Layout and Appearance of Dissertation
The following are recommendations for presentation of a dissertation. The main point to be aware of is consistency and clarity. Whatever you do, it must the same throughout the project - keep headings the same so that the examiner will know what they are looking at, keep the spacing and justification the same so that it is easier to read. Clarity is achieved by use of white space, including line spacing, bullet points and numbering and adequate selection of font type and size.
The following guidelines allow a project to be easy to read and mark.
• Title page containing the title of the project, the name of the university, the course for which you are submitting the project and your name. Clip arts and graphics are optional.
• Contents page, listing all the sections. Word will automatically create a table of contents for you, providing you use styles.
• Formatting: Use formal fonts (like Times New Roma or Arial). You can use others if you wish, but do not use fancy ones.
• Paragraph formatting:
- No indentation at the beginning of paragraph.
- Leave one blank line between paragraphs and between sub-title and body text.
- Line spacing: 1.5 or double.
• A header/footer should be on every page. It is irrelevant which you use, but one of them should be present. The header/footer should contain, at the very least, page numbers. Anything else is useful but not essential, like your name and university name. For appearances, a line separating the header/footer from the body of text is needed. Use a font size of 10 (Times New Roman) or 9 (Arial).
• Do not forget to spell check the document and to Print Preview before printing. Make sure that there are no single words or lines on a new page.
• Page Setup: Paper Size - A4, Margins – 1 inch or 2.5 cm throughout.
• Use appendices to include:
- topics that are not exactly part of your dissertation but that you think are important as a side-explanation
- statistics / tables (if there any)
- results of surveys
• A Bibliography should be present at the end of dissertation.
Hope this helps.
