dissertation university of arizona

LPL Grad Site

All About the Dissertation and the Defense

See the official LPL documents: PHD Requirements and PHD Procedures, the latest versions of which are posted on the  Documents for Current & Prospective Students  page.

UA forms are available on the Graduate Student Academic Services  page.

The Dissertation

You're finishing up your time here at LPL, and now it's time to write everything up. Maybe you're doing the "staple 3 papers together" route. Or perhaps you're writing one cohesive document. Either way, work with your dissertation advisor to figure out the best way to present what you have worked on as a graduate student to your committee and the public.

Before starting to write, you should consider whether or not you want to use Microsoft Word or LaTeX. Either system has its advantages and disadvantages, and there are templates in both formats, so in the end, you should use whatever software you have the most experience with and feel the most comfortable using. You should also be mindful of the  formatting requirements  for your dissertation that are published by the Graduate College.

If you want to use LaTeX, be aware that previous graduate students have maintained a LaTeX template that automatically does a lot of the work regarding these formatting requirements for you. That way, you can mostly just concentrate on writing. A copy of the running template from before Summer 2022 is available in the  UA Thesis 2022 (ZIP)  for archiving and for those who are still using this format. Sam Myers also reworked the entire template to follow the modern university guidelines including a new approval page and land acknowledgments. The newer UA Thesis (ZIP, updated Jan. 2024)  is fully commented and uses simpler LaTeX commands for ease of use. (If you have trouble, please ask the current *TeX grad rep for help!) A Microsoft Word template and example pages are available from UA on the Sample Pages page and Sam has also made a Word Thesis Template (ZIP) that mirrors the LaTeX template.

The LPL library has copies of dissertations from past students, and often times these are valuable resources in following some sort of precedent in how dissertations are organized, layout of chapters, figures, etc.

Dissertations & Theses : Grad college samples, manual, etc

Sample Pages : Sample pages and templates

Stupid little things they won't tell you until later and you'll wish you knew earlier (updated 5/12/2022):

• Roman numerals are not allowed as page numbers.
• Your name should match what is in GradPath
• The Author Statement is removed in the latest LaTeX template version
• The above is included in the latest LaTeX template version, just update the name of the pdf
• LaTeX template tip: pdfpages is great for importing co-author papers into appendices
• Check on copyright issues if you do add journal reprints.

The Timeline

• D-1 year:  Do you have a job/postdoc yet? You should be thinking about this a ~year before you defend! See  Advice and Tips for Getting a Job/Postdoc  and  Non-Academic Career Information .
• D-1 year  (or maybe already ongoing): Make a schedule for your path to defending. Here's a general example, modify it for your specific situation:  Dissertation Schedule (PDF)
• Talk to Amy, let her know your timeline, and make sure you've completed all the requirements before proceeding. Keep in touch with her about what bureaucratic steps are next, deadlines, forms, etc.
• Reserve room 309 on LARS for the date your committee agreed to.
• D-6 months:   Committee Appointment Form  should be filled out on  UAccess .
• Write the dissertation. Send out chapter drafts to your committee members. Keep them in the loop. Maybe they'll read it, maybe they'll skim it, maybe they can't get to it. Either way, it will only make your revisions easier.
• You may want to ask each committee member to acknowledge receipt of your dissertation. There's a good chance you won't hear back from them otherwise to confirm that you fulfilled this requirement.
• Send lots of reminders to your committee for the date, time, and place of your defense.
• D-7 business days:  The  "real deadline" : 7 business days before your defense date, the form entitled "Announcement of Final Oral Examination" is due to the Graduate College. You fill this out on  GradPath  and submit it online. Try to get this form submitted at least 2 weeks before your defense date.
• This is normally 30–45 min. long, plus time for questions. Check with your advisor in advance about the length, though — you don't want a last-minute misunderstanding about how long it's supposed to be (this actually happened...).
• Important Degree Dates and Deadlines from grad college.

The Defense

Grad college instructions:  Final Defense Instructions (PDF)

There are two parts to your defense:

• A public section which is open and advertised to the University community. This is a 30–45 minute presentation in which you outline the key aspects of your work.
• A closed section in which your dissertation committee grills you yet again. You will be expected to defend your research and to consider the impact of your work on other areas of planetary sciences.
• You need  two copies  and get everyone's original signatures on both at the end.

