How to format and submit your thesis or dissertation

A thesis or dissertation is the culmination of your scholarly work in graduate school submitted as a written document. Most graduate programs at ASU require students to complete a thesis,dissertation or other culminating event. For those required to submit a thesis or dissertation, the Graduate College has specific requirements that must be met for a successful submission. 

Format

The document that you submit for format approval must be a complete, defense-ready document. This means you should choose your style guide in consultation with your chair, write an abstract that meets the Graduate College guidelines, and thoroughly check your document for consistency, grammar, punctuation, etc. You are required to follow a standard style guide or accepted journal in their field in addition to the ASU Graduate College Format Manual. This manual outlines format requirements for theses and dissertations at ASU.  

Use the Format Wizard

To simplify the format process, you should use the Graduate College’s Format Wizard, a helpful tool that generates a Word or LaTeX document that follows ASU’s format standards for theses and dissertations. The Format Wizard will help with formatting the preliminary pages of the document, fixing the margins and setting pagination. Using the tool will result in fewer structural revisions to your document, saving you precious time and effort. 

Submission

Before submitting a thesis, dissertation, or other culminating event to the Graduate College, The defense must be scheduled through MyASU at least 10 business days prior to the desired date. Students and their committee should thoroughly review the document and check for technical and grammatical errors before uploading their document for format review.

Students should submit the document through their Independent Plan of Study (iPOS). The document should be uploaded 10 business days prior to the defense. To submit your document, you will log into your IPOS and select the “Format” tab, and then select “Attach Document” to upload your document.  Additionally, students must be enrolled in at least one credit hour during the semester they plan to defend their thesis or dissertation, while working on format revisions. 

Please do not submit your document to gradformat@asu.edu. 

Revisions

Once the format team has received your document, the student will receive a notification through their iPOS on format revisions needed.

If format revisions are required after the defense, students will need to make these in time to meet the semester’s final revisions format submission and final pass/fail form deadline.

ProQuest

Once the Graduate College has received a student’s final pass/fail form, a formal advisor will direct them to ProQuest. Students should use their ASU email address to make a ProQuest account. 

On average, each document will go through the format check process 3-4 times, including a review in ProQuest. Once the student has received the final approval email from ProQuest, they have officially completed the formatting process.

The Graduate College hosts virtual formatting workshops each semester, including summer term, so be on the lookout for email announcements. 

Questions

Students with questions about formatting their thesis or dissertation can visit the Formatting Your Thesis or Dissertation page of the Graduate College website, email gradformat@asu.edu  or call 480-965-3521.