Preparing to Graduate
- Degree Completion
- Dissertation & Thesis Submission
- Dissertation & Thesis Manual
- Dissertation & Thesis Template
Doctoral dissertations and master’s theses submitted to UC San Diego must meet the requirements set by the Graduate Council of the University of California San Diego for the degree candidate to be eligible for a graduate degree. A doctoral dissertation must be the result of original research conducted in the candidate’s specialization and must be approved in its entirety by the student’s doctoral committee. A master’s thesis must be a significant research work that must be approved in its entirety by the master’s committee.
The final version of the dissertation/thesis must conform to the details outlined in the "Preparation and Submission Manual for Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses." For reference, we have provided some highlights below, but please refer to the full PDF Manual for complete instructions.
We have also made a template available as an inital resource to assist students with proper formatting.
Co-author permission letters are submitted electronically via the Kuali Permission Letter Submission Form. (see section below, "Use of Published Material," for additional information)
Minimum Margins
The margins of your thesis/dissertation should be from 1" on all sides. (Slightly larger margins are acceptable, but should be a minimum of 1 inch.)
Font and Font Sizes
A font size of at least 10 must be used for the text; students may choose one of the following font sizes: 10pt, 11pt or 12pt. Standard fonts are Arial, Century Gothic, Helvetica, or Times New Roman. A consistent font must be used throughout the entire dissertation or thesis.
Page Numbers
All page numbers are centered at the bottom of the page, 0.5” from the bottom edge.
Pagination
Except where noted below, each page of the entire dissertation or thesis must be numbered consecutively; pages should be numbered according to the following standards:
Correct pagination (no missing pages, blank pages, or duplicate numbers or pages) is required for the doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis to be acceptable.
Preliminary Pages
Except for the title page and blank or copyright page, all preliminary pages are numbered with lower case Roman numerals at the center bottom of the page. Pages are numbered in sequence, and page numbers are centered and placed 0.5” from the bottom of the page.
Title Page
Dissertation/Thesis Approval Page
This page is always numbered page iii. Page numbers from here forward in the preliminary pages of the document will vary for individual students, depending on which of the optional pages described below students choose to include. The numbers must be internally consistent for the document.
There is no header on the dissertation/thesis approval page. The text at the top of the page is either left justified or fully justified. The text at the bottom of the page is centered. All information should be centered on the page vertically.
Effective November 2020, faculty signatures are not collected on the dissertation/thesis approval page. Faculty committee member approval is captured on the combined Final Report Form (this form is initiated and managed by the department/program graduate coordinator). Students should check with their department/program graduate coordinator to verify that the combined form is being used. The formatted page iii must still be included in the dissertation/thesis and must follow the format described above.
Table of ContentsAll dissertations or theses are required to have a table of contents. List the page number that each section first appears on. Use proper capitalization and include header and sectional titles exactly as they appear within the dissertation or thesis (for example, if “Chapter” is used in the text headers, it must be used in the Table of Contents).
If illustrations such as figures, tables, graphs, maps, diagrams, photos, etc., are scattered throughout, make a separate “List of Figures,” “List of Tables,” “List of Graphs,” etc. to follow the table of contents.
Acknowledgements
The acknowledgements, along with any other preliminary sections or parts of the dissertation or thesis, must be reviewed and approved by the committee members.
See the section “Using Published Material” (in the full PDF manual, and in the excerpted section below) if any portion of the dissertation or thesis is co-authored, published, submitted for publication, or is being prepared for publication. A paragraph acknowledging all co-authors and publishers is required in the acknowledgements page and as the last paragraph of text at the end of each applicable chapter.
Permission letters from the committee chair and all co-authors must be submitted electronically via the Kuali permission letter submission form prior to or the day of the student’s final document review. See the full manual for sample letters and additional information. Click here for step by step instructions and an overview of the Kuali form.
An abstract should provide a clear impression of the content and major divisions of the dissertation or thesis. Abstracts of doctoral dissertations must not exceed 350 words; master’s theses abstracts must not exceed 250 words.
All figures and tables must be accompanied by a caption. Captions for figures go below the figure. Captions for tables go above the table.
All figures and tables must have their captions formatted the same, ie numbering, spacing, bold/italicized text, text alignment (left, centered, justified), font.
Figures/tables and their captions need to fit on one page and within the page margins. If they cannot fit on one page, then format the captions as a facing caption, where the caption goes on the page before the figure/table. For example, page 1 would be the figure caption (no other text), and page 2 would be the figure itself.
If figures/tables go on multiple pages, then the caption must be on each page that the figure/table appears. Table headers must also be on each page.
Appendices
References/Biolography/Works Cited
If students are using material which has been submitted for publication or has been published, students must read the full text that follows and see the manual for additional details.
Students must obtain permission letters from all co-authors, including committee members and UCSD faculty. Students submit the co-author letters to GEPA electronically via the Kuali permission letter submission form for any chapter or portion of a chapter in the dissertation or thesis to which one or more of the following applies:
If approved by the committee members, reports of research undertaken during graduate study at UC San Diego that have been published or submitted for publication in appropriate media may be accepted in their printed form in full or in part as the dissertation or thesis.
If the material has co-authors other than the committee chair, the student must obtain permission letters from all co-authors giving their approval for the co-authored material to be used. This must be done even if copyright has been retained. Students need to determine if the publisher’s permission is also required. Students collect their signed co-author permission letters and cover letter from their committee chair and submit electronically via the Kuali permission letter submission form prior to or the day of their final document review with GEPA.
Click here for a sample/template of the cover letter from the committee chair and the permission letter(s) from co-author(s).
Click here for step by step instructions and an overview of the Kuali form.
Copyright
Publishing Options
Dissertation and Thesis Release Form (Embargo)
Students, with approval from their committee chair, may choose to immediately publish or put an embargo/delay on publishing their disserrtation/thesis. The default option is immediate publication.
Embargo options are for a 1 or 2 year delay. (Note: Students in the MFA in Writing program are required to have a 10 year embargo).
Your embargo choice must match in Proquest and on the dissertation/thesis release form. The release form must be signed by the student and the committee chair and must be uploaded as part of the submission to ProQuest.
Please note: If you delay the release of your work, access to the full text of your work will be delayed for the period that you specify. However, the citation and abstract of your work will be available through ProQuest and through the UC California Digital Library (eScholarship).
Embargo Extension: If the embargo needs to be extended beyond initial embargo period, a request from the committee chair (with endorsement from the department chair / program director) must be submitted to the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs via email before the embargo expires. The request must specify the reason for the additional time and how long the embargo should continue. Dissertations/theses cannot be re-embargoed once the embargo expires. Please see the Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations: https://policy.ucop.edu/doc/2000688/.
For further questions about doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis formatting, students may contact the appropriate GEPA Academic Affairs Advisor.
Master’s thesis formatting questions:
Doctor of Philosophy dissertation formatting questions:
Doctor of Musical Arts, Doctor of Education, all Rady programs, Biomedical Sciences, Biostatistics, and Neurosciences PhD, all joint PhD programs with SDSU, and Master of Public Health (MPH) formatting questions:
After fully formatting your doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis you may schedule your appointments at: https://gradforms.ucsd.edu/calendar/.