Current Students

PhD Dissertation Submission: Quick Guide

Before You Submit

Make sure you’ve filed your Application for Degree, and sent your signed Doctoral Dissertation Defense form and Doctoral Dissertation Revisions form (if applicable) to Rosella Carrelli at carrelli@brandeis.edu.

Survey of Earned Doctorates (required for degree completion)

Survey of Earned Doctorates  (877-256-8167 or sed@rti.org)

Margins

  • All margins throughout the document: 1 inch

Fonts

  • Times New Roman, Arial, Cambria, and Calibri are recommended fonts
  • Size 12, but longer quotations, references, and notes can be size 10 or size 11

Title Page, Abstract, and Copyright Page

  • Follow the templates, exactly, as they are shown.
  • Where there are parentheses, you will remove the parentheses and replace the text with your own text.
  • Include permission letters, if applicable, in your dissertation.  

Spacing

  • Double-space all text, aside from the following exceptions: single space all notes, bibliographic references, and long quotations

Orientation

  • No blank pages, all single-sided text
  • Moving between and landscape and portrait is fine, but refer to pagination guidelines when doing so

Pagination

Pay close attention to the transitions from Roman to Arabic numerals. All page numbers should be centered at the bottom of the page, when turned to portrait. Should you have any landscape pages in your thesis, the page number still needs to appear centered at the bottom of the page when in portrait orientation. 

Section/Page

Page Numbering

Title Page

number not printed on the page, but is still considered page i

Signature Page

number not printed on the page, but is still considered page ii

Copyright Page

number not printed on the page, but is still considered page iii

Acknowledgements (Optional)

number is printed on the page, start with iv or iii if no Copyright page is used

Abstract

Continue with Roman numerals, printed

Preface (Optional)

Continue with Roman numerals, printed

Table of Contents

Continue with Roman numerals, printed

List of Tables

Continue with Roman numerals, printed

List of Illustrations/Figures

Continue with Roman numerals, printed

Introduction

Start Arabic Numerals, beginning with page 1, printed on the page

Main Body, Appendices, Bibliography

Continue with Arabic numerals, printed

EXPLANATION OF PAGINATION—Printed v. Not-Printed: While page numbers are not printed on the Title and Copyright pages, these pages still count (they are pages i and ii), which is why your Acknowledgements page is page iii.

If your dissertation is over 300 pages you should create two volumes within the single PDF. Each volume should contain a title page duplicating the title page of the first volume. Label the title page Volume I of II, Volume II of II, etc., under the title. Place the table of contents at beginning of the first volume (you do not need more than one table of contents). Page numbering should continue from one volume to the next, not counting the second title page. The bibliography may be placed at the end of the final volume.

Submitting to ProQuest

At this time, all expected PhD recipients must submit to the UMI/ProQuest site. Ensure that you have converted your file into a single PDF and do the following:

  1. Embed all fonts
  2. Save all JPEG images into PDF
  3. In the abstract, list any electronic files that cannot be embedded inside the PDF
  4. If you have not used Microsoft Word′s Table of Contents generator, and are hand-typing the table of contents, please set it within a two-column table.

Publishing options can be reviewed at the ProQuest student resources page.

Helpful GSAS Resources can be found here: https://www.brandeis.edu/gsas/current/dissertation-guide/index.html