Graduate School Wichita State University Wichita, Kansas Graduate School Guide to the Preparation of Theses and Dissertations Fall 2018 GRADUATE SCHOOL Wichita State University 107 Jardine Hall Graduate Dean’s Office (316) 978-3095 Degree Audit Coordinator (316) 978-6247 ii PREFACE This manual is designed to be a basic source of information for Wichita State University (WSU) graduate students who are writing a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation. All theses and dissertations must be submitted electronically. The Electronic Thesis/Dissertation (ETD) is submitted to the Graduate School by converting the document to a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. Once approval has been given by the Graduate School, the PDF file will be uploaded to the Blackboard Learning System.
The final copy will also be forwarded to University Libraries. Bound copies are no longer required. However, if a copy is requested by the department or committee chair, then students may choose to provide a duplicate copy on low-cost, non-archival paper and bound using any low-cost binding method. The ETD process will contribute to world- wide graduate education as WSU builds a Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) in collaboration with other scholarly institutions.
This manual establishes the technical parameters within which all students should work to produce a thesis or dissertation, such as production tools, font, margins, spacing, pagination, and page sequencing. It also provides full-sized sample pages. Students viewing this manual from the Graduate School’s website are advised to print it out prior to preparing their thesis or dissertation, since headings, subheadings, and spacing can appear differently when viewed on the computer screen than in printed format. Reading this document in its entirety, not just the sample pages, should facilitate an understanding of the required format.
However, once the thesis or dissertation is completed, comparing the completed work to the sample pages should ensure a uniform document that conforms to Graduate School guidelines. Viewing the style of other theses or dissertations on file in University Libraries is a common practice, but students must understand that mere duplication of another document’s style may not be acceptable. The existence of a particular style or usage in a previously accepted thesis or dissertation does not establish a precedent for its continuation. Graduate students are responsible for meeting the regulations in this guide and are encouraged to consult with their committee advisers regarding the implementation of these regulations.
Once students are familiar with these guidelines, they should consult the current style manual recommended by their department or discipline for all other issues of form and content, particularly the style for references. A list of WSU graduate programs requiring a thesis or dissertation and the recommended manuscript style is found here in Appendix A. The goal is to strive for consistency throughout the entire thesis or dissertation; however, when approaches differ from one another, regulations from the Graduate School take precedence over rules found in other style manuals. This publication guide was adapted from several sources, including the Tennessee Conference of Graduate Schools Guide to the Preparation of Theses and Dissertations, the Office of Degree Requirements at the University of Massachusetts, the Kansas State University Graduate Handbook, and Kate Turabian’s Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.
The guide itself has been set up to illustrate some of the required formatting styles of a thesis or dissertation; however, to conserve space here, bullets are used extensively, and most of the text is single-spaced rather than double-spaced (double-spacing is required for the main text of a thesis or dissertation. The 2018 printing of this manual is the fifteenth edition, edited by Kristie Bixby, Publications Editor for Wichita State University. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page 1. PREPARATION AND FORMAT.
ELEMENTS AND STYLE.2 Front Matter or Preliminary Pages .3 Committee Identification Page .9 Table of Contents .10 List of Tables, List of Figures, and List of Plates .11 List of Abbreviations/Nomenclature and List of Symbols .1 Chapters and Subheadings .2 References within Text .3 Tables, Figures, and Plates.5 Illustrations and Photographs .1 References or Bibliography .2 Appendix or Appendices(ixes) .1 Using Published Journal Articles in Thesis or Dissertation.4 Sample Permission Letter .34 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) Chapter Page 5. ELECTRONIC THESIS/DISSERTATION (ETD) PROCESS .1 All Graduate Students .2 Dissertation Students Only. THESIS AND DISSERTATION EMBARGO POLICY. FULL-SIZED SAMPLE PAGES .40 Sample: Title Page .41 Sample: Copyright Page.43 Sample: Committee Identification Page .45 Sample: Dedication Page .47 Sample: Epigraph Page .49 Sample: Acknowledgments Page .51 Sample: Abstract Page .53 Sample: Preface Page .55 Sample: Table of Contents Page: First Page of Two-Page Table of Contents with Numbered Headline Style Subheadings, More than One Appendix and Dot Leaders .57 Sample: Table of Contents Page: Second Page of Two-Page Table of Contents with Numbered Headline Style Subheadings, More than One Appendix and Dot Leaders .59 Sample: Table of Contents Page: One Page Table of Contents with Unnumbered Sentence Style Subheadings, Only One Appendix, and No Dot Leaders .61 Sample: List of Tables Page.63 Sample: List of Figures Page .65 Sample: List of Plates Page .67 Sample: List of Abbreviations/Nomenclature Page .69 Sample: List of Symbols Page .71 v TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) Chapter Page Sample: Text Page: Bolded Chapter Heading and Title Centered, Bolded and Numbered Subheadings Flush on Left Margin, Consistent Double-Spacing throughout Text, and Numbered Citations in Brackets .73 Sample: Text Page: Unbolded Chapter Heading and Title Centered, Unbolded and Unnumbered Subheadings, Varying Spacing between Subheadings, and Author/Date Citations in Parentheses .75 Sample: Table Page: First Page of Two-Page Table with Multiline Caption and Integrated within Paragraph .77 Sample: Table Page: Second Page of Two-Page Table with Table Heading Only and Integrated within Paragraph .79 Sample: Table Page: Table with Single-Line Caption and Integrated within Paragraph .81 Sample: Figure Page: Figure with Multiline Caption and Integrated within Paragraph .83 Sample: Equations Page: Equations Centered between Left and Right Margins and Numbers Flush on Right Margin .85 Sample: References Separation Page .87 Sample: References Page: References with Numbers in Brackets .88 Sample: Bibliography Separation Page.89 Sample: Bibliography Page: Bibliography with References in Alphabetical Order .90 Sample: Appendix/Appendices Separation Page .91 Sample: Appendix First Page .92 Sample: Appendix Second Page.
