The following information is a summary of a bulletin called "PREPARATION OF THE DOCTORAL THESIS/PROJECT" from the Graduate School office, updated by them on 3/95 and containing information concerning the new rules for thesis binding, effective January 2, 1996. The following information has been compiled from this bulletin as a guide for Statistics grad students, and is by no means the final authority on thesis style. Contact the Graduate School for a complete copy of this bulletin if you have further questions.
A. FORMAT OF THE THESIS
You must submit two unbound copies of your thesis to the Graduate School. One copy will be sent to University Microfilms International in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for microfilming and then will be returned to circulate in the University library system. The other copy will be added to the permanent collection of theses in the University Archives. Doctoral student's Microfilming fee is $70.00 and must be paid by check or money order made payable to the University of Minnesota at the time of thesis submission.
You must provide one BOUND copy to the School of Statistics, also, to be placed in either the Theoretical or the Applied library.
You must submit two unbound copies of your thesis to the Graduate School, one copy printed on 20-lb weight 100% cotton or acid-free paper and one copy printed on standard copy paper.
Your thesis may be prepared on a typewriter or with a word processor. In either case, any easily readable standard type in pica or elite measure (10 or 12 pitch, respectively), or of 10 points or larger, is acceptable. Print from a computer printer must be letter quality or near letter quality; standard "line printer" type is not acceptable. Script type is not acceptable. All print must be in permanent black ink and must appear on only one side of each page.
The title of the thesis must not contain chemical or mathmatical formulas, symbols, superscripts, subscripts, Greek letters, or other non-standard characters; words must be substituted.
In the body of the thesis, different typefaces may be used to set off examples, quotations, tables, and charts from the rest of the text, as long as all typefaces are of a similar size and are easily readable.
Footnotes, section headings, and chapter titles may be printed in typefaces and sizes different from those in the body of the thesis as long as they are easily readable.
EVERY page of the thesis, including all appendices, all notes, and the bibliography, must have a LEFT margin of 1-1/2 inches (to allow room for binding) and TOP, RIGHT, and BOTTOM margins of 1 inch. Absolutely nothing must appear in the margins. This means that all page numbers, text, tables, parts of illustrations, etc., must be contained completely within the area bounded by the margins.
The body of the thesis must be double-spaced (three lines of text per inch) or 1-1/2 spaced (four lines of text per inch). Long quotations, notes, and the bibliography may be single-spaced (six lines of text per inch.)
Every page in the body of the text must be numbered sequentially from the first page of the text right through the bibliography and appendices. Any materials before the body of the thesis -- such as acknowledgements, dedication, abstract, table of contents, or list of figures -- must be numbered with lowercase Roman numerals and must be arranged in that order after the copyright page (or title page if you do not include a copyright page). The signature, title, and copyright pages, however, must not be numbered.
All theses must contain an adviser's signature page, title page, a table of contents, list of tables and figures if you have them, and a bibliography; a page containing a copyright statement is optional. If your thesis will be bound in two or more volumes, a title page in correct format must appear at the beginning of each volume and must include the volume number, and each volume must have a complete table of contents.
The description or title of an illustration may appear on the page facing the illustration if the reverse side of that facing page is blank. All figures must have either a figure number or a page number on them regardless of where the figure caption is located.
The signature page must be bound into both copies of the thesis as the first page in the volume, immediately preceding the title page. Your adviser(s) must sign both copies in order to assure that he/she has seen and approved the actual, bound, final version of the thesis.
Any illustrations must be included in both copies.
a. For information concerning photographic illustrations, consult the bulletin from the Graduate School.
b. Black and white or offset prints or laser copies are acceptable if printed or photocopied onto thesis-quality paper; standard photocopies of photographs are not acceptable. Bring or send a sample of what you propose to use to the Graduate School, 316 Johnston Hall, where the staff can tell you whether it will be acceptable.
c. Tables, charts, or graphs prepared on transparent film or produced by computer graphics devices should be photocopied onto thesis-quality paper. All charts must be in black and white . If hand-lettering or drawing is necessary, india ink must be used. Felt tip pens must not be used, since the ink will bleed through to adjacent pages. For information about oversized material, color charts or photogrphs, consult the bulletin or call the Graduate School.
d. Computer print-outs must conform to the margin specificaions, must be dark and legible with high black and white contrast, and must be copied on thesis-quality paper.
The appendices are an integral part of the thesis and MUST CONFORM TO ALL FORMAT SPECIFICATIONS described in the complete bulletin, including consecutive page numbering that continues from the numbering of the main text.
Since acceptance of the thesis by the final oral committee constitutes approval for publication on microfilm, the bound copies must be ready for microfilming when submitted to the Graduate School. Thus, any revisions required after the examination must be made BEFORE the copies are bound and submitted to your adviser(s) for signature.
Neither correction fluid nor white correction tape may be used in any copy submitted to the Graduate School. These materials destroy the paper, and correction fluid is transparent in microfilming.
Bound theses must not exceed two inches in thickness after binding (approximately 300 pages). If your thesis will be thicker, it must be bound in two or more volumes, each not to exceed two inches. For more information about binding, see the bulletin.
B. PUBLISHED WORK INCLUDED IN OR IN LIEU OF THE THESIS
C. PUBLICATION, COPYRIGHT, AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE THESIS
D. RELEASE OF THE THESIS TO THE PUBLIC
Consult the bulletin for complete information.
Sample format for the copyright notice page, signature page, and title page are included in the bulletin. Examples which work with our new implementation of Latex will be provided in the near future. For now, you can find thesis macros, last edited by M. Clyde in '92, in
/usr/local/lib/tex.dec/localstyles/umnthesis.sty.