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NSU Halmos College of Arts & Sciences Thesis and Dissertation Submission Guide: Formatting (DoMES & DoBS)

Instructions for NSU HCAS students submitting finished work from their thesis or dissertation for graduation.

NSU HCAS DoMES & DoBS

NSU Halmos College of Arts & Sciences

Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences & Department of Biological Sciences

Here are some formatting details for all theses, dissertations, and capstones:

  • Signature Pages
    • Please do not include your own signature or approval page in your final paper.
    • All signature pages will be digitally created in NSUWorks after your committee members electronically sign off on your submission in the system.  The OC Library will forward your submission to your committee members after our initial review. 
    • We no longer require or accept wet ink signature pages.
  • Formatting:
    • Keywords must be included after the abstract.
    • Abstract should be single spaced, not indented.
    • The body of the paper should be in Times New Roman, 12 point font, and 1.5 spaced
    • All page margins should be set at 1 inch
    • Table Captions should be centered above your Tables, and Figure Captions should be centered below your Figures. Whenever possible, avoid having your figure/table and captions split across pages.
    • References should be single spaced with a space between each entry (If using EndNote Cite While You Write tool in MS Word, click on the EndNote tab, Bibliography, Configure Bibliography, Layout, and then change "Space After" to single spaced). 

For more specific information on submitting your NSU HCAS Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences or Department of Biological Sciences thesis, dissertation, or capstone, please please select the appropriate box below.

Thesis

A thesis is an original contribution to knowledge resulting from the systematic study of a significant problem or issue. It requires the student to secure agreement from a faculty member, with adequate funding to carry out the proposed research, to be the student’s major professor.

Dissertation

Similar to a thesis, a dissertation is an original contribution to knowledge resulting from the systematic study of a significant problem or issue. It requires the student to secure agreement from a faculty member, with adequate funding to carry out the proposed research, to be the student’s major professor.  The dissertation structure is up to the Ph.D. candidate’s committee, but must include a title page, abstract, keywords, table of contents, and references section.

Capstone

A capstone is a scientific manuscript, based upon a comprehensive literature search, review, and synthesis of the chosen topic. It is similar to a thesis, in as much as data need to be acquired and analyzed within the framework of a scholarly article with the exception that these data can be acquired from the literature.