After the Defense

After your defense, relax and celebrate a job well done. Then get back to work:

• See the Grad college form  Doctoral Post-Defense Instructions (PDF)  on the  Graduate Student Academic Services  page.
• Revisions:  Make sure you implement whatever revisions your committee requests by the  deadline  imposed by the Graduate College in order to graduate that same semester.
• Turn in your dissertation electronically to the Graduate College.
• Print 2 paper copies to the LPL library for archiving.
• Make sure your advisor fills out the Results of Final Oral Defense Form.
• Email Amy to tell her the above has been done.

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How do I search for theses and dissertations?

Use the UA Theses & Dissertations Repository , to locate UA dissertations and masters theses submitted to the library from 1895-present. You can browse or search by title.

You can also search for dissertations published by advisor and discipline by selecting the options that display on the lower left.

Use ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global , to locate dissertations and masters theses from North American and European colleges and universities, including the University of Arizona. You can search by keyword or use the dropdown menus to search by university, advisor, author, department, and a number of other options.

Use our tutorial, Searching Proquest Dissertations & Theses .

See also Theses & dissertations .  

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• Dissertation Citation Index

Dissertations and Theses Citation Index

The  Dissertations & Theses Citation Index  is a specialized citation index for searching dissertations and theses. It is built on the ProQuest database, which UCL subscribes to, and offers an alternative way to search it from within Web of Science. To access the database, select "ProQuest Dissertations and Thesis Citation Index" on the drop-down menu in the main search screen:

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Dissertation

The dissertation represents an original and scholarly contribution to the discipline, defended before the doctoral committee and the public and approved by the committee. Students must complete a minimum of 18 units of dissertation credit for the degree. 

Note: Students who have not completed the comprehensive exam will not be allowed to enroll in dissertation units.

Dissertation Committee

Students will need to identify faculty to serve on the Dissertation Committee . The student should consult with their faculty advisor on the appropriate faculty to invite to participate. The Dissertation Committee composition must meet the following requirements:

Committee must have 3-5 members

At least half of the committee must have primary, tenure-track faculty appointments in the Department of Computer Science. (i.e., 2 of 3, 2 of 4, or 3 of 5)

More than half of the committee must have primary, shared, or  joint (courtesy) tenure-track faculty appointments in the Department of Computer Science. (i.e., 2 of 3, 3 of 4, or 3 of 5)

The advisor must have a primary, shared, or joint (courtesy) tenure-track faculty appointment in the Department of Computer Science

The committee must meet all Graduate College Requirements

Special members must be pre-approved by the Graduate College. Students should send the CV of the special member to the GPC to initiate the request.

Students must submit the Doctoral Dissertation Committee Appointment Form in GradPath after successful completion of the comprehensive exam.

Dissertation Defense

This is a technical presentation, before the dissertation committee and public, in defense of the completed dissertation (see Final Defense Instructions ). The Dissertation Committee and GPC must have a copy of the dissertation at least 3 weeks in advance of the defense. The date of the dissertation must be announced  in GradPath at least 2 weeks in advance for the appropriate public notice. The GPC will approve the dissertation announcement once all committee members have given approval to proceed which must occur at least 2 weeks in advance of the defense.

Revisions are often required by the committee, to be made subsequent to the defense. The final dissertation must be submitted for archiving  to the Graduate College by the stated deadline .

Note:  1) Students must email the GPC with their proposed exam date and time to reserve a room. 2) Students must send their abstract to the GPC at least one week before the defense, so a defense announcement can be sent on the colloquium email list.

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Archiving the Master's Thesis

Thesis archiving requirement.

Master’s theses present significant research by students and are a vital part of the University of Arizona’s academic contributions.  A master’s student who completes a thesis is required to submit the final approved thesis for archiving.  Archiving does not preclude publication by other methods. Successful master's candidates are also encouraged to submit thesis material for publication in scholarly or professional journals. Suitable acknowledgment must indicate the publication to be a thesis, or portion of a thesis, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master's degree at the University of Arizona.

The instructions below apply to students who completed a Thesis (course number 910) as a requirement for a master’s degree.  They do not apply to a master’s report completed under course number 909.

The master's degree for a student completing a thesis will not be awarded until the Graduate College receives and accepts the thesis submission with the supporting forms (see the submission steps below and Steps to Archiving Your Thesis ).

Thesis Submission Deadline

All requirements for the master's degree, including the submission of the final, approved thesis for archiving, must be completed by the published deadline for graduation in that semester or term.  The submitted thesis must be the final thesis approved by the thesis committee with no edits or revisions remaining.

Instructions for Thesis Archiving

All master's theses will be archived both with ProQuest/UMI in their national archive of dissertations and theses and in the University of Arizona Campus Repository maintained by the UA Library.  The thesis submitted for archiving must be the final thesis as approved by the student’s thesis committee.

