire manuscript (preferred).
LaTeX TEMPLATE
The University does not offer official support for students who use LaTeX to prepare the final ETD document. However, past graduate students have taken the initiative to prepare a LaTeX template formatted per Graduate School ETD formatting guidelines and have shared the template with the Sr. Editor. Students interested in obtaining the template should send an e-mail request to grad.dissertation@miami.edu. Please note that the Sr. Editor can only provide the LaTeX template and is unable to provide assistance with using the LaTeX template.
