Style Guide

Introduction
Formal Style
Bibliographic Management Software
Style Sheet Templates
Reference Citations

Since practices vary greatly in different disciplines, you are expected to learn the styles of the respective fields and are advised to follow the recommendations of your advisors and committee members on all matters not covered here. Any proposed deviation from the regulations in this guide must be referred to the University Libraries and the ETD Task Force for approval before the thesis or dissertation is completed in final form. The content of the thesis or dissertation manuscript is outside the province of this guide.

It is the responsibility of your committee to judge your thesis or dissertation from all standpoints, including neatness, mechanics, and technical and professional competency. Therefore, continuing current practice, it is important that you provide them a copy of your ETD before your defense.

In the past, the printed thesis or dissertation was the public display of the quality of work acceptable to the student's department and to the graduate school for meeting graduate degree requirements. The ETD will assume the same role.

Preparing an ETD is similar to the process of preparing a manuscript for publication. For both, the student must prepare the information for the document, present it in an orderly fashion, undergo a review cycle, and achieve publication. For the ETD, however, the student must complete the electronic publication process (usually the responsibility of the publisher) by submitting the ETD according to the rules that follow.

Formal Style

Each department should specify or develop an acceptable formal style or styles for ETDs prepared by its graduate students. Generally, the style should conform to the professional journals or style manuals in the student's area of study. The department may wish to specify a style directly; otherwise the department may develop its own or suggest a journal whose style is acceptable. The student should learn the accepted style and how it applies to various word processors before preparing the ETD.

If the college/school or department does not specify points of style, you should consult one of the following published manuals held by the University Libraries:

American Institute of Physics (AIP) 4th edition, 1990.
The Chicago Manual of Style 13th edition, University of Chicago Press, 1982.*
Form and Style in Thesis Writing, by William G. Campbell.
Form and Style: Research Papers, Reports, Theses by Carol Slade, 10th edition, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997.
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers by Joseph Gibaldi and Walter S. Achtert, 3rd edition, Modern Language Association of America, 1988.
MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, by Joseph Gibaldi, 2nd edition, Modern Language Association of America, 1998.*
A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, by Kate L. Turabian.
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 4th edition, Lancaster Press, Inc., 1994.*
Writing the Doctoral Dissertation: A Systematic Approach, by Gordon B. Davis and Clyde A. Parker, 2nd edition, Barron's, 1997.

You may also refer to a style manual published by the professional society of the student's field of study or a general guide such as:

The Council of Biology Editors Style Manual: A Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers in the Biological Sciences 5th edition, Bethesda, MD, 1983.
Style Manuals of the English-Speaking World: A Guide by John B. Howell, Oryx Press, 1983.

*Notes on Chicago Style

(Patrick Conner, Ph.D.)

The Chicago Manual of Style (14th edition) is the bible of University Press publishers in this country. Its divided into three parts: Part I, "Bookmaking"; Part II, "Style"; Part III, "Production and Printing". "Bookmaking" discusses "manuscript preparation" and "copyediting" in the same chapter (nearly 50 pages) giving all the details of how to prepare a manuscript when its being sent to a printer. "Production and Printing" in Part III discusses how a final work should look with twenty-five pages given to design and
typography.

Obviously, if you're preparing ms. for a publisher, you follow Part I directions; if you're preparing it for the final reader, you prepare it according to Part II specs.

Chicago style is also known as "Turabian" style. For additional information see also http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/cmosfaq.html

*Notes on MLA Style

(Patrick Conner, Ph.D.)

The use of different formatting styles for manuscript preparation and for publication is indeed addressed in Joseph Gibaldi, MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 2nd edition (New York: MLA, 1998).

See section 4.3 (p. 135), "Manuscripts for Print Publication" which implies general distinctions between manuscript and print, and section 4.4 (p. 136), "Manuscripts for Electronic Publication," which addresses how to prepare manuscript with SGML/HTML tags, etc.