WSU Graduate Programs and Their Recommended Styles for Preparing Theses and Dissertations. Particular WSU Programs and Appropriate Area to Submit Manuscript. Graduate Degrees Awarded at Wichita State University. Graduate Majors at Wichita State University .96 vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The purpose of a thesis or dissertation is to contribute to a student’s field of study through the pursuit of research and scholarship.
The Wichita State University (WSU) Graduate School encourages and upholds WSU’s standards of accuracy and soundness of research, as well as the requirements of individual graduate programs regarding the master’s thesis and the doctoral dissertation. WSU is committed to assisting graduate students and faculty members in meeting the goals of consistency, logical organization, attractiveness, and correctness in theses and dissertations. Regardless of the style and format used, a thesis or dissertation must be sufficiently complete to allow an independent investigator to repeat or verify all of the work leading to the author’s results and conclusions. In certain cases, when a manuscript prepared for publication is to be used, the terseness or page restrictions required by professional journals may prevent an author from meeting this condition with the publishable manuscript alone.
In such cases, the thesis or dissertation must include additional materials that ensure independent reproducibility tables, descriptions of unproductive or unsuccessful explorations, derivations, and so forth (quoted from Kansas State University Graduate School website: https://www.edu/grad/graduate-handbook/appendixb. Since conferral of a graduate degree implies personal integrity and knowledge of scholarly methods, there are three areas in which graduate students should be particularly cautious: (1) proper acknowledgment of cited works, (2) use of copyrighted material, and (3) compliance reporting associated with applicable federal, state, and university regulations and policies. If copyrighted material is used in a limited way, then permission to quote it is usually not necessary. 1 However, if extensive material from copyrighted work is to be used such that the rights of the copyright owner might be violated, then permission of the owner must be obtained.
In determining the extent of a written work that may be quoted without permission, the student should consider the proportion of the material to be quoted in relation to the substance of the entire work. In no case should a standardized test or similar material be copied and included in a thesis or dissertation without written permission. In recent years, with the increased use of the Internet for research, some students have struggled with the proper manner in which to cite certain content. Some have used Wikipedia as a reference.
Wikipedia is not an acceptable reference, because it can be edited by anyone at any time, with no validation of the information. However, at the bottom of many Wikipedia pages, there are reference sources for the material quoted in the document. Rather than citing Wikipedia, it is recommended that students investigate those sources, which are usually linked, and review the information from them; if the material is acceptable and relevant to the work in the thesis or dissertation, then students can cite the actual source. There is often confusion over what content is required to be cited.
Insufficiently cited content can lead to concerns of plagiarism, which can call into question the entirety of a student’s thesis or dissertation research. In order to check a thesis or dissertation for sufficient citation of content, the use of SafeAssign is recommended. This tool, offered by Blackboard, can help students and faculty ensure that any borrowed content is properly attributed. It is suggested that all students work with their thesis or dissertation adviser to have their work reviewed through SafeAssign to ensure proper citation of all borrowed work.
Compliance with federal regulations governing the use of human subjects, animal care, radiation, legend drugs, recombinant DNA, or the handling of hazardous materials in research is monitored by a number of federal agencies. Because of these regulations, research compliance is 2 another area of importance to graduate students and how their research is conducted. If they are unfamiliar with compliance, then graduate students and their faculty advisers who are planning research that involves any of the areas mentioned should contact the Office of Research before beginning their project. The goal of the WSU Graduate School, as well as the student’s thesis or dissertation committee, is to ensure that the manuscript will reflect credit on the student, the student’s committee, the department, the Graduate School, and ultimately Wichita State University.
All graduate degrees are awarded by the Kansas Board of Regents upon recommendation of the faculty and the dean of the Graduate School, who reserve the right to reject theses and dissertations that do not conform to the regulations stated in this manual. In addition, the Graduate School provides assistance in the preservation and circulation of students’ manuscripts through the University Libraries System. The chapters that follow provide basic guidelines/instructions for preparing a thesis or dissertation. Small sample pages showing placement of information accompany some of the descriptions of these instructions.
An entire section of full-sized sample pages begins on page 40. Following each full-sized sample page is an identical page that shows how to format that page according to Graduate School guidelines, including various “callout” frames containing important formatting information. 3 CHAPTER 2 PREPARATION AND FORMAT 2.1 Production Tools Remember that every thesis and dissertation is produced electronically and becomes part of the Wichita State University Libraries collection as an electronic document; therefore, the final presentation must meet the highest standards of clarity, legibility, uniformity, and reproducibility. Produce the manuscript using a computer application suitable to the discipline and capable of being transmitted electronically to Blackboard.
Typically, manuscripts are produced with Microsoft Word, although LaTeX, a high-quality typesetting system that includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation, is also acceptable.