Formatting Your Dissertation

When preparing the dissertation for submission, students must meet the following minimum formatting requirements. The Registrar’s Office will review the dissertation for compliance and these formatting elements and will contact the student to confirm acceptance or to request revision. The Harvard Griffin GSAS resource on dissertation formatting best practices expands on many of the elements below.

Please carefully review your dissertation before submitting it to ProQuestETD. The Registrar’s Office will email you through ProQuest if they have identified major formatting errors that need correction. Students will be provided with a brief extended deadline to make only the requested formatting updates.  

1. Embedded Fonts: If fonts are not embedded, non-English characters may not appear as intended. It is the student’s responsibility to make sure that fonts are embedded properly prior to submission. Instructions for embedding fonts can be found on the Dissertation Formatting Guidance resource.  
2. Thesis Acceptance Certificate: A copy of the Thesis Acceptance Certificate (TAC) should appear as the first page. This page should not be counted or numbered. The TAC will appear in the online version of the published dissertation. The author name and date on the TAC and title page should be the same.  
3. Title Page: The dissertation begins with the title page; the title should be as concise as possible and should provide an accurate description of the dissertation. The author name and date on the TAC and title page should be the same. Do not print a page number on the title page. It is understood to be page i for counting purposes only. 
4. Abstract: An abstract, numbered as page iii, should immediately follow the copyright page and should state the problem, describe the methods and procedures used, and give the main results or conclusions of the research. The abstract will appear in the online version of the dissertation and will be made available by ProQuest and DASH. There is no maximum word count for the abstract.  
5. Pagination: Pages should be assigned a number except for the Thesis Acceptance Certificate. 
   1. Preliminary pages (abstract, table of contents, list of tables, graphs, illustrations, and preface) should use small Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, etc.). 
   2. All pages must contain text or images.  
   3. Count the title page as page i and the copyright page as page ii, but do not print page numbers on either page. 
   4. For the body of text, use Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) starting with page 1 on the first page of text.
   5. Page numbers must be centered throughout the manuscript at the top or bottom. 
   6. Every numbered page must be consecutively ordered, including tables, graphs, illustrations, and bibliography/index (if included); letter suffixes (such as 10a, 10b, etc.) are not allowed. 
   7. It is customary not to have a page number on the page containing a chapter heading. Check pagination carefully. Account for all pages. 
6. Copyright Statement: A copyright notice should appear on a separate page immediately following the title page and include the copyright symbol ©, the year of first publication of the work, and the name of the author: © [year] [Author’s Name]. All rights reserved. Alternatively, students may choose to license their work openly under a Creative Commons license. The author remains the copyright holder while at the same time granting upfront permission to others to read, share, and—depending on the license—adapt the work so long as proper attribution is given. (If a student chooses a Creative Commons license, the copyright statement must not include the “all rights reserved” disclaimer and should instead indicate the specific Creative Commons license.) Please note: The copyright statement applies only to the student’s own work; the copyright status of third-party material incorporated into the dissertation will not change. Do not print a page number on the copyright page. It is understood to be page ii for counting purposes only. 
7. Organization: Dissertations divided into sections must contain a table of contents that lists, at minimum, the major headings in the following order: 
   1. Title page
   2. Copyright
   3. Abstract 
   4. Table of Contents 
   5. Front Matter 
   6. Body of Text 
   7. Back Matter 

Students can refer to the resource on Dissertation Formatting Best Practice Resource for information on best practices for front and back matter

Individual academic programs may require additional formatting elements to meet the standards of a specific field or discipline. Students are responsible to ensure that their Dissertation Advisory Committee is in support of the final formatting as signified by the sign off on the Thesis Acceptance Certificate. Any deviation from these requirements may lead to rejection of the dissertation and delay in the conferral of the degree.