   Submitting the Thesis for Archiving

• Please submit your thesis through the submission site maintained by ProQuest/UMI: www.etdadmin.com/arizona .  You will begin by creating your submission profile.  Be sure to use your “@arizona.edu” e-mail address in the submission profile.
• Follow instructions on site to complete submission of thesis.
• Submit your signed Distribution Rights form to the Graduate Student Academic Services office in the Graduate College.  (See below for details about these forms.)  You may deliver these forms to the Administration Building, Room 316, fax it to (520) 621-4101, or scan and e-mail them to your Degree Counselor .
• You will receive a confirmation e-mail when your thesis has been accepted.  The thesis will be added to both the ProQuest/UMI archive and the UA Campus Repository .  (There may be a delay of a few weeks before the thesis will be available from ProQuest/UMI.) Any corrections post publication may incur a fee.

Restricting Access to your Thesis (Embargo Option)

If you do not want your thesis to be available to the public, you may deposit it in the archives with a temporary or permanent embargo on distribution.  You may specify any length of time for which you want your thesis restricted from public access.  An embargo requested from ProQuest while making your submission will also be observed by the UA Campus Repository.

Not sure whether to make your thesis immediately available online? Read more about reasons to release or embargo your thesis .

Thesis Approval Pages

• Option 1: Your Graduate Coordinator will use Adobe Sign to gather signatures for your approval page.  Once the chair/co-chairs and committee members have all signed, you will include that signed approval page as page 2 in your dissertation.
• Option 2: If your chair/co-chairs and committee members prefer to physically sign your approval page at the final defense, please follow these instructions:
• Download the sample to prepare your approval page. Be sure to use the correct version, depending on whether you have one thesis chair or co-chairs. Type your name, thesis title and names of the members who will participate on your thesis defense committee. Use your defense date as the date for the signature lines.
• Print out a hard copy to take to your thesis defense and get the signatures of all your committee members. Your Thesis Chair Co-Chairs will need to sign the form twice (as a member and as chair/co-chair). If a committee member or chair attends the defense remotely, scan the page, have them sign and send back to you.
• When all signatures are received, scan the signed approval page and email it to your Graduate College Degree Counselor. Keep the original for your records. DO NOT add to ETD ProQuest as a supplementary file.
• Once you receive the approval page back with the   UA watermark, insert the page into your   thesis as page 2.

Distribution Rights Form

You will prepare and sign the Distribution Rights form to grant permission to the UA Campus Repository to store your thesis.  If you have requested an embargo on public access to your thesis, you should list the date for permission to publish the thesis consistent with the date you agree to make the thesis publicly available.  Email the signed Distribution Rights form to your Degree Counselor in the Graduate Student Academic Services office.

Optional Fees

Archiving with ProQuest and the UA Campus Repository is free of charge. 

However, if you elect Open Access publishing through ProQuest/UMI, you will pay an additional fee directly to ProQuest.  By paying the Open Access fee, you enable ProQuest/UMI to make your thesis available at no cost to readers.  Note that all theses are available free from the University of Arizona Campus Repository regardless of your publishing option with ProQuest/UMI.

You may elect to have ProQuest/UMI file for a copyright for your thesis in your name.  You can find more information on our About Copyrighting web page .   If you choose to file the copyright for your thesis, ProQuest will charge you the copyrighting fee directly.  Please note that once you make your online submission, you will NOT be able to change your copyrighting decision.

Requests for Technical Help while Submitting your Thesis

Technical assistance with submissions available at http://www.etdadmin.com/cgi-bin/main/support .

Thesis Formatting

Please refer to the Thesis Formatting Guide for our formatting guidelines and our site providing sample pages of the standard thesis title page and approval page.  You can contact your Degree Counselor in the Graduate College with any questions about thesis formatting.

Graduate Exit Survey

After submitting your thesis, please complete the Graduate College Exit Survey .  Your feedback assists the Graduate College in improving graduate education for all students.

Dissertation writers' room

About this space

A shared room at the  Main Library  assigned for one semester to PhD candidates working on their dissertations. You must have completed comprehensive exams and be working on a dissertation to use this space. Room include partitioned desks and lockers for storing research materials.

Learn about the  terms of use  for the dissertation writers' room.

Who can use this space

How to access.

The rooms are available for use during  library hours.

