What resources are available to help me format my thesis or dissertation?

The following resources are available to help with thesis and dissertation formatting: 

• ASU Graduate College Format Manual: Defines all format requirements reviewed by the Graduate College.
• ASU Format Wizard: Creates a Word or LaTeX template for your document that completes a significant portion of the formatting (i.e., margins, spacing, and pagination). Using the ASU Format Wizard is required for all students who have a document that goes through Graduate College format review.
• Format Checklist for Students: Quick reference for common format issues.
• Format Checklist for Chairs and Co-chairs
• How to Prepare for Format Review and Your Defense: Self-enroll in this Canvas course to understand the format review process and the resources available to you. 

Preparing for the format process

Choose a style guide

All students are required to follow a standard style guide or accepted journal in their field. A style guide should be used in addition to the ASU Graduate College Format Manual. Although format advisors do not review your document for strict adherence to style guide requirements, you must use a style guide, in conjunction with the Format Manual, to format your document. You and your chairperson are responsible for ensuring your document follows your style guide.

Be aware that the Graduate College requirements outlined in this document supersede those of your style guide or journal.

Using your style guide

Any aspect of your document that is not addressed in the Format Manual is subject to the guidelines of your chosen style guide. You will use your style guide to format the following elements (if applicable) of your thesis/dissertation:

1. Heading structure and style (e.g., centered or flush left, etc.) for each level

2. Table format (e.g., gridlines) and style of table titles (e.g., italics, above the table)

3. Style of figure captions (e.g., flush left, below the figure)

4. Citation method (e.g., numbers or author names) and format (e.g., parentheses or brackets)

5. Reference list (or notes/bibliography) format (e.g., author-date, publication type, alphabetical, etc.)

6. Quotation format (e.g., spacing/indenting of block quotes)

Consult with your chair and department as there are often specific recommendations regarding which style guide you should use. Make sure you use the most current version of the selected style guide to be confident that you are following the publication standards in your field of study.

The ASU library created the following reference guides to assist you in using the most common style guides:

1. APA

2. Chicago

3. Turabian

4. MLA

5. AMA

Write your abstract

Your abstract should present a succinct summary of the research and results of the work you completed for your thesis/dissertation. Many researchers read abstracts to determine the relevance, reliability and quality of a source; therefore, if you create a clear and concise abstract, others are more likely to read your entire document.

You may find it helpful to review other abstracts from your field or visit the ETD/Proquest website. Writing assistance is also available from ASU Writing Centers.

Your abstract may be utilized as a resource by other researchers, thus the Graduate College has developed the following guidelines to assist you in writing an abstract that is both informative and concise:

1. Structure your paragraph(s) to include:
   - An introduction to the study or project, which helps place the research in context
   - A clear description of your methods of analysis or experiment process
   - A summary of your results and conclusions

2. Proofread carefully for spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors

3. Maintain a professional tone and avoid colloquialisms

4. Do not include bibliographic citations in the abstract

5. Do not write in the future tense; past or present tense is preferred

6. You may use special characters and foreign alphabets if necessary

7. Never use “we,” "us" or "our" since your document is not co-authored

8. Wherever an acronym first occurs in the text, write it out in full, followed by the acronym in parenthesis (e.g., “Graduate Program Services (GPS)”)

Please keep in mind that while you want to be as specific as possible, you must not exceed the maximum word-length guidelines. All students must limit their abstracts to 350 words or less. Your chair/advisor can assist you in selecting the most appropriate information to include in your abstract.

Revise your document

Before your document is submitted to the Graduate College, you and your committee should thoroughly review your document and check for technical as well as grammatical errors. Additionally, you should have at least two other readers proofread your document to make corrections and catch typographical errors. If you need further assistance, you may also visit ASU’s Writing Centers.

You must work diligently to ensure that your document is free of sentence fragments, fused sentences, comma splices, agreement errors, punctuation errors, etc. Remember that although the format advisor may catch some of these errors, it is ultimately the responsibility of you and your chair to ensure your document is error-free for publication.

Email a format advisor

Unsure how to interpret the Format Manual? Have a situation that seems unique? Email a format advisor. Typically, an ASU Graduate Format Advisor will be able to address e-mail inquiries within three (3) business days. However, as the semester deadlines approach, students should expect to wait up to ten (10) business days for a response.

Please Note: Format advisors do not provide advice regarding the use of software, and cannot instruct students on how to use software.

Formatting your document

To assist students with formatting their thesis or dissertation, the Graduate College provides a formatting tool, called the Format Wizard, in Microsoft Word and LaTeX. This tool will help with formatting the preliminary pages of your document, fixing the margins, and setting pagination. Please keep in mind that, regardless of whether you use the Formatting Wizard or not, you must still review your document to ensure compliance with the Graduate College standards. The ASU Graduate College Format Manual is the rubric with which your document is reviewed and will supersede your style guide and the Format Wizard.

ASU Format Wizard

The ASU Format Wizard is a resource used to provide assistance as you write your thesis or dissertation under the supervision of your committee chair. The Format Wizard is designed to help students with basic format requirements such as margins and spacing, and may greatly streamline the format process for you. This tool will also format preliminary matter and page numbers for you; however, it will not format your citations or create your headings.

You will need to carefully review the final document generated through the Format Wizard to ensure it adheres with your selected style guide requirements. Your document must satisfy professional standards of published research. Both your committee and the Graduate College expect to see evidence of careful attention to style and format in the document that you present to fulfill the requirements for your graduate degree.

You must not assume that the Format Wizard will do all of the formatting for you. You will have to go through your document to make any changes necessary to meet Graduate College standards. Please use the software option that you are comfortable editing, as the Graduate College will not provide assistance in using your software.

• Preview the Format Wizard Instructions (PDF)

• Access the ASU Format Wizard.

Please use the Format Wizard in conjunction with the format guide, keeping in mind that some updates may need to be done manually.

Microsoft Word users

Current issues we are resolving include the alignment of page numbers for entries in the table of contents and the alignment of the page numbers throughout the document.

To fix any issues with the page numbers:

1. Click on the ¶ icon to reveal the document formatting.
2. Make sure there is a section break at the bottom of the ABSTRACT page and the last page before the MAIN TEXT.
3. Click into the footer on the ABSTRACT page and deselect Link to Previous.
4. In the Header & Footer tab, go to Page Number, then Format Page Numbers. Select Start on Page i. If there is a page number on the TITLE PAGE, please remove it.
5. In the Header & Footer tab, adjust the Footer from Bottom distance to be 1-inch. 
6. Click into the footer on the first page of MAIN TEXT and deselect Link to Previous. 
7. In the Header & Footer tab, go to Page Number, then Format Page Numbers. Select Start on Page 1. 
8. In the Header & Footer tab, adjust the Footer from Bottom distance to be 1-inch. 

The section breaks and deselecting Link to Previous separates the page numbering for the preliminary sections to be lowercase Roman numerals and the page numbering starting with the MAIN TEXT to be Arabic numerals. Adjusting the Footer from Bottom distance ensures the page numbers are sitting on top of the bottom 1-inch margin. If students are using section breaks throughout the MAIN TEXT, they will need to select Link to Previous to continue the same formatting of the page numbers OR students can replace the rest of the section breaks with page breaks.

LaTeX users

Please refer to the LaTeX template on the website https://github.com/GarenSidonius/ASU-Dissertation-Template