Most important to our purpose, however, is section 5.5.1 (pp. 143-4), "Theses and Dissertations as Published Works":

Modern scholarship considers theses and dissertations forms of publications. Nearly all doctoral dissertations are in fact recorded micro-photographically by University Microfilms International (see 5.6) and are readily accessible to other scholars. Graduate school guidelines therefore generally require that the pages of these works be more similar to the pages of a printed book than to those of a manuscript. Consequently, authors of theses and dissertations are responsible for many formatting procedures that a professional publishing staff usually performs during the copyediting, design, typesetting, and production of a printed book. Guidelines often prescribe, for example, the quality of paper, kind of printer, and type style and size and require that the work be free of typing errors and handwritten corrections. The sections that follow discuss a number of other special format requirements for theses and dissertations. [They are assuming print theses and dissertations, not ETDs, of course. - PC]

For additional information see also http://www.mla.org/

*Notes on APA Style

(Joseph Scotti, Ph.D.)

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (1994) guides the preparation of manuscripts for psychologists, among other fields of study. The student and the student’s committee should realize that these publication guidelines are for the production of a "copy" manuscript. That is, for the version of the manuscript that is submitted to a journal for publication consideration. This format is explicitly intended to be copy-edited by the journal upon acceptance of the manuscript, and it is in a format intended to facilitate that copy-editing.

The regular reader of journals will note, however, that this "copy" version is not the "final" publication version or format of a manuscript. There are several differences between "copy" and "final" manuscripts. The "final" version allows: (a) the hanging indent style for references; (b) single-spacing of tables, references, and lengthy quotes; and (c) the use of special fonts. [See Appendix A of the APA publication manual.]

For those departments following the APA publication style, it is strongly advised that the thesis, dissertation, or other EDT document be submitted in the "final" publication format, not the "copy" format used for raw manuscripts. This "final" format is much more reader-friendly, and will create the appearance of a final published document. This "final" publication format should be used for the body of the submitted document; University-approved guidelines for the front matter of the ETD should be followed.

Reference: American Psychological Association. (1994). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC: Author.

For additional information see also http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html

Reference Citations

On each student's document data screen is the recommended citation for the thesis or dissertion, for example, see https://etd.wvu.edu/etd/etdDocumentData.jsp?jsp_etdId=2729; look for the reference indications below the "Availability" section. For discipline specific reference citation format we recommend that you consult a discipline appropriate style guide for proper citation (i.e. MLA Style Guide, etc.). The University Libraries provide print and/or online access to the major style guides.

Citation Examples:

APA

Fanning, R. P. (2002). Narrating machines: Figurations of technology in 1 Henry VI, Robinson Crusoe, and The Matrix. (Doctoral dissertation, West Virginia University, 2002). Retrieved September 21, 2004 from
https://etd.wvu.edu/etd/etdDocumentData.jsp?jsp_etdId=2729

Format: Lastname, F. (Year completed). Title of dissertation or theses. (Doctoral dissertation, Name of University, Year). Retrieved Month Day, Year from URL

MLA

Fanning, Robert Patton. Narrating Machines: Figurations of Technology in 1 Henry VI, Robinson Crusoe, and The Matrix. Diss. West Virginia U, 2002. 21 September 2004 <https://etd.wvu.edu/etd/etdDocumentData.jsp?jsp_etdId=2729>

Format: Lastname, Firstname. Title of dissertation or theses. Diss. Name of University, Year completed. Day Month Year [retrieved] <URL>

Style Sheets

We have created a generic style sheet, correctly formatted for the WVU ETD requirements, for your convenience. Click on the link below, then go to the File menu and use the "Save As" option to save a local copy:

WVU ETD Style Sheet Template (MS Word format)
Va Tech Engineering Style Sheets for ETDs

Bibliographic Citation Management Software Reviews

Electronic Referencing: We All Need a Good Reference (Research Information, Cambridge Scientific Publishers, March/April 2002 issue) / pdf
Known Bibliographical Software Packages (UCLA - Berkeley College Writing Programs, 1999) / pdf

Questions regarding the format of your thesis or dissertation or the submission process not adequately answered in this guide may be directed to the University Libraries, who will be pleased to give assistance.

Revised 15-Jan-2008