Locating Dissertations and Theses

• Dissertations and Theses - Home
• International Dissertations & Theses
• Dissertation Sources by Topic
• Video Tutorial for Finding Dissertations

Library Student Employment Coordinator

Dissertation or Thesis - what is the difference?

A  dissertation  is a book-length work prepared by a graduate student as a requirement for a doctoral degree (usually a Ph.D.)

A  thesis  is an in-depth essay prepared by a student as part of the requirements for a master's degree (usually M.A.) or for an undergraduate degree.  Students are often not required to make their dissertations or theses openly available to the public.  Some choose to not have their works added to databases, or be printed, then added to a library.  Those that are printed, bound, and added to a library are frequently added to non-circulating collections.  This makes it sometimes challenging to obtain print copies through Interlibrary Loan.  Cline's Document Delivery  service will attempt to obtain print copies of dissertations from any library that owns a copy; just be aware it will take time and the request might be canceled.  

International dissertations are often more challenging to obtain in print through Interlibrary Loan. Many libraries have their dissertations in a non-circulating collection, others are reluctant to mail internationally.  Cline Library's Document Delivery service can attempt to order international titles, just be aware that the success rate is low.  Whenever possible, try to locate a digitally-born copy through an online source like those within this guide. 

This guide is designed to help users locate digitally-born dissertations.  

NAU Dissertations and Theses

Tips for Finding Dissertations from the United States

Start out by searching for dissertations using the  proquest dissertations & theses database . .

Within the database be aware of full text options. For newer materials (after 2007), digital might be the only option for obtaining a free copy. Dissertations produced after 2007 frequently are only available in electronic format, with very few printed or added to libraries.

Be aware of the university where it was produced.  Many universities have digital repositories where dissertations are placed.  It is worth Googling the "school name AND digital repository".  Once on the repository page, search by the dissertation title or author.    

Dissertations from many U.S. and Canadian universities can be purchased online through  ProQuest UMI Dissertation Express .  NAU does not purchase dissertations. 

Open Access Sources

Open Access Sources for Dissertations

Open Access sources are completely free, digital, and easy to obtain.  Most are instant access.

Digital Commons Network

Free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. Curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, the Network includes a growing collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work.

Open Dissertations is a collaboration between Ebsco and BiblioLabs.

This collection has the full text of many older theses and dissertations. There is no way to search just dissertations and theses, but if you have the author and title information, you may be able to find the full text.

The Institute of Historical Research has been collecting information about history PhDs and research Masters since the 1930s. You can browse or search the directory of theses completed from 1970s onward, as well as current research in progress, here.

Created by Virginia Tech, NDLTD is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). NDLTD is the biggest consortium worldwide for online dissertations.

OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes over 4 million theses and dissertations.

OAIster is a union catalog of millions of records that represent open access resources. This catalog was built through harvesting from open access collections worldwide using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). Today, OAIster includes more than 50 million records that represent digital resources from more than 2,000 contributors.

OpenDOAR OpenDOAR is a global Directory of Open Access Repositories that often include dissertations and theses.  

A listing of open access repositories for electronic theses and dissertations. May be further limited by country and software type.

Thesis Commons An open archive of theses from OSF Preprints.  Includes the following subjects: Architecture, Business, Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Mathematics, Arts & Humanities, Education, Law, Medicine & Health Sciences, and Social & Behavioral Sciences.

U.S. University Digital Repositories

Digitally Born Dissertations (typically 2007 to present):  Many universities have digital repositories where authors can add their dissertations, articles, or chapters.  These repositories often allow free downloads. Before submitting an Interlibrary Loan request for dissertations after 2007, it is often a good idea to Google the title to see if a full text option is available or attempt to locate the university's digital repository.    

A sample of digital repositories that provide public access to theses and dissertations:

Arizona State University Digital Repository 

ASU has created a LibGuide to assist in locating ASU dissertations.  It can be found here. 

University of Arizona Digital Repository

Several UA departments maintain their own archives of dissertations, masters theses, and other reports (including materials not submitted to the library). Check with individual departments or browse these online archives:

• Geosciences  (paper copies available in their  Antevs  Library)
• Honors College  (UA Campus Repository, paper copies from 1960s-2005 located in  Special Collections )  

Boston College Dissertations and Theses in eScholarship

University of California System: eScholarship

Duke University: Duke Space, Theses and Dissertations

Harvard University: Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) .

Johns Hopkins University: DSpace Repository  

Michigan State University

Northeastern University: Digital Reposity Service: Theses and Dissertations

OhioLINK Electronic Theses & Dissertations  

University of Washington: ResearchWorks

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